This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly. Puppy!
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
Oct 12 2012
Oct 12 2012
This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly. Puppy!
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
658 comments
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Portia
12 October 2012 at 12:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Whoooosssa cute widdle puppppyyyy?
shripathikamath
12 October 2012 at 12:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Again, anything I want? OK, I choose to ask on this:
conservative values
Why are these never as ruinous to rightwingnut politicians as milder forms are to “libruls?”
Also why is it that simple statistics are so badly botched and no one seems to care? Like Pam Bondi’s office doing this: http://bit.ly/VXulgG
Audley Z. Darkheart (liar and scoundrel)
12 October 2012 at 12:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
‘Bout time, PZ!
In other news: I’m officially done with my job! Woot!
cicely
12 October 2012 at 12:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
*Moar hugs&kittens* for Tony.
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:( :( :( :( :(
The flip side of .
‘Cause it’s always gonna be someone else’s kid who breaks under unendurable stress. Right?
Right???
*crickets chirp*
(And right now, I want to give Carrie Underwood such a smack upside the head. Anyone care to guess what’s on the radio?)
I wonder how much overlap there is between people who raise their kids to think that this kinda shit is okay, and people who think that it’s okay to kill kids who “disrespect their parents”.
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Beatrice @ 458: This bothers me, too.
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Yes; I hear that he was very rude. Unlike Rmoney’s performance just here recently.
Yes; I hear that his pants were on fire, and that his nose grew a good three feet. Unlike Rmoney’s performance just here recently.
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*waving back at Pteryxx*
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Cover the squash with concrete….
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Nope. I only hate on the inedible plants that some people persistently misidentify as food.
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Patricia, OM
12 October 2012 at 12:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Bye everyone!!! We are headed for the convention. Our house sitter & doggie sitters are here, they brought video games(?). See ya next week. Happy baby Audley if it happens.
Hope I see some of you in Portland. *waves*
chigau (this space for rent)
12 October 2012 at 12:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That is one cute puppy!
chigau (this space for rent)
12 October 2012 at 12:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yippee Audley!
carlie
12 October 2012 at 12:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Tony – this is going to sound overly treacly, but I was listening to my gushy playlist this morning, and I was listening to Our House, and one line made me think of what you wrote – “Life used to be so hard, now everything is easy ’cause of you.” And, yeah. Relationships are hard, but when everything about it is you pulling and pulling and asking and waiting and overall being with them doesn’t feel like a relaxing good thing, and you only get a little hit of good once in awhile? Not a good relationship to be in.
Yay Audely!
Have fun, Patricia!
cicely
12 October 2012 at 1:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
…and Evil.
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Tithing is also what pays the preacher, and is supposed to maintain the church and grounds. In practice, of course, those moneys may be spent on evangelization and other botherations, with special ‘love offerings’ solicited specifically for the purpose of Fixing the Church Roof. Or they may hold a Huge Yard Sale!!!.
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Ummm…comforting to know?
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Also, to look Good and Pious to the other congregants.
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David Marjanović
12 October 2012 at 1:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
O hai!
Not going to catch up. *pharyngulatable poll* *pile of hugs on the floor* *calming manatees*
My flight to Raleigh/Durham is tomorrow.
Nancy New, Queen of your Regulatory Nightmare
12 October 2012 at 1:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’ve got 10 week-old English Setter puppies at my house. ! Puppies! Of course, they are still in the “lab rat” stage, but their spots are beingging to show up, and their eyes will be open soon.
Esteleth, Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo
12 October 2012 at 1:06 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Very good to know, cecily. I then had to wash my glasses under the tap and spray them with ethanol, given what solvent calcein is dissolved in.
:/
Doesn’t seem to have damaged the frames, though.
ftfkdad
12 October 2012 at 1:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Prof. Richard Dawkins is speaking at our school in colorado springs next tuesday at 6.30pm – yay! (www.godlessteens.com) – event is not published on his website, btw (tickets are almost gone)
Audley Z. Darkheart (liar and scoundrel)
12 October 2012 at 1:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yay me!
But, this is the second doctor’s office that I’ve been stuck in today. >:(
But on the other hand, I now have a pediatrician for the DF and my check up is turning out to be all good.
Patricia:
Have fun!
Pteryxx
12 October 2012 at 1:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Paging Lynna again because PORTCULLIS!
Thanks for the racism links. That poster actually asked for info on Mormon misogyny because there’s much less publicly available. Are you willing to provide?
Audley Z. Darkheart (liar and scoundrel)
12 October 2012 at 1:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
shripathikamath,
Scott DesJarlais or whateverthefuck? Ugh, just ugh.
This won’t ruin him because (as I’ve said before), there’s a lot of “do as I say and not as I do” acceptance amongst those who slobber over authoritarians. DeJarlais (and his mistress) are a special circumstance*, dontchaknow.
*Unlike those , somehow.
Esteleth, Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo
12 October 2012 at 1:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Query: what is people’s opinion of using the phrase “cousins in the evolutionary sense” to refer to two species who share an evolutionary ancestor? I find it a useful term, especially when dealing with laypeople (as it suggests a degree of genetic overlap and relationship, but also suggests a degree of distance and non-overlap), but have seen it criticized on the grounds of clarity.
But then, I don’t get how it is unclear. I am also not an evolutionary biologist, I’m a biochemist. So while I understand evolution, I am not an expert in the processes involved.
cicely
12 October 2012 at 1:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
DM, have a safe flight!
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ibbica
12 October 2012 at 1:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Esteleth, Elen síla lumenn’ omentielvo
I think you should be as specific as possible. “That chimp in the local zoo? My 230,000th cousin, about 10,000 times removed.” XD
(shamelessly stolen from: http://www.evogeneao.com/evo-gene.html)
More seriously? “Cousins” in this context isn’t very specific, and is an over-simplification. But I don’t think it’s a deceptively simplistic phrase, and serves reasonably well to get the point across.
Esteleth, Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo
12 October 2012 at 1:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Like I said, ibbica, I generally use it as a shorthand, especially when dealing with laypeople.
If I’m talking with a fellow scientist, I’d generally say that species x and species y are of the same genus (or whatever) or that they both evolved from species z.
Lynna, OM
12 October 2012 at 2:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ 15:
Ex-mormons discussing misogyny: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,523863
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,517092,517262
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,302656,302664
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,521640,523005
Pteryxx
12 October 2012 at 2:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Got it Lynna, and thank you again!
Lynna, OM
12 October 2012 at 2:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Mormon misogyny in list form:
http://www.thethinkingatheist.com/forum/Thread-Mormon-Misogyny
broboxley OT
12 October 2012 at 2:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Portia, not piling on and tithing is indeed an entertainment expense as explained by folks here. I dont know why rmoney gives such a pile away but I have met people who do that just for grizzins.
As for the Giant Churches built on tithes we’uns call them dollahbill preachers. When a person mentiona that they went to a new church the first question is “was he a dollahbill preacher or a regl’ar preacher?”
Dollahbill preacher doesnt have foodbanks or clothing drives or any of that drivel. They have new cadillacs and blowdried hair.
ibelieveindog, the silent beagle
12 October 2012 at 2:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Lynna, that is one long freakin’ list. I couldn’t read the whole thing – I don’t want to get stabby and spoil my lazy Friday afternoon!
David Marjanović
12 October 2012 at 2:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
nuqneH?!
(I love faking it. They should probably kill me where I sit. :-Þ )
*hug*
Saved my day. And that wasn’t easy.
Ogvorbis: broken and cynical
12 October 2012 at 2:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No question. But it can buy you one hell of a tax break. I have not been able to figure out why some wealthy individuals are willing to give a million dollars to a charity to avoid paying $300,000 in federal taxes. Almost like they think the government is evil or something.
Esteleth, Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo
12 October 2012 at 2:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
David:
*puzzled*
“Elen síla lumenn’ omentielvo” is Quenya. For a very fancy and formal way of saying “hello.”
Lynna, OM
12 October 2012 at 2:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
On Romney and faux charity:
http://www.alternet.org/hot-news-views/romneys-charity-church-just-more-corporate-greed-and-tax-evasion
Lynna, OM
12 October 2012 at 2:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
More on Romney and his attitude toward taxes and charity, plus the hard spin to make him appear more generous than he is:
Excerpt above is from: http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/taxes-are-not-a-charitable-donation/
Lynna, OM
12 October 2012 at 2:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Chronicling Mitt’s Mendacity, Vol. XXXVIII.
Excerpt:
From PolitiFact:
Romney cherry-picked the CBO report and came up with the least likely scenario. He could, at the very least, explain his choice.
Looks to me like some employers will opt not to provide healthcare after Obamacare is in full effect. Not as many as Romney says. Not as many as the U.S. Chambers of Commerce say. We probably need to slowly move away from employer-provided healthcare insurance anyway.
Azkyroth, Former Growing Toaster Oven
12 October 2012 at 2:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Trinioler: Threadrupt and portcullised both, but I found <a href="http://gentlemansprimer.wordpress.com"this site a while ago while searching for information on suspenders. I can’t vouch for the quality of the rest and it does seem to lean fairly hard into not examining traditional gender roles, but it has at the very least fashion information specific to trans men.
Tony •Prom King of Sunnydale High•
12 October 2012 at 2:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Carlie:
In his defense, it was always enjoyable and relaxing when K and I were together. The problem arose when he left for his cruise line job. I don’t know what his intent was, but rarely talking to or responding to me or just doing his part to keep developing US left me feeling like I was doing the lions share of the work.
Ah well I really like the perspective you and Joe offered.
Now I just hope I can avoid these types of people in the future.
Thanks to everyone for the hugs, chocolate, Bacon, kittens and puppies. They are appreciated.
birgerjohansson
12 October 2012 at 2:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
It’s now precisely 50 years since we came within a whisker of nuclear war. Only now do we get to learn how big the risk was.
New weapons detail reveals true depth of Cuban Missile Crisis http://phys.org/news/2012-10-weapons-reveals-true-depth-cuban.html
— — — — — — — —
“Scott DesJarlais or whateverthefuck? Ugh, just ugh.
This won’t ruin him because (as I’ve said before), there’s a lot of “do as I say and not as I do” acceptance amongst those who slobber over authoritarians. DeJarlais (and his mistress) are a special circumstance*, dontchaknow.”
But a small group of sane (non-authoritarian) conservatives might still be disgusted. Which is why the Dems should pile on with TV ads to remind voters of what Republican “family values” really means.
Pteryxx
12 October 2012 at 3:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Rage warning. Seriously. Rage warning.
Al Stefanelli demonstrating incredible cluelessness about the teen’s suicide. Check this conversation with Ophelia:
https://twitter.com/OpheliaBenson/status/256833559220854784
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 3:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Beer. I’m having a beer. I’m going to assume that I’m not going to have to shoot anyone, and I’m going to have some beers tonight.
I’m not cut out for living in an urban environment. My temperament is ill-suited for the overall culture. It basically leaves me perpetually paranoid/agitated, me and the dog both. People here are noisy. And they all know each other. And they spend a lot of time on their porches shouting at each other, like the insides of their homes are broken or something.
I can’t take it. Just can’t take it.
jose
12 October 2012 at 3:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thoughts on insensitivity training?
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
12 October 2012 at 3:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hang in there, Joe, you’ll be moving soon. Hopefully, it will be a nicer neighborhood where people won’t shout at each other over porches (and instead whisper about each other behind the curtains, but who gives a fuck about that?).
Yeah, I’m not so good with this support thingy today.
But you’ll move soon! Think of that.
erikthebassist
12 October 2012 at 3:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So…. I’ve been watching this Matt D debacle now for a couple days and a thought that had previously creeped in to my head is starting to creep back in.
It seems to me, as a relatively new particpant but long time lurker here, that one of the problems that keeps rearing it’s ugly head over and over and was at play in the MD situation is that it is so hard to tell an innocent, or maybe even naive or under educated new comer from the genuine troll.
Because the regulars here are so understandably tired of trolls pretending to be allies (e.g. “I’m just asking simple questions, what’s an MRA? Why are you being so mean to me?”)that true newbies who might otherwise come to be convinced that atheism and social justice go hand in hand end up getting caught in the crossfire.
The end result is that they leave and never come back, or end up joining the other side.
I personally have been that newbie, but I managed somehow to weather it and stick around long enough to know how things work around here, and to not take it personally when I get my ass handed to me.
I know PZ has posted the forum Rules, but wouldn’t it make sense to go beyond that just a little and warn newbies in a clear and concise way what kind of behavior it is that’s going to trigger the fires of hell to rain down on them?
I’m thinking something like a TOS in presentation but more like a Things You Should Know About the Culture Here before Posting type of document, something newbies could be directed to so regulars don’t have to constantly repeat themselves.
I’m not talking about just definitions but things like:
Don’t skip the whole thread and post your two cents with out having any idea if it’s already been discussed adnausium.
Don’t use gendered or ableist insults (especially the ableism one, can’t tell you how many times people have been thrown off by that.)
Chances are, if you’ve thought of it, so has someone else, don’t assume you’re the only smart person on the thread.
Lurk for a long time, get to know the culture a little bit.
I don’t know really, but something all newbies can be pointed to when they seem sketchy that regulars can say, “here, go read this, understand it, when you do, come back and comment”.
Could save a lot of hurt feelings and make it easier to seperate the truly innocent from the troll.
Just a thought.
Walton
12 October 2012 at 3:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“A star shines on the hour of our meeting,” if I remember my LOTR correctly. Not that I speak Quenya (it is Quenya rather than Sindarin, right?)
nms
12 October 2012 at 3:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Beatrice
I doubt it as well. Probably some of them see themselves as the poor misunderstood victims at this point. Bullies are great at blaming the victim.
I have to wonder (and worry) though… 20 or 30 years from now, how will they look back on this?
Lynna, OM
12 October 2012 at 3:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ryan’s biggest lie in the debate: It’s the Democrats and not the Republicans that are failing to compromise, or failing to reach out in a bipartisan way. That was the lie that caused me to appreciate Joe Biden’s restraint. Biden didn’t facepalm or headdesk or slap Ryan silly.
Excerpt above is from: http://www.salon.com/2012/10/12/ryans_biggest_debate_lie/
Paul Ryan was one of the most extreme obstructionists on the Simpson-Bowles Commission, but it is one of his oft-repeated talking points that Obama was the stumbling block.
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 3:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Beatrice,
I don’t care what the neighbors do as long as it doesn’t encroach on my space and peace of mind. I think the thing is that we’re all crammed in close together, and if you’re born that way you sort of learn to tune out the background noise and become part of it yourself. I guess. I was talking to my mom about this the other day, because lived in New York City for the first 11 years I was alive. It was the same sort of thing there, but we were raised to be quiet and respectful of our neighbors. Our neighbors, on the other hand, thought my family was weird because we didn’t hang out in the fucking street all day and half the night.
I don’t get it. We paid a lot of money to furnish a house. I’ve got TV and Internet and books and video games and guitars, all inside. Why would I sit outside on a cheap plastic chair on my porch and watch cars drive by? And why the fuck would I feel the need to speak so loudly to the person sitting next to me that the neighbors can hear me from across the street, inside their home, with the TV on?
trinioler
12 October 2012 at 3:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Most of the trolls/newbies in the forums DO read that stuff. The issues are what we take as basic and obvious, vs what they want to question, ie, the existence of the patriarchy, etc.
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 3:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
erikthebassist,
If you have suggestions, I suggest you email the people in charge of the places that you want to make more comfy for privileged noobs.
birgerjohansson
12 October 2012 at 3:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Alert P Z!
“Biology prof says eyeball may belong to big squid” http://phys.org/news/2012-10-biology-prof-eyeball-big-squid.html
— — — — — — — — — — — — —
Prostate (and breast) cancer: Curcumin curbs metastases http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-prostate-cancer-curcumin-curbs-metastases.html A daily intake of up to 8g of curcumin is regarded as safe.
Since both breast and prostate cancer is associated with inflammation, those cancer patients might benefit.
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
12 October 2012 at 3:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe,
Venting in the lounge should help a bit.
Yeah, I don’t understand loud neighbors either. I live in a fourteen-story building, so no one sits in the hall and talks loudly, but there are enough asshole neighbors to make some evenings pretty unbearable. Maybe you remember when I complained about the one having parties. Thankfully, he doesn’t have them very often now, but when he was in his early twenties… there was a party once a week.
Fun fact: They smoked pot and the smell would get up into our kitchen through our balcony. My parents weren’t keen on explaining drugs to me when I was little, so they kept telling me those were scented incense sticks. Later, I wondered why those sticks have such a different smell in Indian stores. Especially since I never minded that scent from the floor below, but the scents in stores gave me headaches and sneezing fits.
Ogvorbis: broken and cynical
12 October 2012 at 3:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
In some cases it is. However, as you point out, there are shitloads of trolls who pretend ignorance. As a general rule, by the third comment from someone new (and they ain’t always new — none of us recognize every ‘nym that comes along) it is blindingly obvious whether they are assholing it up because of ignorance or malice.
What made you different from every other newbie who got their arse handed to them? Maybe your follow-on comments showed that you were actually reading and responding to other comments? Maybe you were not a one-note ignoramous? Maybe you’re comments showed that there was thought behind your writing and that thought integrated new ideas? I don’t know.
But think on this — EVERY DAMNED ONE OF US HERE WAS A NEWBIE! Every one of us. And damn near every one of us has had our arse handed to us, with relish, because of unexamined privilege. Hell, some of the regulars have been threatened with the Banhammer when we have become too obnoxious. Yet we still post here. As do Newbies. And you know what? Many of those newbies become regulars. Again, why do you suppose that is?
This is an adult site. Yes, we do have some who are legally children who are regulars here, but fuck, dude, this is a place where adults hang out. Do we really need to hold the hands of the Newbies?
Your suggestions are not just for Newbies. Those are for everyone. And, let me see, I have skipped a thread to toss my two cents in, I have used ableist insults, I have assumed that I really was the smartest when it came to one or two subjects and was dead wrong, and when I screw up, I lurk for a bit to see why my faux pas generated the reaction that it did (or, sometimes, generated no reaction). And there are not too many on here who, in the years that Pharyngula has been building the Horde, have not transgressed those very rules that you have tossed out there.
The biggest difference I can see is that when I have screwed up big time, rather than using the trollish tactic of automatically defending myself, I take a look at the context, the objection, and what I wrote that generated the problem, and deal with what I actually wrote. Sometimes it is to defend what I wrote. Other times it is to apologize.
And that, erikthebassist, is the easiest way to determine, fairly quickly, if you are dealing with mendacious trolling or ignorance. If the commenter reacts to objections by doubling down, 9 out of 10 you got yourself a troll. If the commenter actually examines what he or she has written, you may be dealing with ignorance.
Will I be wrong? Hell, yeah. Quite often, in fact. This is, however, the tone of Pharyngula. And the combative spirit, the refusal to knuckle under to troglodytic MRAs and such, the free exchange of ideas in a safe environment, is what makes this place so damned special for me.
So while I understand your objection to the tone around here, I respectfully fucking disagree.
erikthebassist
12 October 2012 at 3:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe, it’s not about making it more comfy, I don’t care if it’s comfy or not. But it might just help to sway a few more people. Let’s be honest, before I started lurking here, I was like 90% of the people I know. I didn’t think about the patriarchy. I didn’t realize how bad it was for women and minorities, I wasn’t aware of my priviledge.
In many ways, this place educated me, and I’m still learning. All I’m saying is that a certain percentage of newbies are going to be like me, open to learning and needing to be educated. I almost didn’t make it. I flounced several times (most of them silently), and it took me a while to realize that it was my fault, not the big bad meanie horde’s fault. It took a while to get a feel for the culture, now I love it and wouldn’t want to change for anything, but it’s still tough on newbies.
This isn’t a tone argument, it’s a time saving issue, and one that I think could avoid a lot of confusion and keep some people around that you may want, while at the same time, making it easier to recognize the people who are just here to cause problems, you know, the ones that can’t be bothered with a short introduction to avoid looking like a douche.
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 3:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Beatrice,
It will be OK when I move… I hope. I’m house hunting by Internet, and if things go correctly I’ll be out of here by the first of December. One of the things I’m looking at it Google Maps street view, to get a better idea of the neighborhoods, how spaced out the houses are, that sort of thing.
Something weird I saw this week, the local culture magazine had lists of cool stuff by neighborhood, hundreds of things… zero things in my neighborhood, my neighborhood wasn’t even listed as part of the city.
erikthebassist
12 October 2012 at 3:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yeah Ogvorbis,
I absolutely did not intend for it to be any sort of complaint about the tone. I love the tone. I just get tired of watching the same arguments get repeated over and over, not nearly as tired as those having to makre them like yourself I’m sure. I was thinking of saving time, and potentially a few customers in the process, but not at the expense of the edginess that makes the place what it is.
I apologize if I implied otherwise.
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 3:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Erik… it isn’t the job of the less privileged to coddle or even educate the more privileged. It is for the privileged to either educate themselves or deal with what comes their way. There are people and places that are happy to educate and that’s great for those people, but it isn’t remotely a requirement for everyone. It is actually an expression of privilege to make that assumption in the first place.
And guess what? If you want to talk about saving time, there’s nothing like telling the privileged noobs to fuck off. The ones who can learn will learn on their own without demanding undeserved coddling. You did it, I did it, most of us have had to do it at some point on some issue. Why should people trying to have a useful conversation need to stop and educate you or me or anyone else?
Richard Austin
12 October 2012 at 3:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So, the process worked. It won’t work for everyone, and your suggested process won’t work for everyone. Not every process does. There are other places out there for people who don’t like it or can’t cut it here.
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
12 October 2012 at 4:00 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
erikthebassist,
I lurked and read for quite some time before I started commenting. After making some tentative comments, I sometimes thought I should have spent even more time just lurking.
There are seriously smart people here. That gets kinda obvious after reading for a day or two. It’s intimidating, but it’s also something that, I expect, would make a well-meaning newbie not want to embarrass him/herself. So, most people read for a bit before commenting.
If one spends some short time reading, they probably won’t understand all the memes or in-jokes, but they will get some general idea about the place. And that’s probably a good idea before joining any site.
One thing I usually notice with these innocent newbies who claim ignorance and good intentions is that they almost always say that they have been following PZ for some time, but only lurked. After finally gathering the courage to post, there we go and give them such a shouty, insulting welcome.
… But if they were reading this blog for a while, how on earth did they manage to miss some of the basic things about this place!?
So yeah, I’m a bit suspicious of these self-proclaimed innocent newbies.
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 4:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And Erik, the shame of it all is that you started this conversation by bringing up Matt Dillahunty. Based on what I know about him, objectively he knows everything that you’d like everyone to spoon-feed to the privileged. He’s really really far from a newbie, he’s done good work and stood up for all the right issues, his wife and friends have put together a great feminist podcast… and then he stomps all over the A+ forums like Godzilla. He knows better, but doesn’t (as of the last time I checked) believe that he needs to do better. I think his exact words were “too bad.”
erikthebassist
12 October 2012 at 4:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Trionolier,
I meant to include the basic arguments that have been decided long ago, in fact that might even be more important. “Before you open your trap and try to make an argument, go to this glossary and make sure it’s not one of the ten arguments we have every fucking day and save yourself the shame of looking like a douchecanoe.”
Something like that might even be more helpful. I’d start with Schoedinger’s Rapist.
But again, just a thought. I can see the reception is chilly and I’m sure it’s because I haven’t thought about it enough.
Pteryxx
12 October 2012 at 4:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
erik… there’s also Dunning-Kruger. The most privilege-invested noobs don’t bother to read, don’t even read citations provided directly to them, and when they DO read, they don’t comprehend how the material differs from their preconceptions. Those are effects of internal bias, not something the commenters trying to educate them can control.
The Pharyngula code of conduct’s now right over there in the sidebar:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/08/06/the-new-rules/
Somehow I suspect PZ might get tetchy if he’s asked to modify it again. But you’re welcome to attempt to get away with asking. ;>
Markita Lynda—damn misogyny!
12 October 2012 at 4:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hi, all!
Thanks for the Lyin’ Ryan statistics.
Weird discovery of the week: softshell turtles have developed a secondary kidney function in their mouths.
Bye, all!
Pteryxx
12 October 2012 at 4:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh, and on A+ we’re compiling Introduction to x concept threads, resource threads, talking about glossaries and FAQs… but those aren’t primarily for the newbies of good will, though it’ll help them too. They’re also not for the newbs of bad faith. They’re for us, the regulars, so we can rebut the same arguments over and over and over by linking back to a convenient explanation, instead of having to write it out individually every time. ;>
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 4:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Erik, you should pop over to here and read a much better and more in-depth discussion that overlaps with what I’m trying to say:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/crommunist/2012/10/08/extending-the-benefit-of-the-doubt/
Richard Austin
12 October 2012 at 4:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Totally not related to anything here, but I have to say there’s something gratifying in having someone say “I won’t bother posting statistics because you’d likely just ignore them or dismiss them anyway” when you’ve been asking them to do so and they’ve yet to post any.
It’s, like, a flounce+ or something. That should be an automatic “bingo”.
erikthebassist
12 October 2012 at 4:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe my impression of what went down was that he was trying to defend a supposed newbie who turned out to be a troll, which is what got me thinking about this, but I didn’t for a second think someone like him would need such a primer.
rq
12 October 2012 at 4:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m gathering the courage to post. Mostly because I’m preparing for a shouty, insulting welcome. It’s part of the charm here.
Ogvorbis: broken and cynical
12 October 2012 at 4:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Did it occur to you that I, and maybe others, pursue those arguments because there are lurkers who may not have seen that particular argument dealt with before? The ‘cunt’ argument is a perfect example. There are shitloads of people out there, and I was one of them, who have no clue what a gendered insult is or why it is a silencing tactic. By going down the same road again and again, we are (hopefully) educating people. And the person getting the education is not the one who is just asking questions. When I call someone out for a gendered insult, I really do not expect to change that persons mind. I’m going for the collateral damage.
erikthebassist
12 October 2012 at 4:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thanks Joe I will.
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 4:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Richard Austin,
Is it like a plounce? And yeah, automatic win. It is one thing to say that you don’t have or need statistics or evidence, but to claim that you have the goods and refuse to share? That’s an admission of defeat.
erikthebassist
12 October 2012 at 4:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That’s almost exactly what I was thinking, even if a lot more robust. I have like a 5 minute read as primer in mind but hell, if there’s a resource like that out there I’d be happy to use it.
Ogvorbis: broken and cynical
12 October 2012 at 4:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hello, rq.
Welcome.
The grog’s over there. The Scotch is over here by me. The peas are in the stew.
Oh, and you might want to stay away from the spanking couch until you are more comfortable.
But that doesn’t mean that you should automatically be given the [dramatic music] comfy char.
Pteryxx
12 October 2012 at 4:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
^^ This. I’m a little more good-faith than Ogvorbis, I think, but I still hold that there’s a 95% chance of wasting your time re the original target. I just want the repetitive educating to neither exhaust the educators nor overwhelm the actual commenters who know all that already.
Pteryxx
12 October 2012 at 4:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Erik: something like this? (also linked in the sidebar)
http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Feminist_link_roundup
erikthebassist
12 October 2012 at 4:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
great point, and I was that collateral damage previously, so, yeah, point well taken.
Ogvorbis: broken and cynical
12 October 2012 at 4:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
er, all hail Tpyos. ‘char’ = ‘chair’
Although the thought of comfy char sounds interesting. How does one make Arctic Char comfortable?
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
12 October 2012 at 4:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
rq,
Fucking WELCOME!
Wouldn’t want to disappoint you. *grin*
Ogvorbis: broken and cynical
12 October 2012 at 4:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Note the last word in me ‘nym.
I have seen some grok the concept but, for the past year and a half, they have been drowned out by those who refuse to grok.
cm's changeable moniker
12 October 2012 at 4:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
In case anyone needs it, this cheered me up: a rutting stag in a fetching hat. (From.)
—
Audley, I hope things go well. Skeptifem, likewise. (Sentiment is general and unlimited; help yourselves.)
—
Other than that, ‘rupt. Sorry. Weekend catch-up starts tomorrow.
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 4:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
rq,
Welcome, cupcake assclown douchecanoe! Feel better now? Did I make your dream come true? :)
chigau (this space for rent)
12 October 2012 at 4:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I ♥ artic char.
rq
12 October 2012 at 4:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thanks Ogvorbis and Improbable Joe!
I’ll stick to the floor and the beer for now. I don’t feel insulted enough to try to steal someone’s comfy char.
But thanks for the thought. :) I’ll stick around for a bit and prepare myself for what is yet to come. :)
(Actually if things go this well I might impose on the goodwill of all you commenters here, but we’ll see. Time zone says time for bed; I’ll see how things are in the morning!)
rq
12 October 2012 at 4:40 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh and Beatrice too, thanks for the welcome. :) I’m difficult to disappoint, for the most part, because things usually go better than I expect.
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 4:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Beatrice, and anyone else paying attention to my housing woes… I do try to make an exception for children. I’m a little pissed off that there’s a park just one block up from here where those kids COULD play, and why would it make a difference for their parents since there’s plenty of street for them to stare at from the park. But I don’t blame children for the ignorance of their parents.
And my dog is worse than me. She’s started barking at people across the street trying to jump-start a dead car. I dragged her into my office, which is a close to quiet and peaceful as I can muster.
Esteleth, Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo
12 October 2012 at 4:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Let’s see. What has happened here in the past hour?
Walton:
Quenya indeed! And your translation is correct.
elen = “star” síla = present tense third person singular of síl “to shine” lúmenna = allative form of lúmë “hour” omentielvo = first person plural possessive allative form of yomenië “meeting.”
“lúmenna omentielvo” is contracted to “lúmenn omentielvo” because double vowels are prohibited.
Because Quenya is like that.
(My favorite series of Quenya quotes? The trio of battle cries at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad:
Utúlie’n auré! (The day has come!) at the beginning, when things were hopeful,
Auta i lómë! (The night is passing!) in response to the first, and
Aurë entuluva! (Day shall come again!) at the end, at the realization that defeat was inevitable. Not for nothing is the battle called the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, the Day of Unnumbered Tears.)
Erik, your concern is noted.
rq, welcome! Have some pie! *offers pie*
SC (Salty Current), OM
12 October 2012 at 4:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You always eat
the ones you love
David Marjanović
12 October 2012 at 4:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I know. I love faking Klingon. nuqneH means “what do you want” and is the closest thing there is to a greeting.
birgerjohansson
12 October 2012 at 4:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The Amanda Todd bullying case has had me channeling Dexter all day.
“I’m gonna need A LOT of duct tape and plastic bags.”
David Marjanović
12 October 2012 at 4:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Isn’t there one of those dreaded vowel clusters in this?
Esteleth, Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo
12 October 2012 at 4:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
David:
All vowel clusters are prohibited, but some are more prohibited than others.
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
12 October 2012 at 4:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe,
Argh. Rude parents raising rude children. Hate that.
Elevator door occasionally takes a minute or two to close. This little
shitprincess entered with her mom after I was already inside, but I closed the door because the woman had her hands full. Doors took their sweet time and the littleshitsweetheart yelled at me “You broke it, stupid!”Mom? said nothing.
Nada.
Just like all those other times little
shitcutie and hershitlovely sister were rude to me or some other neighbor.Yeah, I’m sure those two will grow up and become really pleasant adults.
erikthebassist
12 October 2012 at 5:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
pteryxx, yeah the wiki is great, I’ve perused it often, but not quite what I was thinking.
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 5:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Beatrice,
Yeah, but it is hard to be more mad at the 3 year old trying to crawl under your porch to chase a stray cat, than at the parent who is sitting on the porch two houses down not giving a damn that there’s glass and nails under the porch along with their kid and the cat.
I don’t know what I do. And I don’t know how to more easily navigate the issues of socioeconomic class especially when processing this stuff face-to-face. It is one thing to deal with it abstractly, and yet another thing to deal with individuals as individuals, but to be neck-deep in a culture that is disrespectful of your personal boundaries and to understand and try not to fall into the trap of cultural bigotry? It is just another stress in my already uncomfortable life.
Hah… explains some of the pushback against social justice, doesn’t it? Easier to ignore or pretend that cultural biases are actually objective standards by which to judge others.
blogofmyself
12 October 2012 at 5:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
David Marjanović:
I hope you have a good flight and that airport security isn’t too much of a hassle. I’m in the Raliegh/Durham area, so umm, welcome?
Improbable Joe:
I’m sorry your neighbors are so loud. I used to have loud neighbors here and it messed up my sleep cycle for like a whole semester.
Lynna:
Super-interesting links, as always. You are amazing.
Esteleth, Elen síla lumenn’ omentielvo:
Your ‘nym is the best thing.
rq:
From another newbie, welcome. I would be insulting, but I clearly haven’t caught on to the general culture yet. ;)
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 5:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
blogofmyself,
Thanks… easier in the dorms, isn’t it? At least you have a recourse somewhere between “suck it up” and “call the police”.
blogofmyself
12 October 2012 at 5:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Esteleth, Elen síla lumenn’ omentielvo:
Remember when I said that your ‘nym was the best thing? I was mistaken. Your comment #81 is the best thing. I bow down to your superior geekiness.
chigau (this space for rent)
12 October 2012 at 5:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You can’t be insulting here in The [Lounge].
You’ll make the puppy sad.
blogofmyself
12 October 2012 at 5:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ahh, yes. Being able to call the RA on people is literally the only thing I miss about living in a dorm.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
12 October 2012 at 5:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
[Redhead update]Wednesday night was with a friend at Dream Girls at the Lincolnshire Marriott Theater. Her outfit was the lightest weight worn post stroke, so she was cool prior to leaving (looks over comfort). Decent outing, but lost an earring (major trauma/drama) and the theater was also cool. Very tired the next day, probably due to the cool temperatures. Today was the second neighborhood tea, and she was able to get into the house (the neighborhood isn’t wheelchair friendly being old) and enjoy herself for a few hours schmoozing. Now deciding whether to have fish or pizza for dinner.[/Redhead update]
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 5:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nerd:
Good update overall? Yay for the outing and the tea, boo to the lost earring and being tired from the cold.
Fish or pizza, but not fish pizza. That would be obscene.
chigau (this space for rent)
12 October 2012 at 5:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Big Yay! for Redhead!
I once had a tuna and corn pizza (in Japan).
Esteleth, Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo
12 October 2012 at 5:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I found a recipe for elephant ears*! Am thinking of trying them. Also considering making them flambé style.
*do not contain actual elephants
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 5:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Esteleth… awwww!
TW for vegans!
Oddly, I’m pretty sure I’ve eaten ear before. Cow or pig, not sure which. Plus tongue, stomach, intestine, liver, heart, gizzard, skin, tails, feet, snout, face, blood. Plus various and sundry tentacles, frog legs, turtle, and whatever you call the meat off a snake. I’ve managed to avoid eating “mountain oysters” as far as I know, but since I can’t remember 99.999% of my childhood before the age of 8-9, there’s always the possibility.
Esteleth, Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo
12 October 2012 at 5:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The only living thing elephant ears contain is yeast.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
12 October 2012 at 5:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Gee, the Italian pizza often uses anchovies. I’ll let you talk to the Italians about their perversion.
Fish filets/baked potato/creamed spinach or pizza/salad for dinner.
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 6:00 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Esteleth, where I’m from* we call them “funnel cakes” and eat them at the fair. :)
*One of the places I’m from, not the place where I ate the whole pig.
erikthebassist
12 October 2012 at 6:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I have 58 minutes to go at work and I’m starving, y’all ain’t makin it any easier. ;-)
opposablethumbs
12 October 2012 at 6:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Good going for the Redhead, Nerd – quite a milestone, if I get you right?
Esteleth, Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo
12 October 2012 at 6:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
…funnel cake and elephant ears are not the same thing.
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 6:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Esteleth, there’s a third “elephant ears” that I don’t know about?!?!?! Fucking HELL!
Esteleth, Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo
12 October 2012 at 6:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The batter is more or less the same, but funnel cake is poured through a funnel (i.e. in rope) into a heap in the fryer, elephant ears are rolled into a flat cake thing and go in whole. Subtly different flavor.
cm's changeable moniker
12 October 2012 at 6:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
18-wheelers: I love ‘em, but I could never finish a whole one.
*badum tish*
Sorry, SC. Couldn’t resist.
chigau (this space for rent)
12 October 2012 at 6:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I put some purple carrots and some spinach in the soup, which turned it a colour similar to semi-rotted dog-poo.
I intend to it with my eyes closed.
(does that help, erik?)
carlie
12 October 2012 at 6:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Eh, I’ve always liked the idea of reference pages of the kind Eric is talking about, if for nothing else than it allows one to say “look at the damned faqs” rather than having to spell things out again. But PZ is really, really busy, too much so to compile lists of everything, and it’s his blog. And really, “read awhile before you decide to comment” is just common sense politeness. When you butt into a group at a party, you don’t immediately take over the conversation, right? Same thing.
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 6:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh… so still a fried dough thingy. Close enough for someone who has eaten most of the pig. :)
chigau, I have the same problem when I cook with red cabbage. The color leeches out into everything else.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
12 October 2012 at 6:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Two social engagements (versus doctors/dentists appointments) in one week? A post-stroke record. Hopefully one that will get broken as time goes on.
Esteleth, Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo
12 October 2012 at 6:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Here is how to take it to the next level, Joe:
After frying, plop a scoop of ice cream in the middle. Pour brandy over the whole bit. Set on fire.
Wait a few seconds for the brandy to burn off, then chow down.
ImaginesABeach
12 October 2012 at 6:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
rq
Sit your ass down and grab a drink, you fucking mammal!
chigau (this space for rent)
12 October 2012 at 6:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I ♥ artic char.
Hey! That’s how it’s pernounced!
Actually, more like ‘ardik’.
erikthebassist
12 October 2012 at 6:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
maybe slightly Chigau, but now when I do go to dinner tonight I’ll have to try not to think about that! thanks!
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 6:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh, and great and awesome news!
My lovely wife BossNurse just went through yearly survey inspection thingy at her interim job. Not a huge deal, except if they found unsafe conditions then those could be attached to her nursing licence even though she’s only been there for a couple of weeks and the problem could be months old. The survey is over, and the only citation was for a maintenance/janitorial/groundskeeping issue of some sort, and nothing to do with nursing. So she’s free and clear to start her new job in November without anything negative hanging over her licence.
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 6:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Esteleth:
Fire? Yeah, I’m on board. Not sure how cool it will be at the fair, but Mayberry is pretty forgiving.
cm's changeable moniker
12 October 2012 at 6:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Botanical elephants’ ears; Bergenia cordifolia:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/plants/plant_finder/plant_pages/4126.shtml
Klutz-proof plants. I should probably get some.
Esteleth, Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo
12 October 2012 at 6:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The best part about ice cream + fire is that the outer bit will melt and then harden into a kind of crust, while the inside stays frozen.
chigau (this space for rent)
12 October 2012 at 6:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
and another yay! for BossNurse!
carlie
12 October 2012 at 6:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
They are very different. Funnel cakes I’ve always loved; elephant ears I don’t like at all.
chigau (this space for rent)
12 October 2012 at 6:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
According to Pfft, Elephant Ear is also “A device occasionally found on diesel locomotives…”.
Oggie? Are you by?
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 6:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
chigau,
As much as I love my wife, I don’t think she gets much of a yay! for this one, since she was planning on not taking credit for any failure and all. Good that she’s in the clear, but let’s not pretend she did an awesome job here. :)
chigau (this space for rent)
12 October 2012 at 6:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe
I’m just yaying because things are going well.
Yay!
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 7:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
chigau,
Yay!
And she’ll be home for a couple of days next week!
… and to go back to my earlier rant about the neighborhood, there’s like a dozen people living in every house on my block, stacked like cordwood. And there’s just me in this huge house. It s part of why I feel scared in this neighborhood… they must think I’m rich or something!!
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 7:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
… and I think I have skin cancer. Fucking awesome. Can someone call Elton John and have him start prepping “Candle in the Wind” for me?
Audley Z. Darkheart (liar and scoundrel)
12 October 2012 at 7:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe:
Oh man, you and I are the complete opposite. Give me a crowded, noisy neighborhood (even in a small city!) and I’m happier than a pig in shit. That’s also part of the reason why I love summer as much as I do– being a part of everything going on, even as a bystander.
Not that my neighborhood is all sunshine and rainbows. Just the other day, I had a strange dude in my alleyway ask me for a ride (creepy!), then refuse to get out of the way of my car when I told him to take a hike. *shugs* Dealing with assholes is so worth being so close to pretty much everything, IMHO.
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 7:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Audley,
I think it depends on your definition of “close” and your comfort with driving/traveling. Also, the “everything going on” in my neighborhood is usually assaults and drug deals. There’s lots of cool stuff in this town, but none in my neighborhood. This is where the drugs and the flop-houses and the prostitution and the violent crimes all happen. Not that I would be cool with noisy cool stuff, but I wouldn’t be afraid all the time.
Give me a 10-30 minute drive from busy, and I’m happy. Let me live just outside of town, and let me drive into town when I can steel myself for the over-stimulation. I want to pop in and pop out as I see fit.
Esteleth, Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo
12 October 2012 at 7:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
!?!
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 7:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Esteleth
I have a mole on my arm that has gotten inflamed and irregular and has started bleeding and is currently scabbed over.
chigau (this space for rent)
12 October 2012 at 7:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe
Get a real diagnosis.
Don’t fuck with melanoma.
Esteleth, Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo
12 October 2012 at 7:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Have you talked to your doctor?
Audley Z. Darkheart (liar and scoundrel)
12 October 2012 at 7:40 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So, anyway, just had a several hours long conversation with my dad… guess who doesn’t believe in vaccines? *headdesk headdesk headdesk!*
It came up ‘cos I asked him to get a flu shot. He’s not going to because 1) he never gets the flu and 2) he’s skeptical about vaccines because you can’t trust the pharmaceutical industry. (No, he can’t back the skepticism up but dammit! He trusts his gut.) And the kicker? Since I’m not fully vaccinated, it just proves his point that they’re unnecessary. Thanks a lot, Dad.
To her credit, my crunchy granola mom talked to her doc about vaccinations, got the flu shot right away and then (without prompting from me!) went ahead and got her whooping cough booster when she got her tetanus shot. She is extremely proud of herself for that. :)
Here’s hoping she can smack some sense into my dad before DarkFetus is born.
A. R
12 October 2012 at 7:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Improbable Joe: Dermatologist, STAT.
Audley Z. Darkheart (liar and scoundrel)
12 October 2012 at 7:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe,
Hey, to each their own. (“Close” being walking distance, which is why I like smallish cities.)
Get that mole checked! That’s no good, dude!
broboxley OT
12 October 2012 at 7:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
improbable Joe,
the neighbors probably think you are strange hiding indoors :-) I spend as much time outside as possible. This means that the ac/heat doesnt need to be on. As for 3yo going under porches for cats with glass and nails is a teachable moment.
“told you a hunnert times to stay out from under that porch, didnt I”
A. R
12 October 2012 at 7:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Any good troll stomps going on about the blog?
chigau (this space for rent)
12 October 2012 at 7:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
A. R
Here ya go.
Start at the top and read it all.
(mwahahahha)
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/10/12/religion-is-only-one-source-of-irrationality/comment-page-1
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 7:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
As soon as I have insurance… because right now, we’re comfortable in a week-to-week basis but I still have to move a household and five pets 1900 miles for under $4000, plus find money for a new place to live and deposits for power and water.
A doctor? Who has a doctor, let alone a dermatologist? I guess the same people who would “remember “The Flea” by John Donne?” and give a damn about David Foster Smith would consider “going to your doctor” a thing that you do like “pouring a glass of milk” rather than something that you have to weigh against a dozen other competing needs in your life.
Audley Z. Darkheart (liar and scoundrel)
12 October 2012 at 8:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe,
Hey, no need to get snippy. You’ve got a problem and none of us here knew the state of your medical insurance. What exactly did you want us to say?
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 8:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sorry folks… I don’t mean to be snippy. I’m a little bit afraid and a whole lot alone and I don’t have any really good options.
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 8:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Audley,
Do you understand that there’s a privileged assumption in assuming that someone has insurance? We talk about this stuff daily around here, but I think a lot of us forget that all of these things affect people HERE, and not just some abstract person somewhere else.
The way you’ve complained about people talking about your pregnancy like “well, why don’t you just XYZ?” like you’re not a person and you aren’t in a unique situation? That’s how I just felt when people said “well, why don’t you just see a doctor?”
broboxley OT
12 October 2012 at 8:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
#139 chigau thanks, fun topic
kristinc, ~ringy dingy~
12 October 2012 at 8:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hey, I only thought a few people might remember The Flea because I smarted off on it here not too long ago.
(Don’t have health insurance either; completely grok the snippiness when people say “messing with that’s no good! see your doctor!” because thanks, now you’ve scared me that I’m gonna die horribly, and somehow still failed to magically grant me access to healthcare.)
Audley Z. Darkheart (liar and scoundrel)
12 October 2012 at 8:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe,
Trust me, I get it. I went close to ten years without insurance myself. I understand the frustration.
However, everyone was trying to help. Your situation is scary as all hell and I think it’s totally forgivable that people want to know you’re okay as soon as possible.
A. R
12 October 2012 at 8:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
chigau: Thanks. It shall be my new computer’s inaugural troll stomping.
strange gods before me ॐ
12 October 2012 at 8:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
erikthebassist,
Your idea has merit, and I expect some of us would find it useful. Even if some people linked to such a list just as a way of making an annoying commenter go away for a while, it could do some good.
You can start working on this as a new page on the wiki, maybe here. Then hopefully others might add more advice that they’d like to have readily available.
I strongly suggest you make an account there and log in before you make any changes to the wiki. Signing in will hide your IP address from public view; otherwise it’s recorded in the public logs (a problem I can fix for you, but it’s best to avoid in the first place).
Also, if you’re unsure of how to get started, just ask me. I’ll probably find my sgbm acronym in any thread I read, though I’m most likely to read the Thunderdome.
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 8:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
kristinc,
:P
There’s another hidden pitfall waiting for the atheist/skeptic community if we ever get past the sexism thing, and then work through the racism stuff, and that’s the class stuff, which is really maybe harder in a sense. After all, your genitals and your skin don’t stop you from cracking open a book or a thousand books, right? A lot of otherwise good people are (hopefully) going to be really confused at having to deal with atheists who aren’t wealthy academics. And, as a simple point of reference, less than half of all households make less than $50,000 a year. Any academic plus a working spouse is easily in the upper half of incomes.
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 8:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Audley,
That’s cool… but I think it is also forgivable that when I’m scared I don’t have to be extra-gentle to everyone else, right? Do I have to apologize for how I feel right now?
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 8:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Fuck… I’m thinking I could burn my arm where the mole is. I can afford antibiotics for infection, I can’t afford cancer treatments. I’m not kidding, I’m seriously freaking the fuck out right now.
Audley Z. Darkheart (liar and scoundrel)
12 October 2012 at 8:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Of course your reaction is understandable, Joe!
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 8:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I wish my wife was here. She’s a nurse. She’s seen everything. She could tell me what’s wrong with my arm.
Audley Z. Darkheart (liar and scoundrel)
12 October 2012 at 8:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe, you’re gonna see BossNurse soon, right? Don’t burn your arm!
Menyambal --- Sambal's Little Helper
12 October 2012 at 9:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe, I’d try cold before burning. If you can, get one of those wart-treatment cold-pens from a pharmacy, and try freezing the bad stuff. I had a girlfriend whose doctor took some big moles off with a swab dipped in liquid nitrogen (you might have access to LN yourself, even). Otherwise, regular wart treatment dabbing/drying liquid has taken some stuff off me. Much of that contains something like aspirin, so you could try just taping an aspirin tablet to your arm.
My sister had some skin stuff cut off, and the cuts sewn closed, so I’d say getting it off is the key.
BTW, if you pour/smear some mineral oil on skin, you supposedly can see through the top layer and into whatever is immediately below. Try that on your icky and see what you see.
Menyambal --- Sambal's Little Helper
12 October 2012 at 9:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’ve mentioned this before about noisy nights, but a cheap box fan with a furnace filter stuck on the back makes a good white-noise generator, filters cat hair and makes the room seem less stuffy.
Or you can download “white noise” off the internet.
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 9:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Menyambal,
Thanks. It is inflamed and nasty looking, but still smaller than warts I’ve seen. I’ll go tomorrow and see if I can’t find something to remove it, although I’m sure the good stuff still requires a prescription I can’t afford.
For reference, my wife is in Texas and has $63 to last her until October 24, and here at home I have $14 to last the same amount of time. As it is, we barely avoided having one of our cars repossessed by a few days, we paid the rent 11 days late, and the credit company came looking to take back my wife’s wedding ring. So “why don’t you just…” advice that costs more than $14 is the same as advice that costs $14,000 right now. I don’t have either one, right?
strange gods before me ॐ
12 October 2012 at 9:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe, can you send her a pic?
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 9:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
strange gods before me,
Not tonight. She’s worked three 14-hour shifts in a row. My wife deserves a night off. I’m sure that if this does happen to be cancer, it can wait a few hours. And maybe it isn’t… just because I’m in a panic doesn’t mean it is actually cancer.
chigau (this space for rent)
12 October 2012 at 9:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe
Put a bandaid on it and don’t fuck with it for 48 hours.
(seriously. don’t even peek)
(and you can’t get rid of cancer with a wart treatment)
(and I think I won’t apologise for living in a country that has socialised medical care)
(I will apologize for forgetting that the USA doesn’t)
broboxley OT
12 October 2012 at 9:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe, open a beer and check out the pics
http://www.melanoma.org/learn-more/melanoma-101/melanoma-pictures
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 9:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
chigau:
No need to apologize for living in a better place, and only a need that you acknowledge (rather than apologize for forgetting) that I live in a place without real healthcare coverage. I don’t want or need anyone to feel sorry, I just want people to think a half-second longer and not assume that everyone has the same resources that they do, the same way we all work to avoid ANY assumptions based on privilege.
broboxley,
Those pictures compared to my arm are a little ambiguous. I DO need to probably see a doctor, but I just can’t afford it.
cicely
12 October 2012 at 10:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Courage, Joe. Courage and *beer* and *frolicking squidlings*
-
Exactly. If they’ve really spent so much time lurking and somehow failed to notice those “basic things”, then how the hell is an introblurb going to “save” them?
-
Huh. I have now learned my Something New for this day.
-
Hi, rq; welcome in! I’m saving back your portion of shoutiness and insults for when you’ve earned ‘em.
;)
-
The problem with cooking with cabbage is that the flavor leeches out into everything else.
-
Huzzah!
-
Joe: breathe slowly and watch the *frolicking squidlings*
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 10:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
cicely,
You’re just… encouraging? :) I’m feeling a little better now. The bleeding has stopped, I’ve vented and I’m feeling more resigned to whatever fate awaits me, and I’m mostly confused as to the therapeutic benefits of squidlings, frolicking or otherwise.
Azkyroth, Former Growing Toaster Oven
12 October 2012 at 10:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe: WHY?!
Having had two teeth out yesterday, I can confirm that blood tastes distusting. :/
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 11:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Azkyroth,
Why? Why did you eat strained peas? Because your childhood source of nutrition served it to you. Do you think I ordered cow tongue from a menu?
ImaginesABeach
12 October 2012 at 11:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe – I’m a government bureaucrat who makes decisions about health care (seriously, I work for my state’s Medicaid program). Believe me when I tell you that I feel pretty passionately that EVERYONE should have access to health care and that I am well aware that way too many people do not. I’m also pretty good at finding sliding scale clinics. If you want me to start looking for one in your town, either e-mail me at CamAndPete at the yahoo service or leave the name of the closest urban area here.
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 11:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ImaginesABeach,
I appreciate it, but I’m not sure what good it would do. I’m moving soon, so whatever services I could start would have to restart in a few weeks. And I guess by the time I could get those services started, I’ll probably be back on some sort of insurance.
Being solidly poor must be way easier than being temporarily poor. For instance, one of the local food banks wanted to see last year’s income tax return. Even with my wife being out of work for several months this year, our total income is still going to be well over the national median.
Azkyroth, Former Growing Toaster Oven
12 October 2012 at 11:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
*shrugs*
Apparently flesh-eaters are known to do such things. O.o
cicely
12 October 2012 at 11:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Like kittens, only think more tentacles.
:)
-
hotshoe
12 October 2012 at 11:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I second the advice to put a bandage on it and ignore it for two days. Out of sight, out of mind for a few peaceful days. Almost certainly won’t make any difference in Joe’s risk of metastasizing – even if it were melanoma, which statistically it isn’t. Normal people have hundreds of different skin bumps and lesions over a lifetime. And a normal mole or wart can get scratched on something (splinter/plant thorn) or get bug-bitten, and then it bleeds, gets scabby, and can seem really scary when it’s going to heal just fine. Too soon to panic.
I want to add, it’s not completely true that you “can’t get rid of cancer with a wart treatment”. Acceptable medical treatment for some skin cancers can be cryotherapy – that is, the same liquid nitrogen freezing off that is used for warts. Cheaper and less chance of complications than surgery. But I’m not sure that freezing would be acceptable for melanoma; they might need to do a surgical excision to check the boundaries of the cancer under the skin.
Joe, check out the free skin-cancer screening American Academy of Dermatology “SPOT” program Some states don’t have any screenings through AAD; maybe you’ll be one of the lucky ones. Also, you can try the University Hospital closest to you, whichever that might be. I’ve seen many announcements over the years of free screenings at different university hospitals.
That’s not helpful about getting treatment for free/low cost, but at least you could get the satisfaction of a real diagnosis not just fret about the unknown …
Improbable Joe
12 October 2012 at 11:40 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yeah. I’m going to slap a piece of tape on my arm and call it a night. Thanks folks. There’s no want any of you could fix it, but it would have been much worse if I hadn’t had a place to talk about it.
ibyea
12 October 2012 at 11:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
They just gave a peace prize to the EU… After Barak Obama and this, this prize is officially a joke.
Tony •Prom King of Sunnydale High•
13 October 2012 at 12:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
rq:
Are you thinking of posting *here* in the Lounge or are you thinking of dipping your toe into another thread on Pharyngula. It does make a difference, because The Lounge is the place to talk about whatever, but in a generally nice way. So unless your first post(s) are laden with gender based insults or MRA B.S. you’re not likely to get a shouty, insulting welcome. If you’re thinking of posting in another thread, it all depends on what you say. In addition, even if you screw up and say the wrong thing, if you accept that you could be wrong and sit back and read, often that initial ‘insulting welcome’ will wear off quickly.
In any case, welcome.
****
Ogvorbis:
Not for long.
Hey cicely do you have time to give me a hand picking out those little green monsters?
****
Joe:
Great news about bossnurse!
mildlymagnificent
13 October 2012 at 12:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe, have you eaten that butternut yet?
I’ve made this one a few times. As usual, change everything.
Halve the quantities – except the onion when I’m doing it.
http://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipe/no-stir-pumpkin-risotto-L3620.html
Use chopped salted almonds or similar nut/dried legume thingies instead of bacon for vegan, veg stock instead of chicken stock.
Use any broccoli, spinach or other veg you’ve got handy instead of fresh mushrooms.
Oh, and I do it in the microwave because the oven here is a bit dodgy.
Otherwise, follow the recipe exactly.
(PS. Australians use the ‘pumpkin’ and ‘squash’ words quite differently from USAnians.)
Tigger_the_Wing
13 October 2012 at 12:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Somewhat threadrupt again, sorry. I’ve tried to catch up, but I may have missed something important. Hugs and/or congratulations to all who want/need them.
~~~~~~~~~~
Joe, YAY! to the great news about BossNurse, BOO! to the scary injury to your mole. Statistically, it is extremely unlikely to be skin cancer, so I’m pleased you told the Loungers (?) about it and that you’ve taken the advice to treat it as an ordinary skin cut for a couple of days and that you feel better about it. This place rocks! =^_^=
~~~~~~~~~~
Hooray! for the Redhead and her outings. I empathised with her getting tired after getting chilled. I’m just starting to feel thawed-out after my angiogram yesterday; I spent most of yesterday afternoon and this morning asleep. It’s supposed to be well into spring here, but yesterday it snowed and the hospital seems to have shut down its heating until next winter. It was freezing, icy cold and I got thoroughly chilled. Still, the good news is that I have no blockage in any coronary artery, so no more poking about in my heart for another five years! Now I just have to adjust my meds to control the Prinzmetal’s; the diltiazem had the unfortunate side-effect of causing bladder inflammation. I had (unbelievably) quite forgotten that aspect of it from five years ago. It is quite effective, though. Perhaps I should just take one of the fast-acting tablets when I have an attack rather than subject my body to the daily slow-release ones. I shall ask the advice of the cardiologist next Friday.
~~~~~~~~~~
Woohoo to Audley and your last day being such a success! (You can never have too many baby clothes). As for timing, all my boys were early; 3, 4 and 6 weeks early. My daughter tried to come out 10 weeks early, but after stuffing me full of drugs for five weeks to stop that, she ended up being 13 days late. Like Number 1 Son, his wife (who is expecting their first child in November) was also 3 weeks early. She is currently booked for induction 2 weeks before her due date, but has said that the doctors (who are keeping a very careful watch on her because of her diabetes) have told her they may have to induce delivery a week before that. Which would mean that not only would baby be born 3 weeks early like hir parents, but would be born on my birthday (like Number 2 Grandson).
~~~~~~~~~~
trinioler,
I’m also an androphilic transman who only fairly recently (in the last ten years) acknowledged that fact even to myself, after decades of suppression (trying to convince myself that I was actually a hetero-cis-woman just like everyone else thought I was). I am only ‘out’ in meatspace to a few friends and family members. At the moment I have no intention of doing any further transitioning than I have done already and I wish I had some advice for your friend. Unfortunately, my cultural upbringing was just about opposite to theirs, encouraging me to dress ‘modestly’ and avoid the ‘male gaze’ at all costs! So, Azkyroth, thank you for that link. I tended to dress masculine most of the time (even when I wore a skirt, to interviews and the like, I wore a shirt and tie with it!) and only occasionally wear dresses and always feel like a fraud.
chigau (this space for rent)
13 October 2012 at 1:05 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ibyea
Good night! That’s enough for one day.
trinioler
13 October 2012 at 1:38 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
TW: Anti-semitism, racism, pedophilia, trolling, you name it, its there
http://gawker.com/5950981/unmasking-reddits-violentacrez-the-biggest-troll-on-the-web
ViolentAcrez, Reddit’s biggest troll, has had his identity exposed. I am in favor of this, especially this paragraph:
So good. So so good.
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
13 October 2012 at 1:57 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe,
Glad you’ve listened to the “cover up and leave it” advice, I would have thirded (fourthed?) that one.
—
Peace price for EU… WTF? EU, most of Europe really is currently pretty fucked up.
Greece isn’t peaceful. Spain isn’t peaceful. France isn’t peaceful for different reasons than money. Etc.
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
13 October 2012 at 2:08 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
trinioler,
re: ViolentAcrez (Michael Brutsch)
*evil laugh*
more *evil laugh*
It’s unfortunate that he hasn’t grabbed some of his colleagues on the way down.
JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness
13 October 2012 at 2:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Anyone have a copy of Diners, Dives and Dead Ends by Terri L. Austin?
I’m going to receive a copy of the second book in the series soon and can’t find a copy of the first book for less than $5.
JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness
13 October 2012 at 2:50 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Premature submission:
I mean to borrow, preferably an electronic copy if anyone has it and would gladly send and lend my copy of the second book. As long as I get it back and I’m not selling it, sharing it is fine.
Tigger_the_Wing
13 October 2012 at 2:50 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
trinioler, thank you for that quote; that was just awesome! =^_^= After the terrible news of the last few days, that started to cheer me up.
Number 4 Son just cheered me up even further with this awesome anti-Pokémon rant; like him, I had heard that there were people in the USA claiming that Pokémon are demonic, but neither of us had actually heard such a rant before. The video makers have edited the talk (adding Pokémon pictures) and the ending is perfect.
Setár, genderqueer Elf-Sheriff of Atheism+
13 October 2012 at 4:02 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Beatrice #179:
Well, if you ignore all of the violence, propaganda, coercion, assassinations, union suppression, worker exploitation and outright lies required to support “centrist” austerity policy…well…um…there hasn’t been a real wa…wait, no, there’s that stuff that happened in the former Yugoslavia through the 90s…um…Germany, France and Britain haven’t gone to war with one another since World War II?
strange gods before me ॐ
13 October 2012 at 4:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Can you name a state that has been part of both Yugoslavia and the EU?
Bonus: what year did it join the EU?
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
13 October 2012 at 4:46 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Setár,
Yeah, but no part of ex Yugoslavia is part of EU yet. Well, except Slovenia, but no one counts Slovenia.
/I’m allowed to make jokes about Slovenia, I’m part Slovenian
—
Now I see strange gods’ response.
And yes, there’s the point that Yugoslavia wasn’t part of EU and it took some time for Slovenia to gain membership.
In ridiculing the Nobel award to EU, I concentrate more on the present and the last couple of years.
Mak
13 October 2012 at 4:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sorry for butting in uninvited, guys; I thought maybe it would help, and then I’ll bow out again.
Joe:
Fourthing the ‘leave it alone for a few days and see what it does’.
I’ve got a mole on my face that I have a habit of picking at sometimes, and one day it got irritated and swelled up, and then when I touched it, it exploded blood all over my hand. It bled pretty stubbornly for a while after that and, after I worked to get it to stop, it eventually scabbed up. After it healed and the scab fell off, it was perfectly normal again.
It’s possible your mole went through something similar.
strange gods before me ॐ
13 October 2012 at 5:11 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The EU could be better, but is preferable to a lack of EU.
There are grumblings by some people who forget this, and in context of these grumblings, the future is uncertain.
So the award is a reminder to all, to think about what might have happened without the EU, and what might happen in the future. As a reminder, I like it.
+++++
Mak, it’s an open thread. There’s no such thing as uninvited. Or we’re all uninvited, or something ;)
I imagine you were just being silly, but if not, please do feel welcome here.
Mak
13 October 2012 at 5:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No silliness here, I always figured this thread was supposed to be a safe place for regulars who were friends and comfortable with each other to talk about things, and people who got a like elsewhere were invited to join in. I know there’s no formal rule posted or anything, but I felt like I’d be butting in if I just started talking in here.
Thanks a lot, though. c:
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
13 October 2012 at 5:33 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
strange gods
Well, I’m being sold the greatness of EU 24/7, so I’m probably having a more negative response than I should. Every damn shit law that gets passed here is said to be “according to standards of EU” or “because EU told us to”, and not in a negative way but as something that is supposed to make the shit palatable. Every good thing is lauded as “something that will get us into EU”. Really? I would hope it has been done for the well being of the people here, but yeah sure sorry I forget that EU is the only fucking goal this country has.
I realize that in the present, EU is our best option and something inevitable if we want to survive, but I don’t like it all that much right now.
/bitter
—
Mak,
Hy! Keep talking. Don’t be shy.
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
13 October 2012 at 5:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Actually, this angers me.
As a reminder of what? That if big kids don’t generously let us all pretend that all Europeans are equal, they could make things a lot worse? I’m sure Greece feels really grateful right about now.
There are good things about EU, really good things, but there is also the imbalance of power. Is this some authoritarian shit where we’re supposed to be grateful that the powerful are ruling over us gently?
Walton
13 October 2012 at 5:57 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I like aspects of the EU. The free movement of people across borders within the EU is a very good thing. So is economic integration. And here in the UK most opposition to the EU comes from the xenophobic right (UKIP and the like) – so if we ever did leave the EU under a right-wing government, the likely consequence would be tighter immigration controls and other xenophobic measures. So I support remaining in the EU.
However, the EU has a nastier side – Frontex and the Dublin Regulation, for example*, and trade policies which harm producers in the developing world, among other things. What I dislike about the EU is that, while EU citizens get many privileges (such as the right to move around the EU freely), these privileges are still denied to people from developing countries. In the end, I want a world without nations and borders, where a person’s rights no longer depend on the accident of their birth – the EU is a small step closer to that, and in that respect it’s a good thing, but it’s still very exclusionary.
(*Frontex is the EU’s border enforcement initiative, and, like most such initiatives, is aimed at forcibly keeping out migrants from the developing world, at the cost of their human rights and safety. And the Dublin Regulation forces asylum-seekers to return to and claim asylum in the first EU country in which they arrived, meaning that many people are forced to return to countries where their asylum claims will not be handled fairly.)
Walton
13 October 2012 at 5:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So I’m cautiously pro-EU, and think it should continue to exist – but I reserve the right to criticize the human rights abuses in which Frontex and other EU initiatives have been complicit, and the fact that citizens of non-EU countries continue to be disadvantaged.
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
13 October 2012 at 6:01 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well, yeah, and I support getting into the EU because it’s the best choice for us.
I realize that a small fish will remain a small fish in or out of EU, but I’m not terribly happy about the amount of power some countries in EU have over others.
Giliell, Approved Straight Chorus
13 October 2012 at 6:23 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hi there
I’m merely skimming, so sorry if I miss important news.
That’s rather common, I heard (not from mine, mind you)
Audley
Your last day at work? You wish! You’ll soon be longing for an 8 hour office day ;)
beatrice
WTF.
Yeah, but for every missbehaving child there are parents who don’t care. I’m sorry for the kids. They grow up into a world that doesn’t take that kind of shit (that’s why I also think that “boys will be boys” hurts them a lot in the long run).
+++
Argh fuck, I just broke off a piece of my tooth…
+++
So, today I went to register #1 for school. Now, she’s been born 5 days after the cut-off date for children who HAVE to start next year, so it’s optional. While I registered her, she was with the teachers, playing in small groups so the teachers could evaluate the children. Ans of course she acted like she couldn’t count to 10…
Now I have to convince the teachers that yes she’s ready to start school next summer…
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
13 October 2012 at 6:52 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I probably shouldn’t have called those little girls shits (I assume Giliell was responding to that), my condemnation does go to the parents who have been turning a blind eye to every misbehavior in public.
Giliell, Approved Straight Chorus
13 October 2012 at 7:07 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
beatrice
Oh, I fully understand the desire to call children names.
But I also understand that apart from a few actual psychopaths children aren’t born assholes.
Giliell, Approved Straight Chorus
13 October 2012 at 7:07 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I only fail at closing tabs
ImaginesABeach
13 October 2012 at 7:19 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe -
Really? I know you are frustrated, but you have had hope this whole time. We have seen you struggle to keep that hope, but you still have hope. This isn’t meant to attack you, it’s just a reminder.
I live in a very generous state. Between cash assistance and food support, my state provides families with children with support up to 2/3 the federal poverty guidelines. We even have cash assistance for “able-bodied adults without dependents.” Cash assistance for ABAWDs is $203 per month for single people, $260 for a married couple. And remember, I said that my state is very generous.
Imagine living on that money month after month, year after year. There is no way to plan for emergencies, no way to save for the future.
If you stand outside a grocery store in a poor neighborhood and ask people coming out how much they spent, they will be able to tell you, often to the penny. Knowing exactly how much you spent means knowing exactly how much you have left. In my “working class” neighborhood, I bet people would be able to tell you within $5 or $10 how much they spent, but probably not to the dollar.
In the winter, temperatures are below freezing for months on end, but in poor neighborhoods, very few adults have good winter coats with functioning closures. The $10 or $15 it would cost at the thrift store will put enough gas in the car to get to work for a couple of days, or will feed the family for a couple of days.
Rather than continuing to make this teel deer take up space, I will refer you to John Scalzi’s excellent post on Being Poor.
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/
carlie
13 October 2012 at 7:30 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe – my son just went through something similar to what Mak described. He has a mole on his chin that appeared and has been growing for the last year or so, and for a couple of days it felt swollen and sore, and then it just burst open, bled all over the place, and then most of it fell off. The doctor said that happens sometimes.
hyperdeath
13 October 2012 at 9:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The Dungeon now has 96 residents. Will the 100th receive some kind of award?
Ogvorbis: broken and cynical
13 October 2012 at 9:23 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Good morning.
Not after you cook it. Extremely hot oil is a wonderful fungicide.
I put potatoes in my last beef stew. Some of them were fingerling purple potatoes. Wife wanted to know why I put whole olives in the stew. And, since we have no olives right now, she wanted to know where I got them.
I don’t, but some of the trolls, semitrolls and demitrolls are here for one thing: It’s all about MEEEE! I would hate to be at a gathering in meatspace with one of them.
Reporting for doody.
Elephant Ears, or smoke lifters, are used on some steam passenger locomotives. They are verticle plates of thin steel mounted to either side of the locomotive’s smokebox. Between the panel and the smokebox, horizontal plates of steel are mounted with a posterior dorsal slant. As the locomotive moves, air is forced upwards which adds more loft to the smoke and, more important, the cinders. Here is a photo of elephant ears on an extant locomotive.
Some diesel-electric locomotives have shrouds over the air intake vents to reduce the ingestion of diesel fumes when the locomotive is in tunnels. The diesel fumes can clog up the air filtration system very quickly. Most railfans, however, will not recognize this term. The more likely phrase you will hear is ‘tunnel motors’.
====
Joe:
You sound like you are having the year from hell. Cyber hug to you and yours.
Audley Z. Darkheart (liar and scoundrel)
13 October 2012 at 9:35 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Tigger:
All those early behbehs! As of tomorrow, I’ll be two weeks from the due date and a week-and-a-half from my c-section. I hope she stays in there a little while longer* ‘cos I have some shit to finish up in the next week or so (nothing huge, just some odds and ends and cleaning).
‘Sfunny ‘cos the earliest date I could have chosen for the ‘section is my mom’s birthday, but I thought she wouldn’t like that, so I picked two days later. Whoo boy, was I wrong about that!
On that note, my birthday is tomorrow! Yay!
Joe:
*hugs* Sorry for being a crotchety bat last night.
Giliell:
Oh I know I’m in for a lot of work soon! I am in awe of women that can have a career and an infant and refrain from murdering everyone around them. I don’t think I have the intestinal fortitude to manage both!
* ::ICKY MEDICAL DETAILS:: She hasn’t “dropped” yet and I haven’t lost the mucous plug, so *fingers crossed* I don’t go into labor any time soon. ::END ICKY MEDICAL DETAILS::
Adamvs Maximvs
13 October 2012 at 9:37 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hello lovely Pharynguhoard;
Does anyone know a site that sells toy/foam/LARP axes and swords for fairly cheap? I’m going to have a Viking themed party and I want to have some that I’ll cut part of the blades off and ‘stick’ into walls or some large ice blocks made of foam etc. I don’t want really silly looking skullhead axes or anything like that, the simpler and more realistic looking the better.
If anyone knows a good site I’d really appreciate it. Also, if anyone’s interested in making Mead this site http://www.stormthecastle.com/mead/fast-cheap-mead-making.htm has what seems like a really crude method but it turned out really well when I made a bunch. Well according to my sister, I made it, but don’t drink so she had to be the lab rat.
trinioler
13 October 2012 at 9:42 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thanks to everyone who’s offered advice to my friend. He is thoughtful about and has come to the conclusion that he needs to figure out better his own self-image. Its hard to flirt, be confident and sexy, etc, when he isn’t sure what he sees himself as.
chigau (this space for rent)
13 October 2012 at 9:48 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ogvorbis
I knew I could count on you :)
Ogvorbis: broken and cynical
13 October 2012 at 9:54 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What did I do this time?
chigau (this space for rent)
13 October 2012 at 10:05 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ogvorbis
You explained elephant ears better than wikipedia.
Improbable Joe
13 October 2012 at 10:18 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
mildlymagnificent, thanks for the recipe where I change everything from the recipe and make something completely different… that’s already how I cook, so it makes perfect sense! :)
Mak & Carlie, thanks for the mole advice/anecdotes. I’m probably blowing things out of proportion, which is the stage before planning the benefit concert and trying to get free shit from corporate sponsors.
ImaginesABeach, yeah I was being a bit of a spoiled asshole there about being poor. Temp poor sucks short-term, but that’s the benefit of it being temporary and I shouldn’t lose sight of that.
Ogvorbis, “year from hell” pretty much says it all. I’ve decided that this whole town is cursed for us, which is why I’m willing to pack up and move 2000 miles away even though it makes it close to impossible to see my family in the foreseeable future. The first week I was here I fell down the back porch stairs and hit so hard I had a football-sized bruise on my hip for a month and a half. I swear I still have a slight divot in my right butt cheek from the stair I landed on. It has been downhill from there.
Audley, last night was… not a shining moment in Lounge history, was it? No harm done, and glad to see your baby didn’t accidentally fall out. On the subject of pregnancies… I suspect that most men and quite a few women don’t understand the mechanics of it? I, on the other hand, actively make up stuff that I’m pretty sure violate laws of physics and decency. Oh, and speaking of weird mutants erupting from human bodies, I’m halfway through Chris Redfield’s campaign in RE6. Nasty stuff! :)
Audley Z. Darkheart (liar and scoundrel)
13 October 2012 at 10:23 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe,
Last night was pretty shitty in the Lounge, I do agree.
I don’t blame anyone for not understanding the nitty gritty of pregnancy– I had to take a damned class about childbirth to learn, well, everything!
I’m hoping to finally finish up Leon’s campaign today and get cracking on Chris’ tomorrow. Speaking of, I should get on that…
Ogvorbis: broken and cynical
13 October 2012 at 10:27 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh. Sorry. I’ll try not to let it happen again. Didn’t mean to make Wikipedia look bad. :)
blogofmyself
13 October 2012 at 10:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Last night I had a dream about troll commenters here. I think I need to spend less time on the internet…
chigau (this space for rent)
13 October 2012 at 10:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Wait until you have a dream about quantumn queueueues and spanking couches…
Improbable Joe
13 October 2012 at 10:51 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Last night I had a dream about the Miracle Couple, Doug Hutchison and his child bride Courtney Stodden. If you don’t know who they are, count yourself as lucky. Anyhoo, they were on some sort of TV show that is sort of like the reality show that they are on but that I’ve never seen so my brain made something up. It was like the reality show reunion episode, hosted by Adrian Zmed, star of TV’s “T.J. Hooker” and movies like “The Final Terror” and “The Drone Virus”. Except in the dream, his name was Anthony Alphos.
What the hell did I drink last night?
Dhorvath, OM
13 October 2012 at 10:54 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If you are uncertain, it wasn’t a spanking.
carlie
13 October 2012 at 10:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dunno for sure, but Oriental Trading Company is the place to go for bulk party cheap items of all sorts. They must have something in that vein.
Matt Penfold
13 October 2012 at 10:57 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Weirdest dream I ever had was when I was using nicotine patches to quite smoking. I had this dream I was being driven around the US in a Greyhound coach, armed with a giant (6ft tall!) can of fly spray, trying to get Kent Hovind.
Improbable Joe
13 October 2012 at 11:19 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. My wife’s unemployment benefits have finally been approved.
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
13 October 2012 at 11:24 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe,
Government agencies work in slow and useless ways.
Improbable Joe
13 October 2012 at 11:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Beatrice,
Apparently the backdated it to July… JULY! Who knows if she’ll even be able to claim any of those weeks she was unemployed. But if she can, we’re going to be in pretty good shape money-wise. I mean, fuck and shit and poopie, she was out of work 6-8 weeks, which is probably $2000 worth of benefits we would have gotten.
chigau (this space for rent)
13 October 2012 at 11:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe
Take the money and run.
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
13 October 2012 at 11:31 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I hope you get the money. Soon, not three years from now.
Audley Z. Darkheart (liar and scoundrel)
13 October 2012 at 11:33 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dreams? I’ve had weird ones lately. Last one I remember, I was out in front of my house and I shot Bruce Willis. For no reason whatsoever, he was just standing there. But I was inordinately proud of myself for doing so.
Matt Penfold
13 October 2012 at 11:37 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And you won’t have seen the advert for Sky TV that has been running here in the UK that features Willis.
carlie
13 October 2012 at 11:54 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The most recent weird dream I had was I was back in college, in a hotel room that had been turned into a dorm, and there was a mouse problem. The landlord decided to deal with it by using biological control methods, and released around four dozen snakes into my room. I came back and found this out a couple of hours after it happened, and realized that not only could I not live in my room, but I couldn’t even get any clothes or anything to leave with because I was sure that the snakes had gotten into everything by then. And the landlord said it was no problem, because he had also put mongeese (mongooses?) into the room to kill the snakes after they had eaten the mice. There were nests of mongeeses in my dresser drawers. It was terrible.
Audley Z. Darkheart (liar and scoundrel)
13 October 2012 at 12:06 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Matt:
I did see Looper last weekend, though, which is probably why it was Bruce Willis that got shot and not, say, John Goodman.
(For the record, I really enjoyed Looper.)
Tony •Prom King of Sunnydale High•
13 October 2012 at 12:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Is the Recent Comments link broken? I don’t see the list.
****
Good morning all!
****
Did you know that If Obama wins, we get a spanking from Sky Daddy?
Over at Dispatches, Ed quotes Bishop Harry Jackson:
[emphasis added]
I find this insulting.
The civil rights thing. As if it wasn’t a big deal. As if Mr. Jackson doesn’t stand on the shoulders of the men and women who fought for equality. Then to treat the Civil Rights Movement as divinely ordained. What a crock of shit.
(and we all know YahwAllah brought black people *into* slavery, not out of it)
****
Mak:
This thread is open to anyone.
As long as you respect the rules and the people, you’re free to chat to your hearts content.
Welcome!
Pull up a chair.
We’re out of grog, but I believe we have some scotch and sangria.
I can understand where you’d get that impression. However, it’s a safe space for people in general. We tend to have a good sized group of regular posters, as well as people who routinely pop in from time to time as their schedule and/or desire allows. There aren’t any rules for *who* gets to post here. Personally, I love having new voices join. Everyone has interesting stories to share. I like hearing them. We all have crappy days and periods of our lives where things just can’t seem to go right (I feel like I’m going through that now). Having the support of the Horde is a boon.
Tony •Prom King of Sunnydale High•
13 October 2012 at 12:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Giliell:
Ouch! My sympathies.
Do you have any idea how that happened?
****
Beatrice:
I thought that was god.
****
Audley:
Just remind yourself you can’t shoot dead people…
****
re: weird dreams…
Last week, as I was struggling over what to do with K, I had one of the worst nightmares I’ve had in my life. I remember walking around at the mall, and seeing him walking briskly ahead of me. I called his name several times and he never turned around, so I picked up the pace. As I sped up, he sped up, though eventually I got close enough to grab his shoulder. At which point I woke up in a cold sweat, crying and completely unable to go back to sleep. That was a bothersome dream, because I don’t usually remember any of my dreams AND I don’t recall ever waking up crying from a dream (aside from possibly as a child).
I don’t believe in prophetic dreams or dream interpretation. Still, given how I ended things with him because he wasn’t communicating… that dream bore striking similarities to how our “relationship” was.
I’ll take the dream I had years ago of being chased by Michael Myers around an airplane that crashed in a jungle.
Tony •Prom King of Sunnydale High•
13 October 2012 at 12:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
carlie:
I thought for sure it was the former, not the latter.
Interesting.
Caine, Divisitrix du mal
13 October 2012 at 2:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Driving by, I’m busy and ill, combining into a bad mood. Bad mood lifted by a most wonderful gift sent to me by Maureen Brian – some very special cupcakes indeed!
Esteleth, Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo
13 October 2012 at 2:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
*big green Esteleth wearing purple shorts lumbers in*
ESTELETH SMASH!!!
So phys plant decided to do a test of the backup generators. Without telling anyone. Okay, great. So they run the test. The generators failed. And somehow a bunch of breakers went (power surge, I’m guessing).
So the building goes dark.
So what does phys plant do? They shrug and say, “We’ll deal with that Monday. The patient wings and physician’s pavilion and main admin is still lit. All that’s dark is the School of Medicine.”
The School of Medicine, aka the location of the research labs.
So I discover this shortly after 9 am when the ID scanner doesn’t work. I get in through a different door and then discover that the freezers and fridges are all off-line due to lack of power. I make some frantic calls, discover that some of the outlets are still hot, call some people in, and then spend some time shoving huge freezers around. End result: a near-literal pile of freezers, all clustered around the few hot outlets. Blocking doors, of course.
Fortunately, all the incubators were plugged into outlets that remained hot.
So I call phys plant and give them a piece of my mind. Their response? “Oh, we were wondering why the usage out of some of those outlets just surged!”
*flail*
chigau (this space for rent)
13 October 2012 at 2:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hi Caine.
Get better soon.
Janine: Hallucinating Liar
13 October 2012 at 2:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Shirt seen at a MittBot 3000 rally.
Put The White Back In The White House
Lovely that he felt safe and secure enough to wear that in public.
Oh, shit, I am now threatening his “free speech”.
Giliell, Approved Straight Chorus
13 October 2012 at 3:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Good evening.
I’m full to the brim with wonderful Greek food.
Tony
Yeah, it was the tooth with the root canal and a fucking big hole, so I suppose it just couldn’t take it anymore. Let’s see what they tell me about it…
opposablethumbs
13 October 2012 at 3:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Giliell, sympathies. I’m waiting for an extraction appointment right now :( (one tooth got caries in a location where my dentist says she can’t get a filling in and make it stick – between teeth, and very low down, maybe partially below the gum line). I was hoping to go to the dental hospital where they took out my wisdom teeth nicely, so I feel sort of secure there – but it seems the referral system has changed, and I might just have to get it done at my own dentist’s. Which would probably be just as fine; I’m just more frightened there (partly irrational, partly because I think they handle way more extractions at the dental hospital than at my local dentist’s).
Audley, better display the amazing Darkheart Duckie Blanket prominently when the Ducks-are-gonna-get-you ducks take over the world! (That thread is … well I’m gobsmacked. How could anyone teach a child such fractally wrong nonsense, it’s …. argh).
opposablethumbs
13 October 2012 at 3:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
She did try to save the tooth – she filled it before, but the filling wouldn’t stay in. Not enough for it to hang onto down there, maybe.
:(
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
13 October 2012 at 3:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The clue by fours are in the second closet on the right. Feel free to make use of them.
rq
13 October 2012 at 4:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dreams: I’ve had Pharyngula/commenter related dreams already and I haven’t even started any real commenting over here. I’m not yet sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
Oh well.
I wish I had more time to follow some of these conversations, but at least I can catch up on what everyone else is saying before I go to bed.
cicely
13 October 2012 at 4:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
For safe disposal, befitting their status as Toxic Waste? Sure, but it’s already too late for the stew; pea cooties are all over it.
-
Anybody can become a regular…by exhibiting regularity.
:)
Nobody even has to like you, though it makes it more congenial if at least some of the other regulars do.
Also: welcome in.
-
Happy birdsday, Audley. I recommend the hummingbirds.
-
Last night’s dream (which I kept half-waking from and then falling back into) might be described as “Dorothy Gale Becomes a Ghostbuster/MIB”, with me in the starring role, and Toto as the wisecracking sidekick. No idea what was up with the Dorothy part, since it’s been years since I gave The Wizard of Oz any thought. The ghostbusting and MIB-ing combined more believably than I would have thought.
-
Clearly the underside of your brainz was processing on the subject.
-
*hugs-on-the-fly* for Caine. Hoping you’ll soon be better…and happier.
-
See, now, Esteleth…if I had the Hoverchair 10000…..
-
dianne
13 October 2012 at 4:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
More dreams: A few nights ago I dreamed that I went to Mars with my family. Possibly on vacation or possibly immigrating. Anyway, we went out exploring and found one of the early rovers buried in sand. I brushed it off and it started working again after it sat in the sun a bit so we stood in front of its camera. When I told my partner about this dream, he pointed out that the rovers sent signals to a local satellite which then transmitted the pictures to Earth and it would probably be gone by then*. I was sad that my dream was therefore unrealistic.
*Whenever “then” was. Judging by the age of the small one in the dream, probably about 10 years from now.
Tigger_the_Wing
13 October 2012 at 4:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
*Hugs Caine and sends Cure-All Fairies™ in shades of lemon and rose to complement the Cupcakes of Awesomeness™ and hopes for speedy results*
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
13 October 2012 at 5:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m jealous of all of you remembering your dreams in such detail. Lately (last couple of years) I don’t remember dreams at all. There is some faint memory for a moment or two just after a wake but it’s completely gone right away. I’m not even left with a vague impression of the topic. I just know I had a dream, but nothing else.
dianne
13 October 2012 at 5:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Beatrice, this problem?
Janine: Hallucinating Liar
13 October 2012 at 5:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Occupy Ankh-Morpork
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
13 October 2012 at 5:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
dianne,
Except that it’s usually gone before I even properly wake, let alone get out of bed.
I miss remembering at least an occasional fun dream.
chigau (みじん切り肝臓)
13 October 2012 at 5:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
There really is an xkcd for everything.
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
13 October 2012 at 5:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I ♥ xkcd
…but I have no idea how people always find the right one so quickly
cicely
13 October 2012 at 5:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Beatrice: the downside is remembering the bad dreams, too, in Technicolor™ and Sensurround™.
-
dianne
13 October 2012 at 5:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Search function and way too much time spent perusing the archives.
cicely
13 October 2012 at 5:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Millenium hand and shrimp, indeed!
-
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
13 October 2012 at 5:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
cicely,
There is that.
carlie
13 October 2012 at 6:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Mine are not remembered often, and when they are I have to fight for it – wake up with that “whoa, that was a weird dream” feeling, and immediately go over it in my head a few times to set it in.
So I offered my child to take him and a friend to the movies tomorrow, because it’s his birthday. He doesn’t really have any, but there’s one kid in a couple of classes he’s been friendly with for years since early grade school. He went to call and left a message on his phone with all the details. Then I got a call back about an hour later from a different kid’s parent, whose number he had called instead on accident because it was right next to the other one on the paper (an old class sheet). This one was a kid who was a fairly good friend a few years ago, and is in two classes with him now, but who has done the whole drift of I-don’t-really-talk-to-you-any-more thing to my kid. Sigh. Of all the kids to call on accident, this had to be the most awkward. At least his mom is really nice, and didn’t seem at all put out. Although to add even more awkwardness, she said they had been at the pumpkin patch and had hung out with the other kid he meant to call earlier today so she didn’t know if he’d be home. RELATIONSHIPS ARE HARD.
Alethea H. "Crocoduck" Dundee
13 October 2012 at 6:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
HOLY FREAKING CRAP: http://manboobz.com/2012/10/13/the-amazing-atheist-spits-on-the-memory-of-amanda-todd-tw-bullying-sexual-shaming-suicide/
carlie
13 October 2012 at 6:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That guy is the most pathetic kind of attention seeker.
Ogvorbis: broken and cynical
13 October 2012 at 6:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Alathea:
I wish I could say I was surprised but, after years of online shit, it doesn’t. I am angry and disgusted, but not surprised (and I don’t mean TAA’s idiocy — if not him,someone else would have done something similar. perhaps a new internet law? the worse a tragedy is, the chance of an asshat being an absolute ass approaches 1?).
chigau (みじん切り肝臓)
13 October 2012 at 6:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Alethea #253
Who needs Atheism+?
Janine: Hallucinating Liar
13 October 2012 at 6:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The Amazing Asshole is fucking stomach turning.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
13 October 2012 at 7:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Not the best day. The Redhead might be coming down with a cold, and I spent the afternoon cleaning my keyboard and mouse (take apart, clean out dust/grease, fingernail clippings, food, staples, etc.), put back together), but the space bar on the keyboard is still iffy. Although the feel is very much different.
Alethea H. "Crocoduck" Dundee
13 October 2012 at 7:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yeah, OK, sorry to harsh anybody’s fine Sunday morning/Saturday night. I just couldn’t believe that one.
Annnyway, my plan for today involves lots of cooking ahead for reheatable meals next week. Spinach & cheese canneloni and cottage pie; plus a fruit salad made with some rather tasteless rockmelon that I don’t want to eat on its own – I’ll add passionfruit, orange and (tinned) lychees.
And yesterday I played a boardgame for the first time in ages: Arkham Horror. I dynamited a Chthonian. W00t! It was lots of fun; and it looks like this might be a roughly monthly regular event. Yay! I have been missing this sort of thing.
chigau (みじん切り肝臓)
13 October 2012 at 7:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I made felafel.
It’s quite yummy but because I put in the last of the parsley (alot), it’s very green.
——
Can the Redhead have a hot rum toddy?
It’s good for what ails you (as long as it doesn’t conflict with meds).
Azkyroth, Former Growing Toaster Oven
13 October 2012 at 7:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I had the same problem with both upper wisdom teeth (well, not the location so much), and finally wound up having them extracted Thursday under local anesthesia. If it’s any consolation to anyone, I was amazed at how quick and painless it was – I would have had it done much sooner except that 1) my referring dentist suggested it might need general anesthesia, which I kept having no time to deal with a recovery from, and no money to pay out of pocket after I lost my insurance, and they weren’t bothering me…for about four years O.o
(I think my sense of how unpleasant dental procedures are is badly skewed by the one experience I had with having stains polished off my teeth, where there must have been some kind of horrific resonance effect or something.. O.O)
Audley Z. Darkheart (liar and scoundrel)
13 October 2012 at 7:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Beatrice,
I rarely remembered my dreams, but pregnancy has changed that. What wigs me out is how freaking realistic they are. :-/
Nutmeg
13 October 2012 at 8:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dreams: I used to have very bizarre, intense dreams. Those mostly faded after high school, but I still remembered my dreams very clearly. The past few months, I’ve had trouble remembering my dreams for longer than a few minutes. I have a few relatives who don’t remember their dreams at all, and I wonder if that will happen to me. I’d prefer not.
*****
Just finished watching the movie 50 First Dates. Did anyone else find it deeply creepy?
Janine: Hallucinating Liar
13 October 2012 at 8:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I do not know, Nutmeg. I will not watch anything with Adam Sandler in it.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
13 October 2012 at 8:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yep, she’s been drinking an occasional beer/wine with dinner if she wants since she stopped taking warfarin in late August. She’s never been much into alcohol outside of meals.
strange gods before me ॐ
13 October 2012 at 8:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Beatrice,
As a reminder that there might have been more wars between now-EU nations if the EU had not existed. At least that is the message I took from the announcement:
«The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2012 is to be awarded to the European Union (EU). The union and its forerunners have for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.
In the inter-war years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee made several awards to persons who were seeking reconciliation between Germany and France. Since 1945, that reconciliation has become a reality. The dreadful suffering in World War II demonstrated the need for a new Europe. Over a seventy-year period, Germany and France had fought three wars. Today war between Germany and France is unthinkable. This shows how, through well-aimed efforts and by building up mutual confidence, historical enemies can become close partners.
In the 1980s, Greece, Spain and Portugal joined the EU. The introduction of democracy was a condition for their membership. The fall of the Berlin Wall made EU membership possible for several Central and Eastern European countries, thereby opening a new era in European history. The division between East and West has to a large extent been brought to an end; democracy has been strengthened; many ethnically-based national conflicts have been settled.
The admission of Croatia as a member next year, the opening of membership negotiations with Montenegro, and the granting of candidate status to Serbia all strengthen the process of reconciliation in the Balkans. In the past decade, the possibility of EU membership for Turkey has also advanced democracy and human rights in that country.
The EU is currently undergoing grave economic difficulties and considerable social unrest. The Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to focus on what it sees as the EU’s most important result: the successful struggle for peace and reconciliation and for democracy and human rights. The stabilizing part played by the EU has helped to transform most of Europe from a continent of war to a continent of peace.
The work of the EU represents “fraternity between nations”, and amounts to a form of the “peace congresses” to which Alfred Nobel refers as criteria for the Peace Prize in his 1895 will.»
strange gods before me ॐ
13 October 2012 at 9:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Awwww. But that sounds adorable.
I’m not positive but this is probably what’s happening: if the page takes $TOO_LONG for the server to generate, it will decline to call the Recent Comments module.
So this is probably deliberate, for the sake of getting the page delivered to you within a reasonable timeframe.
chigau (みじん切り肝臓)
13 October 2012 at 9:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
shit
ॐ#266
I think I agree.
Obama, not so much.
ibyea
13 October 2012 at 9:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@nutmeg
Is that the one with the woman who has amnesia? If so, oh my god, yes. DEEPLY CREEPY!
ImaginesABeach
13 October 2012 at 9:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
GirlChild and I went to the local large chain bookstore this evening. There is an employee there who has helped us a couple of time. I have had a hard time deciding what pronoun to use when discussing this employee with GirlChild(this person has been helpful several times) – clothing leans female but not strongly so, body shape leans male but not strongly so. Hair, voice, etc are all ambiguous. Tonight, we both managed to catch a glimpse of the employee’s name, and of course it is a name that could be male as a nickname for Christopher or female as a nickname for Katherine. When we got out to the car, we both commented that we were happy to be able to talk about this person by name. I told GirlChild that I was not sure what pronoun to use, and GirlChild told me that this person’s clothing appears more female. I agreed, but mentioned that she appeared to have a five o’clock shadow. I said that I think this person is probably a transgender woman, and GirlChild told me that it really doesn’t matter what body someone is born with, it matters what gender they feel like is right.
I don’t remember ever discussing this with GirlChild in the past, but I was SO proud of her.
/end annoying brag about child.
ibyea
13 October 2012 at 9:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Also, I concur with Janine, Adam Sandler movies sucks.
ibyea
13 October 2012 at 9:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Say, speaking of EU, I have a question. How much have the EU been able to make Hungary’s government to backtrack on its authoritarian policies? I am just curious since I haven’t heard of Hungary’s situation in the news for a while.
Nutmeg
13 October 2012 at 10:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ibyea: Yep, that’s it. I figured that at least some of the Horde would feel the same way about it. Not to mention the persistent transphobia in the movie, too. Ugh.
ImaginesABeach: Good for your GirlChild, and good for you for providing guidance.
chigau (みじん切り肝臓)
13 October 2012 at 10:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ImaginesABeach
I think GirlChild ‘gets it’.
You’ve done a good job.
strange gods before me ॐ
13 October 2012 at 10:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Today while looking at adorable mongooses, I learned that hyenas and aardwolves* are feliforms.
*aard“wolves” will henceforth be referred to as leopaards.
ibyea
13 October 2012 at 10:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Nutmeg
Dude, she also had a son with the constant amnesia thing. The fridge horror of it all is just… O_o
strange gods before me ॐ
13 October 2012 at 11:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
note to PZ: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Baby_Mongooses.jpg
chigau (みじん切り肝臓)
13 October 2012 at 11:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
There’s a snake over there, isn’t there?
Nutmeg
13 October 2012 at 11:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Squee! Baby mongooses!
(For some reason, I always forget what a mongoose actually is, and my mental image of it is a cross between an armadillo and a goose. Real baby mongooses are cuter.)
strange gods before me ॐ
13 October 2012 at 11:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I don’t think so. The photographer captioned it only “baby mongooses playing with each other”, and uploaded it two days after taking the picture so I doubt they’d have forgotten a snake in the meantime.
strange gods before me ॐ
13 October 2012 at 11:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Armored goose (scroll down)
Nutmeg
13 October 2012 at 11:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
From sgbm’s link:
*dies laughing*
sgbm, you win the “most awesome thing on the internet” award for tonight.
chigau (みじん切り肝臓)
13 October 2012 at 11:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ah well.
All of my ‘knowledge’ of mongoose comes from Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.
(and the less said about Rudyard Kipling, the better)
Audley Z. Darkheart (liar and scoundrel)
13 October 2012 at 11:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Mr Darkheart: “Awe! Baby mongooses look like kitten-squirrels!”
In other news: It’s my birthday! I’m celebrating by taking some Tylenol PM and going to bed. :p
chigau (みじん切り肝臓)
13 October 2012 at 11:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
hadda log back in
HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUDLEY!!!!
Sleep well.
ednaz
14 October 2012 at 12:06 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
*whispers* happy birthday audley! : )
Tigger_the_Wing
14 October 2012 at 12:10 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Happy Birthday Audley! =^_^=
Darkheart cake!
Nutmeg
14 October 2012 at 12:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Happy birthday, Audley! Have a good sleep!
McC2lhu saw what you did there.
14 October 2012 at 1:19 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Audley:
I hope your next trip around the Sun is a terrific one. It should be. You’ll have company. No point in doing something fun like a trip through space all by yourself.
Alethea H. "Crocoduck" Dundee
14 October 2012 at 2:07 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Happy Birthday, Audley!
Giliell, Approved Straight Chorus
14 October 2012 at 2:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Good morning
Happy Birthday, Audley!
Imagines a Beach
Yay for girlchild being a cool person.
opposablethumbs
If the tooth has to go it goes out at the dental clinic. I’m NOT trying a tooth extraction at the dentist’s again. The attempt to get out the wisdom ooth was fairly traumatizing, with pain and inflamation and being fucking miserably and ending up under general anaesthesia.
+++
re:dreams
I usually remember them directly when I wake up. If I bother then to think about them the memory stays, if not it’s gone. But sometimes I just wake up with a feeling lingering.
Giliell, Approved Straight Chorus
14 October 2012 at 3:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So heavy whining to follow.
Tomorow is my first day back in college. So I’m plain miserable panicky already. Curl up cry and puke miserable, to be precise. And I didn’t sleep much last night because on tp of everything else the little one came in our bed and snored like Granny Weatherwax. Because she’s a bit sick and has a rash, so, no kindergarten for her. Thankfully there’s my mum in law and thankfully classes start at 12, so I’ll try and get her to the doc before I have to leave and then go to the fucking classes.
Of course this didn’t happen last week when I could just have stayed at home with her. No, it has to happen this week when I really have to go because if I don’t I’ll never go.
Fucking shit, it really looks like I’m never going to get that college degree.
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
14 October 2012 at 3:18 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If anyone who’s interested is reading (Illuminata, Tony, I’m not sure if Forbidden Snowflake ever comes to the Lounge)… Ian the fucking rape apologist (I don’t think there is any doubt about that anymore) answered here http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/10/everyday-misogyny/#comment-306468
and ruined my day right from the morning.
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
14 October 2012 at 3:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Happy birthday, Audley!
mildlymagnificent
14 October 2012 at 3:27 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dreams. I never remember anything except nightmares … untiiiil, I take one particular medication. Even then, the effect wears off after a couple of weeks and I’m back to boring nothing. It’s only ever exciting when I have a fever – and then it’s terrifying.
Mice & snakes. Australia’s housekeeping guru highly recommends asking your local petshop owner for snake poo to put at the back of your cupboards in order to deter mice.
Apparently it works a charm at her day job as an art curator. They maintain snake poo in various nooks and crannies of basement storage areas to dissuade mice and rats. I’m OK with the museums doing that. Not so thrilled about the household strategy. (Probably doesn’t affect her because she cleans all cupboards with a frequency and a ferocity that inadequate normal folks would find a bit daunting.)
Tigger_the_Wing
14 October 2012 at 4:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Giliell, Beatrice, *hugs*.
Daughter is going back to Uni to finish her degree this year (French and Politics) after a looooong gap. Fortunately, because her reason for abandoning the course with one year to go was medical (pernicious anæmia, poor love) she has been given full credit for the units she had already completed. At the age of 28 (and mother to three boys) she is a little concerned that she’ll have trouble fitting in, which has been making her more nervous than when she first went. But all her friends and family are encouraging her and she has a huge amount of support (Son-Out-Law is going to be the stay-at-home parent for the duration) and it is only six months overall. Good luck, Giliell, and I shall be thinking of you and cheering you along with my daughter!
dysomniak, darwinian socialist
14 October 2012 at 4:35 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
(so it seems I pretty much only post to vent. Sorry in advance.)
So I’m hanging out with my “best friend”, and I recount a story about being eyed up like a piece of meat by my drunk neighbor. I talk about how uncomfortable I was and mention how much more uncomfortable and threatening the situation would have been if the genders were reversed (if I had been female and she male). All of a sudden my “best friend” is on a tear about how I was inviting the attention by offering to smoke a bowl, and apparently I’m calling him a rapist (no matter how many times I say “this isn’t about you”). Long story short, I walked a few miles and may never talk to him again. Bah, friends are overrated anyways.
strange gods before me ॐ
14 October 2012 at 4:51 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sorry to hear that, dysomniak. Wish I had more to say.
dysomniak, darwinian socialist
14 October 2012 at 5:06 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thanks SG. Maybe relaxed enough to sleep now, thanks at least in part to mongooses.
The guy has been infuriating me by being “half there” on this sort of issue for awhile, and was full on “bitches lie” about Assange. He “respects” my veganism insofar as he likes vegan food but can’t resist bragging about the pigs he grills or the leather shoes he bought – and then gets angry when I explain why I’m not comfortable with that. It fucking kills me to walk away, but I don’t know how to educate him and I can’t just keep my mouth shut.
Dammit. Closing window, going to bed. Deep breaths.
rq
14 October 2012 at 5:41 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Tigger_the_Wing
I wish your daughter all the best! Soon enough I hope to be in a similar situation (have the age and the three boys already), and yes, getting the courage to go back to school seems to be a bit of an issue. I like to make excuses about not being able to afford it to make myself feel better, but I’m probably just a bit scared. I hope she does well, and I hope everything goes well for her!
ImaginesABeach
Applause for your GirlChild! :) I hope my boy children will be as astute.
opposablethumbs
14 October 2012 at 6:18 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ImaginesABeach, yay for your GirlChild – and for you, for helping her grow into a great person. That sounds like a great moment, and it’s so heartening just to have a reminder that there are at least some kids all around who are NOT being drip-fed bigotry!
Carlie, I so hear you on the pitfalls of relationships and trying to help your son sort something out. My very best wishes to him for today (and any day!), and to you; I hope it goes/went well. We have ended up sometimes not even trying to involve anyone else my son’s age. Sometimes it hurts more than I can express. I’m hoping maybe things have improved a little bit lately, though I’m not sure if anything like enough in time for next year’s birthday … {{{hugs}}} to you and yours today.
Glad your extractions went well, Azkyroth! I just want to get my one done, now, though I’m ridiculously scared about not being able to go to the dental hospital (well, and ridiculously scared full stop). Argh, Giliell! I do want to go to the dental hospital, but they might not be accepting referrals any more for ordinary, non-emergency, non-weird extractions :(
HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUDLEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (what? I shouted quietly, didn’t I?) and hang in there, it’s almost done!
Argh, dysomniak. That’s shitty. Maybe some tiny drop of sense will percolate its way through to him some day in the future, though, thanks to you.
Uni/college cheers and waves to Giliell and to your daughter, Tigger_the_Wing - wishing happy studies to both!
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
14 October 2012 at 6:36 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh god I need to get out of this house. I don’t any more if I really am crazy or am just been made to think so. Or if I started off sane, but my dad managed to change that. Yay for him I guess.
Or my I am evil. And maybe I am the selfish one. I don’t even know any more.
And tomorrow I’ll feel bad for hurting his feelings because I’ll think I’ve gone too far and said too much and he wont’ even feel a smidgeon of guitl.
carlie
14 October 2012 at 6:53 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Happy birthday, Audley!!!!!
Thanks so much, opposablethumbs. The kid did call and accept and his mom’s letting him go, so hopefully this will go well.
*hugs* Just try thinking of all your professors and classes like hanging out in the Lounge. We don’t bite! (And the ones who do are assholes, and likely their colleagues and chairs and deans think they’re assholes as well.) And the assignments are just like interesting comments that you decide to reply to. :)
carlie
14 October 2012 at 6:54 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
… if it makes you feel any better, I’m kind of sick to my stomach as well because I have to start teaching a class tomorrow that I’m taking over for an instructor who’s gone on emergency leave, and it’s a subject I haven’t even taken in 20 years and I’m worried I’m going to look really stupid.
tielserrath
14 October 2012 at 7:35 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Couldn’t resist:
http://graafland.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/564015_10151003971984483_1138291757_n.jpg
Audley Z. Darkheart (liar and scoundrel)
14 October 2012 at 8:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thanks everyone! ♥
*hugs* to Giliell, Beatrice, and dysomniak.
Ogvorbis: broken and cynical
14 October 2012 at 8:16 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Happy Birthday, Audley. Many happy returns (of years, not unwanted gifts, of course).
Improbable Joe
14 October 2012 at 8:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Happy birthday Audley!
Giliell, Approved Straight Chorus
14 October 2012 at 8:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thanks, everybody
carlie
Oh, I know. I know that rationally nobody is out to get me. But focussing on that just makes me more miserable because duh, stoopid.
Yay for your son. I was sooo glad when #1 started having a friend some months ago. That would be the only bright spot if they would refuse to let her start school next summer as this girl is a few months younger.
But that would be a tiny bright spot in a big fat cloud of bad…
Tigger
I kind of don’t care about “fitting in”. I just want to get this done. And I need to have the air to breathe. I failed this attempt the first time: Kids being sick, me skipping classes because of it, me being unprepared, me not wanting to go there, me “happily” seizing the opportunity of sick kid to stay at home..
Good luck for your daughter.
opposablethumbs
Well, around here the basic provider has to decide whether somebody needs referal or not. And if they want to keep me as a patient, they’re damn going to refer me.
opposablethumbs
14 October 2012 at 8:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m not actually certain how this works in the UK for dentistry! Though really, what else could make sense? I shall have to check, and talk to them on Monday.
Matt Penfold
14 October 2012 at 8:44 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dentists have the option of referring patients to a facial-maxillary surgeon, or a hospital based dentist if they feel that an extraction would be to traumatic with just local anaesthesia and maybe mild sedation. UK guidelines recommend that dental procedures involving general anaesthesia are done in hospital. Presumably because resuscitation facilities will be on hand if required. They can also make a referral if the extraction is going to difficult, if for example there is danger of nerve damage.
opposablethumbs
14 October 2012 at 8:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hmm, I looked on the dental hospital’s own website. They do reserve the right to refuse referrals in some circumstances :(
I can sort of understand it – I am a routine case, so they could think there’s no reason for them to be swamped with routine cases when that’s what local dentists are for …
I only want to go there because I’m scared and would feel more secure with the hospital. Anyway, I’ll see if I can persuade my dentist to follow it up.
opposablethumbs
14 October 2012 at 8:54 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thank you, Matt. I’m not sure how scared one has to be before it counts as “too traumatic” … I know it’s irrational, it’s just having a tooth out … nothing extraordinary. Eh, tell that to my adrenal glands.
The thing is, when the dental hospital extracted my wisdom teeth I didn’t need a general – I felt relaxed enough to go with (plenty of) local anaesthesia, just because being there inspired confidence.
Improbable Joe
14 October 2012 at 9:01 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Giliell,
I’m with you on the college thing. I’m 38 and still trying, and I missed a whole year because of this move and I’ll probably lose another whole year before we get settled in. It feels like it is never going to end, but you have to keep plugging away and try not to panic and stuff.
blogofmyself
14 October 2012 at 10:08 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
carlie:
Good luck teaching your new class. Try not to stress out about it too much. If you’re half as intelligent there as you are here I’m sure you’ll be awesome at it.
dysomniak:
I’m so sorry that happened. I have no trouble yelling at people on the internet for those kinds of things, but it’s so much harder when it’s a friend. You’re a braver person than most for walking away.
In other news: I’m an English major, and my special focus is on modernist poetry. One of my favorite things to do on a Sunday Morning is to read the poem “Sunday Morning” by Wallace Stevens. The writing absolutely beautiful and the subject is something I think a lot of atheists would appreciate, so I thought I would share it with you all. I hope you are all having a wonderful day so far. :)
Esteleth, Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo
14 October 2012 at 10:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Happy birthday Audley!
*whine* I don’t wanna go to work *whine*
Ogvorbis: broken and cynical
14 October 2012 at 11:08 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
WARNING: Self pitying rant ahead
We have a group of Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts at the park today. They are quite well behaved, in uniform, and the adults are actually interacting with them positively. And yet I still had a fucking panic attack when I saw one of the adults ask one of the kids to pose for a photo in front of one of the steam locomotives. I know it was normal. I know it was innocent. I know that I should be able to deal with this shit without showing weakness. I know that people take photos of kids, of scouts, all the time without victimizing them. And yet I still let the panic seep through.
dianne
14 October 2012 at 11:22 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oggie, stop being so hard on yourself! Naturally it’s triggering for you to see things that remind you of trauma. There’s no reason to berate yourself for “showing weakness” when triggered by a reminder of extreme trauma. (Also, there’s no reason to apologize for feeling that you should be doing better or whatever other level of meta-guilt you might get into.)
I hope this comment is helpful to you and not in itself triggering or nagging, but if it bothers you please tell me and I’ll apologize and stop.
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)
14 October 2012 at 11:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Happy Birthday Audley, sympathies/encouragements to those needing them!
dianne
14 October 2012 at 11:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Happy birthday Audley!
Apologies to all for threadruptness.
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)
14 October 2012 at 12:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Trigger warning: news story about rape/sexual abuse of minors.
Few outside the UK will have heard of Sir Jimmy Savile, but he’s been the big news here for the last week. He died last year at 84, a highly respected entertainer and charity fund-raiser; but this month highly credible allegations of systematic sexual abuse of teenage girls have come out against him, and snowballed as more and more people have come forward, with cases now covering decades. There seems no real doubt he was guilty – the Metropolitan Police have launched an inquiry (Savile’s dead, but others may have abetted him), and they have called Savile a “predatory sex offender” without any equivocation.
Savile started out as a DJ, worked for the BBC for many years, as well as in hospitals, and had many establishment connections, so a lot of awkward questions are being asked about how he was able to get away with his crimes for so long. Rumours about his exploitation of underage girls were apparently prevalent*, but no effective action was taken. The BBC and the NHS have both come under attack, chiefly from their enemies on the right, but in this case with considerable justification. Women who worked as broadcasters in the 1970s-1990s have also spoken up about the sexual abuse they were subjected to (by others than Savile), and John Peel, another respected (and dead) BBC broadcaster (also a DJ, a more “alternative” figure than Savile), has also been credibly accused of sexual abuse of underage girls, although not on such a scale as Savile, or with physical coercion as in Savile’s case. Savile appears to have been given unfettered access to patients, and his own room, in NHS hospitals where he “worked as a volunteer porter”, and to have made full use of the opportunities this offered. Most bizarrely, he appears to have abused at least one patient at Broadmoor, a psychiatric hospital housing patients considered highly dangerous to others, where he was at one time appointed as head of a task force set up to oversee the hospital, and had a set of keys to secure areas.
The Roman Catholic Church would undoubtedly be making hay over this proof that it was ebil godless ’60s pop culture that caused their priests to rape children, were it not for the inconvenient fact that Savile was also known as a devout Roman Catholic.
*Actually, you hardly needed rumours to have suspicions. My wife and I agreed that his exposure was the least surprising news of the year. Both of us had always found him extremely creepy, but more concretely, when he fronted the BBC TV show Top of the Pops in the 1970s and ’80s, he would frequently be shown with an arm around a young teenage girl from the audience, in a way which would now (rightly) be considered completely inappropriate.
UnknownEric
14 October 2012 at 12:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Until this came out, I used to say that “The closest thing I have to a hero is John Peel.” Guess that’s the reason why I don’t have any heroes.
Pteryxx
14 October 2012 at 2:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
*strews hugs in general and birthday cake for Audley*
Hey Caine, if you’re around, there’s a Godless Pets thread on A+ forum. May I link to your “Broom is a highway” set of images there? (…*blush* and I’d really like to use that in my sig, with attribution and linkback to your rat blog.)
Giliell, Approved Straight Chorus
14 October 2012 at 3:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I swear there’s an especially nasty place reserved in hell for people who make thread from unripe cotton.
Joe
Well, I’m 33 and haven’t my degree yet, so it won’t matter if I am 35 when I finally get it. I just have to be able (objective circumstances like children being cared for and subjective like not curling up under my blanket instead of going there) to go there.
+++
So, today in rape culture…
German chief talkmaster Günther Jauch is talking with Jörg Kachelmann, former chief meteorologist about how unfairly he was maligned by the media and already judged when his former girlfriend accused him of rape when he was pronounced not guilty by court.
Point in case: He got “not guilty for lack of evidence” with the judge especially saying that while he found the girlfriend credible he couldn’t prove it to the standard of a German court. So, no, he wasn’t found innocent (actually, German law has a special term for this)
chigau (みじん切り肝臓)
14 October 2012 at 3:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
not foundguilty
≠
found notguilty
(or something?)
Improbable Joe
14 October 2012 at 3:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Giliell,
In America, there’s a rare category in courts called “factually innocent” which requires that a person go into court and flip the burden of proof onto themselves and allow the judge to treat them as “guilty until proven innocent.” Obviously, the vast majority of defendants are happy to take the “not guilty” and run with it.
The only case I know of where a man was found factually innocent rather than simply not guilty was where his ex-wife/girlfriend tried to frame him for rape and assault, the cops and prosecutor all found evidence that she had fabricated the story, and the man had a paperwork and video record that he could not have been where she claimed he was. It was just blind luck that the day she chose to fake the assault, he had just arrived back in town from a business trip, and had video of him from the airport to a cab to an ATM and then inside a coffee shop at the time the assault was supposed to have taken place. Clearly he couldn’t have done it earlier because he was on a plane, and there was no physical way for him to have been in two places at once or tamper with so many different video sources.
Nakkustoppeli
14 October 2012 at 4:00 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Giliell and Improbable Joe:
I don’t really have anything substantially helpful to say but I wish you both strength to finish your studies and I certainly want to encourage you.
I’m also a late-age student (soon 38) though I have had it much easier than either of you (no kids, free education, free healthcare, social safety net). I have done my studies while having a part time (night time) job. Now I’m doing my bachelor’s thesis (a project for a big company) and have left the night time job. The studies have been worth the effort (or so it seems now).
I had my doubts on how to cope with “youngsters” (some of them have kids, though…) but it was amazing how smoothly it has gone, very little in the way of problems. Hope it will be so in your cases. At least in my case having very little pressure to “fit in” made it easier to sort of fit in.
A big pile of patience wrapped in bacon coming from your USB ports!
Portia
14 October 2012 at 4:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nutmeg
Yes. Very much.
Giliell
I’m sorry little one is sick, and I hope the day of classes went better than expected.
Audley
HAPPYBIRTHDAYYYYYYY
…
I have a short whine, about a conversation I had on Friday with the increasingly odious General Contractor Attorney (best title I’ve arrived at because I am the subcontractor attorney). Anyway, I walked into the office and the exchange went like this:
GCA: I don’t know what’s less possible, that your skirts get tighter or your heels get higher, but you look nice.
Me: …uh…thanks.
*we go into the lobby*
Paralegal: Oh, my gosh, that is the cutest outfit I’ve ever seen!
GCA: Her boyfriend says it’s the cutest outfit he’s ever seen on the floor of his bedroom!
Me: That’s rude.
(Not to mention, I was wearing a perfectly professional skirt with a suit jacket. There’s no winning. You’re dowdy or you’re “sexy” enough to warrant unwelcome comments)
…
Later, I got a lot of insincere apologies sprinkled with “What are you going to do when you have a tough case or you have to go see a client in jail?” Clearly, because I don’t want him making seriously unprofessional comments about my sex life, I’m just . Arrrg. He also heavily insinuated last week that I am sleeping with SO because his father is a connected attorney in the area. This guy grosses me out, but for the moment I am stuck with him. Thank you listening to my vent and moan.
…
My mom visited this weekend, and it was great. I had a bunch of family over to my house and entertained a group pretty much for the first time. It was lovely. I feel like a grown up. It’s weird.
…
I planted daffodil and tulip and iris bulbs in my front lawn. I’m very excited to see how they come up come spring.
…
Joe
Have they indicated the process for claiming the back unemployment benefits, or how soon they might pay that out? That would be a huge load off your mind to have the extra moving cash!
carlie
14 October 2012 at 4:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Movie over.
Day was kind of blah. Wanted to eat at his favorite place, it was closed. Took kid to movie, wasn’t a great movie, they didn’t talk much. He was very polite, but my kid took out his DS and played it in the car on the way back (argh). Now my kid is bummed because he wishes he had a party instead, which I am still not ready to try again, after the last two times we tried to have something party-like that both ended with the other kids playing together and mine being left out.
In short, he turned 13 today, and is already in full-on sulky teenager mode. This is gonna be a looooong decade.
Giliell, Approved Straight Chorus
14 October 2012 at 4:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thanks, Nakkustoppeli
JOe
Well, around here it’s the call of the judge or panel of judges.
So, if there’s something like you described above you don’t have to “apply” for a “factually innocent”.
When he was acquitted it was actually called a “second class acquittal”
Portia
14 October 2012 at 4:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m sorry, Carlie, that’s a bummer. : (
trinioler
14 October 2012 at 4:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That sucks Carlie.
Happy Birthday Audley!
opposablethumbs
14 October 2012 at 4:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Carlie, I’m probably kind of projecting I guess but … based on what it felt like when my son was that age, please accept this truly massive, mountain-sized pile of hugs.
carlie
14 October 2012 at 4:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thanks, everybody. Sorry to vent so much. I just want friends for him so badly, and he even had a friend last year! Who then moved away. I know everybody here knows this, but yeah, that whole “autistic people don’t want friends” thing is so, so wrong. He knows exactly what he’s missing out on and he wants it. Thing is, now that he’s older, his one place he could get a semblance of friends is…church youth group with his brother and dad. In fact, they all just called him to sing happy birthday on the phone. And I’m not sure where the tipping point is between having some religious indoctrination and feeling like there’s somewhere he belongs. Blech.
Alethea H. "Crocoduck" Dundee
14 October 2012 at 4:40 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Good luck, Gilliel! FWIW, I think (via my psychic distance diagnosis superpower which may or may not exist) that your big problem is not the studies per se but the depression & anxiety. Be kind to yourself, and do try to tell that internal nagging voice to STFU. Check your med levels? Get more exercise? Do daily relaxation/meditation? Whatever you need, make time to care for yourself; you are important! *hugs*
@Tigger, please reassure your daughter that lecturers LOVE mature-age students. As a group they are *so* much more motivated and interested than the undergrads. (Some undergrads are terrific, of course, but a lot are there to party or to get a job ticket.)
@Carlie, probably too late for this – but do you have a smart enough class that you can confess to your lack of knowledge? Make it a “how to learn” class, with you as role model and leader rather than subject-matter expert. (Would probably work with grad students.) And as to the kid, perhaps if he starts the sulks early he will also stop them early? Good luck!
Nutmeg
14 October 2012 at 5:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Portia: That sounds like a really gross, creepy work situation. I hope things improve soon. In the meantime, here are some kittens for you.
carlie: I have no advice, but only *hugs*. Here are some puppies for you.
I can understand why you would consider church youth group as a possible source of friendship for your son. Youth group probably saved my sanity as a teenager, and I was just a standard socially awkward nerd, not on the autism spectrum. In my case, youth group gave me a chance to meet adult mentors, learn some leadership skills, and have something to look forward to on Friday nights. Despite the conservative denomination, it did more good than harm, but I think that was due to the good luck of having decent human beings in charge. What does your son think about it?
Portia
14 October 2012 at 5:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nutmeg, I just audibly squealed. Thank you. :)
cicely
14 October 2012 at 5:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Is it unreasonable of me to have expected a touch-back email from (locally-based) Printer of Shirts by now, a week after my email? Or is this standard procedure in the trade? Does anyone know?
-
Large *hug* dump, for all who need/want/will accept them.
-
carlie, sorry about the blah day. Wish I had useful suggestions to contribute.
-
Improbable Joe
14 October 2012 at 6:06 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Cicely, my view of dealing with businesses in general is this: if you feel at all uncomfortable with any aspect of their service or product, you should walk away. There’e enough competition in almost any industry that you can find someone that you can work with and be happy with. There’s rarely a need to settle, especially if you’re not under a very strict deadline.
Tony •Queer Duck Overlord of The Bronze•
14 October 2012 at 6:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Audley:
I don’t find the details icky.
What does “dropped” refer to?
Oh yeah…
H A P P Y
B I R T H D A Y ! ! !
(or b/c I’m in a self-disemvowelling mood)
H P P Y
B R T H D Y! ! !
****
Caine:
I hope the mood improves and the illness goes away without much fuss.
****
Janine:
Seconded.
And thirded.
And fourthed.
And fiftiethed.
I find precious little enjoyable about Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey, Jack Black, Will Ferrel or any similar comedians.
****
ImaginesABeach:
Girlchild- amazing!
You- awesome parent!
****
sgbm @277:
Those baby mongeese are 50 different kinds of adorable!
****
Beatrice:
What is the deepest anyone has dug a hole before?
Ian sure seems like he’s trying to reach the center of the Earth.
****
dysomniak:
I’m sorry your friend is acting like a douchehead. You deserve better friends than that.
Inviting attention is when you show someone attention and make it clear you’re interested. If smoking a bowl together means someone is interested, I’ve worked with plenty of people that would be surprised to hear that.
****
More to come later.
I need a nap. Had to work at 7 am for a military party (the story I’m going to share later…argh!), and only had 2 hours of sleep. I can’t sleep too long b/c I have to work in the morning and my sleep schedule will be a tad off…(note to self-stopped at comment #300)
kristinc, ~ringy dingy~
14 October 2012 at 6:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ooh, Carlie, now you can join me in the Purgatory for Parents of Thirteen Year Olds. (My kid is probably aspie-lite, fwiw, like his mom, but my therapist says “13 is ugly” even for neurotypical kids.) Anyone else? We can huddle with some alcoholic substance.
cicely
14 October 2012 at 6:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe, my gripe isn’t that I have any discomfort with their service, but that as yet I haven’t had any of it…and…well…unreasonable as it undoubtedly is (anywhere except in cicely’s fantasy funhouse), I had vague hopes that “Shirts in a flash, without much cash!” could, feasibly, result in cicely having a shiny-new, unlikely-to-break-on-the-day wheelychair, in time for Skepticon. Obviously wild-eyed optimism on my part.
*sigh*
-
ImaginesABeach
14 October 2012 at 7:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Tony – I’m not so sure that GirlChild’s amazingness has anything to do with me. We have never discussed transgender people before – it’s either something she learned elsewhere or something she figured out on her own.
I’m so tickled by GirlChild right now that I will sit out this session of Parents of Thirteen Year Olds.
Improbable Joe
14 October 2012 at 7:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Cicely, have you considered just throwing up the Horde-Signal, and T-shirts be damned and/or delivered later? You know the issues I’ve had, and you know the result: the Horde kept us afloat until we could keep ourselves afloat.
I’m not going to get to attend Skepticon like I’d hoped. I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to kick a few bucks your way for a new set of wheels in the next couple of weeks. At least something sturdy enough to use until you can get your T-shirt thing set up.
cicely
14 October 2012 at 7:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe, I have considered it…but my desire for a new, sturdier wheelchair is not a Need, on the level of “needing not to be evicted”, or “needing to be able to feed the kids”, so much as a Want—I want a chair that I don’t end up using as a most un-ideal walker (treacherous knees having decided to completely take the day off; but that’s another story) and after all, the skies will not fall, and I will not even drop over stone cold dead, if I don’t make it to Skepticon this year at all.
I will merely have a massive disappoint.
I’ve considered offering Promissory Notes, Good for 1 (One) Tee Shirt…but without a touch-back from the Printer of Shirts, I can have no idea what it’ll cost for shirts+printing+shipping/handling+the government’s Take…so have no idea what I’ll need to charge to make enough for the whole enterprise to be other than completely pointless. And the reasons I picked this particular Printer of Shirts were 1) alleged speed, 2) alleged affordability, and 3) local-ness; i.e., I could, if necessary, show up on their doorstep and demand my merchandise. (With napalm!) Another strong plus was that right there on their website they state that within the 12-shirt minimum, sizes (and colors, but that’s not relevant here) can be mixed and matched. I saw no such provision on the sites of the other Printers of Shirts here in Springfield.
This is all making me dispirited and lethargic.
-
Improbable Joe
14 October 2012 at 7:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sorry, Cicely… and I don’t mean to be a complete asshole… but your argument is sort of bullshit. :)
All of your “want vs need” in reference to Skepticon in particular to the side, if your current chair craps out randomly tomorrow or the day after Skepticon, that’s very suddenly a NEED. So how about we head off the misery of you using a wheelchair as a walker, or having to be pushed around in a chair, or needing to wreck your knees to get around, or any of the other suddenly-an-emergency situations you know you might be facing.
Plus, I’m not helping you mount a fancy death ray onto a POS chair. Just not gonna fucking happen.
Improbable Joe
14 October 2012 at 7:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Cicely,
… and goddamn it, if only circumstances were a tiny bit different I could really be of some help. Or rather my wife could help; corporate discounts and all that.
cicely
14 October 2012 at 7:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe: :D
Well, I wouldn’t want to mount any sort of top-of-the-line weaponry on a POS chair, either! It might self-disassemble after only one shot, and what good is that?
But seriously, it still doesn’t fall into the category of Need because I can still walk short distances and stand for, oh, as much as 2 minutes. I can even shop…as long as I stick with Walmart, or other places that provide chairs/scooter-thingies, or short in-an-outs where I can count on my current chair to remain in the not-a-pile-of-junk position; but all day? Distances over about 30 yards? On any kind of slope? Not happening. As I found to my sorrow when Son graduated.
It was a very bad day.
So, in general, I avoid that kind of circumstance. Which is possible. So: Want, not Need.
-
Improbable Joe
14 October 2012 at 8:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Cicely… I say again BULLSHIT.
If you want to talk privately about this, you can reach me by way of improbablejoe at the googly place. But I’ll say this here: life is about more than food and water and shelter. It is about being to navigate through a few days at a time without too much struggle and with some small measure of joy. You having to avoid all sorts of things that other people take for granted, just because you’re short a few hundred bucks? That makes those few hundred bucks a need, not a want.
I know I don’t have a lot in my life, but I have my music. I know that I NEED my music, it isn’t food or shelter, and it isn’t as important as mobility is to you, and I know it is a need. So sure as hell your ability to get around is a need.
strange gods before me ॐ
14 October 2012 at 8:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe?
Would you mind elaborating? I suspect I’ll not be the only one reading you as saying something which is incorrect.
Improbable Joe
14 October 2012 at 8:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
strange gods before me:
Which part do you have a problem with?
carlie
14 October 2012 at 8:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
kristinc, as long as we’re drinking something hard. :) I have a 14 year old, but he’s been such an easy kid to parent.
Audley Z. Darkheart (liar and scoundrel)
14 October 2012 at 8:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Tony:
‘Dropped’* is one of those very rare pregnancy terms that sounds like its meaning– the fetus will settle down into the pelvis, anywhere from a few weeks to just before labor starts. In all honesty, I wish DF would drop soon ‘cos it sucks having her head jammed all up in my diaphragm all the damned time.
And I like to give fair warning to icky medical stuff, ‘cos whoa, not everyone wants the details. :D
Thanks for the birthday wishes, everyone!
*Also called ‘lightening’.
Portia
14 October 2012 at 8:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yeah, I’ve never heard of that shifting of the burden of proof or that evidentiary standard, either, since the question was raised. I mean there’s nolo contendre, but that’s the only other thing I know of besides “guilty” and “not guilty” and it’s very different from what you’re describing as factually innocent.
Portia
14 October 2012 at 8:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That’s funny, cuz it sounds like the result of heaviness. ha. Is that term related to “quickening” in any way? Did the ol’ timey midwives just like to end words with “ening”s?
carlie
14 October 2012 at 8:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well, once it’s dropped you would be able to breathe a bit easier, hence “lighter”, perhaps.
Improbable Joe
14 October 2012 at 8:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Portia, I’m not a lawyer, but this is my understanding of the law:
Like I said, it is a pretty rare thing to get yourself declared factually innocent. There’s “guilty” but there’s not a “not guilty” by itself. There’s “not ‘guilty beyond a reasonable doubt’” and there’s “not ‘guilty beyond a preponderance of the evidence’” but both of those are saying that the plaintiff/prosecutor didn’t make the case for your guilt well enough to convict you. A “not guilty” verdict does not actually clear you of the crime with which you’ve been charged.
If you want to be actually, legally cleared of a crime officially… if you want the criminal justice system to actually say “this person DID NOT commit this crime” then you have to make a special petition for a court finding of innocence, rather than just “we couldn’t prove you did it.” In that case, the accused party has the burden of proof to show that not only can the state not prove that the committed the crime, but that the evidence points beyond a reasonable doubt to the fact that the accused did not commit the crime. And if I recall correctly, but I’m not clear on this point, the state may want you to sign a waiver clearing them of blame before you make this petition. Otherwise, you could sue the teats off of pretty much everybody involved.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
14 October 2012 at 8:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
A little bit of good news from the Redhead household. First, the Redhead may have a cold, but it is very mild. I’ll take her word it is a cold and not a sinus infection.
Second, it looked possible when the Redheads parent’s were here that the guest bed might have been infested with bedbugs (motel stop somewhere). But the FILs doctor identified his sores as shingles, which also explains no trace of bedbugs on the guest bed sheets and the MIL not having any bites, then or later.
Audley Z. Darkheart (liar and scoundrel)
14 October 2012 at 8:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Portia,
No freaking clue. I heard (from a nurse practitioner) that it’s ‘cos you can take a full breath again, but I’m really not sure what that has to do with ‘lightening’. Unless there’s some old timey definition I’m not aware of… .
Improbable Joe
14 October 2012 at 8:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Shit… it is apparently called “actual innocence” not “factual innocence”.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
14 October 2012 at 10:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Fail?
Esteleth, Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo
14 October 2012 at 10:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“Quickening” is actually much earlier: it refers to when the fetus begins to move around other than just drifting. This is usually around 15 weeks or so.
Traditionally, quickening was the old cutoff period for when abortion was permitted – before then, the fetus was just a part of the woman’s body and not yet a (potential) person. This also came up in the discussions regarding the penalty for mistreating a pregnant woman: quickening was the dividing line between how severely it was punished.
Esteleth, Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo
14 October 2012 at 10:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Is “lightening” a reference to the child moving towards the light, i.e. the birth canal?
Way back when, one of the last resorts in cases of nonprogressing labor was for the midwife to yell up the vagina at the fetus, calling it towards the light (one wonders if this ever worked). Also, grabbing the woman and shaking her up and down.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
14 October 2012 at 10:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Interesting that FTB uses Cloudflare
chigau (みじん切り肝臓)
14 October 2012 at 10:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nerd
Yay! shingles.
:(
strange gods before me ॐ
14 October 2012 at 10:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe, I’ll get back to you in a bit, but:
This is nonsense. It might be helpful if you’d cite things.
+++++
Rev. BDC:
Have you verified that any of that is 1) true, or 2) worth caring about?
Whenever I see a website made by Daniel Brandt, I discount everything it says, because he’s so reliably full of shit.
Also, not that it makes him wrong, but I hate the guy: he’s a stalker who’s contributed more than probably any other one individual has to the harassment of women admins at Wikipedia.
(And I don’t know if it’s his web development skills which are so distinct, or his style or writing, but I could spot that he made “Cloudflare Watch” before I checked whois.)
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
14 October 2012 at 10:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yeah, but his welts weren’t painful like mine were for six weeks. *shakes fist at FIL 750 miles away*
Improbable Joe
14 October 2012 at 10:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
strange gods before me ,
I do not believe that you come here and question in good faith, because the point I made was simple and clear. It isn’t “nonsense”, it is basic American criminal law. Educate yourself and come back when you’re done, or feel free to never talk to me again in the Lounge, since you can’t follow the Lounge rules.
Or do you need PZ to give you a citation for you to follow his rules?
Improbable Joe
14 October 2012 at 10:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
strange gods before me,
… and I understand that the Thunderdome is mostly dead. That’s because people here generally want to be kind and gentle with one another, and don’t want to attack or hurt each other. That’s a good thing… why don’t you try it? The Lounge is a happy place for hundreds of comments, and then you show up and try to wreck it.
strange gods before me ॐ
14 October 2012 at 11:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“This is nonsense. It might be helpful if you’d cite things.”
Nothing wrong with those statements.
Menyambal --- Sambal's Little Helper
14 October 2012 at 11:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Strange, take it to the ‘dome, please.
strange gods before me ॐ
14 October 2012 at 11:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Menyambal, stop picking on me.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
14 October 2012 at 11:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sgbm
There are other sites out there that have bits and pieces of what that site has gathered, especially about Spamhaus.
But as far as verification goes, not really. Just found it interesting. It could all be a giant pile of falsehoods he’s using in some sort of grudge against Cloudflare and or its founder.
I was wholly unaware, or at least have no recollection, of Brandt’s reputation. Though now that you mention it his name does sound vaguely familiar.
In the future ill take that into consideration.
Improbable Joe
14 October 2012 at 11:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Menyambal,
The Thunderdome is dead, with good reason. I’m sure the regulars there will now and again try to bait the Lounge regulars into arguments. The happy news is that the Thunderdome is dead, and often looks like the Lounge, because it is a good thing that people here mostly like each other or at least don’t poke at the people who they don’t actually like. I am personally happy for that, because the alternative is providing a fertile breeding ground for people like Thunderf00t and The Amazing Atheist… a couple of Internet celebrities who came to fame by being as hateful as possible to as many people as possible.
“Hateful”? I mostly don’t have the energy for it anymore.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
14 October 2012 at 11:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
K now this Brandt clown is ringing a bell. Wasnt there some thread where he was a large part of he conversation? Either here or the old place?
Can’t quite remember what it was about.
Improbable Joe
14 October 2012 at 11:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Moving past the T-Dome trolling…
Did anyone else watch The Walking Dead premier tonight? It was I guess better? I was taken out of it from the start by the CG muzzle flare. Someone decided to save a trivial amount of money by not hiring a weapons master on-set, or the stunt coordinator to handle blood squibs. But what you get is the flash of a gunshot without the operation of the firearm AT ALL, and random bits flying off of stuntmen without any realistic physical reaction at all. It would have been nice if the actors had actually bothered to pretend to squeeze the triggers, or the zombie actors had been told to react to the body parts that were supposed to be blown off.
As it was, it looked fake and amateurish to me. I’ve been watching no/low-budget zombie flicks on Netflix, and the special effects aren’t much better on The Walking Dead.
kristinc, ~ringy dingy~
14 October 2012 at 11:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Just finished reading Oedipus Rex for class (English translation) and was really surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I guess I’m a sadist, because I found it hilarious to realize “OMFG, this poor chump has no idea he’s basically about to be run over by a Mack truck”.
Love the scene with Tiresius.
“How about you tell me who killed the old king”
“Ummmmmm yeahno”
“No, tell me, come on”
“No, really, you don’t want to know”
“TELL ME DAMMIT”
“No, trust me, you seriously do not actually want to know“
kristinc, ~ringy dingy~
14 October 2012 at 11:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Also! This has been one of my favorite songs for a long time, but after reading Jennifer Armintrout’s blog I realize that it is basically the entire plot of 50 Shades Of Grey set to music.
Improbable Joe
14 October 2012 at 11:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
kristinc,
Surprisingly, not all of the “classics” are examples of upper-class assclowns presenting bad and dumb fiction to exclude real people from the conversation. Not all the classics are garbage like “Moby Dick” after all. Some of it is actually of acceptable entertainment quality.
chigau (みじん切り肝臓)
14 October 2012 at 11:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Just because One does not Personally participate in Particular Thread does Not means that that Particular Thread is Dead.
kristinc, ~ringy dingy~
14 October 2012 at 11:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe, having been raised on Shakespeare sonnets and Emily Dickinson (because my mom, as the first person in her family to go to college, picked up the idea that Poetry Is Something Educated People Like), I should have already had a hold on that idea. But I think the idea that Sophocles wrote it made it sound particularly painful. Or something. I don’t really know.
Anyway, it certainly does prop up the “Literature? What’s not to like? That shit is full of sex and gore!” argument. :P
nms
14 October 2012 at 11:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That is not dead which can eternal lie.
Improbable Joe
14 October 2012 at 11:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
chigau,
First off… please don’t be the sort of pretentious person who phrases things as “well, if One does not do X, then maybe One is not Randomly capitalizing The Proper random Words”… :) love you like you’re a sibling of my very own.
Secondly, I popped into the ‘dome the other day, and people there were complaining that it was dead. I popped in a few weeks ago, and people were complaining that it was looking like the Lounge.
… and I think that is AWESOME! Seems like you ‘dome types are very friendly with one another and don’t argue that much and treat each other pretty decently and I can’t imagine a downside to any of that. Shit, that makes me HAPPY!
It looks like things aren’t too acrimonious over there, and if I’m reading it right then I’m happy for that trend. I tend to think Pharyngula attracts good people, and if even the most argumentative good people find themselves mellowing out a bit, I can’t see anything wrong with that.
Improbable Joe
14 October 2012 at 11:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
kristinc,
The other side of that is that “literature” can often be really old and well-respected garbage. If someone thinks that Shakespeare could do no wrong, that person is an idiot. A whole metric ton of the stuff I read in various literature classes was just plain garbage, especially a lot of the poetry… since poetry seems to be the refuge of people who can’t write in coherent sentences, mixed in with some brilliant shit.
Improbable Joe
15 October 2012 at 12:03 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
nms,
Did you mean to say “Only The Dead Will Survive”?
Because if you did, I’ll dance in my seat for one of my favorite bands, DieMonsterDie!
Yeah, I know that was a sharp change in subject, but I’d like to keep things suitably Lounge-light.
kristinc, ~ringy dingy~
15 October 2012 at 12:18 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Agree, although I’ve been fortunate not to get a very high ratio of crap to good stuff. I did have to read The Octopus in eighth grade and I’m still intensely bitter about that.
Improbable Joe
15 October 2012 at 12:24 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
kristinc,
I’m trying to remember the thing that pissed me off the worst… Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” made me want to punch people. Not only the theme… it was so ham-handed that it could have been the plot of an episode of “Xena: Warrior Princess” or similar crap.
chigau (みじん切り肝臓)
15 October 2012 at 12:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe
‘pretentious’ is my middle ‘nym.
(or will be, if I remember to dump the ‘chopped liver’ thing)
Improbable Joe
15 October 2012 at 12:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
chigau,
You know, if you don’t chop the liver, you can bread and fry the liver and it tastes pretty good.
chigau (みじん切り肝臓)
15 October 2012 at 12:50 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe
I can’t do fried liver. Texture *shudder*
Pâté I can handle.
(I copy-pasted “Pâté”.)
Improbable Joe
15 October 2012 at 12:57 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
chigau,
Really? You can’t stand crispy with a mush center, and you prefer a super-mush spreadable mush? :)
chigau (みじん切り肝臓)
15 October 2012 at 1:07 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe
Yeah. Chewing, meh.
I prefer to
eatconsume fruit as smoothies rather than all that *crunching*.strange gods before me ॐ
15 October 2012 at 1:16 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe,
In some states. Many don’t have this. Mine does not, for instance. Also I don’t think it exists at the federal level.
That’s a way of putting it, but:
This is incorrect in many cases, and misleading in the others.
In some states, like California, seeking a finding of factually innocent takes place only after the individual (no longer a defendant; trial is over) is already found not guilty, so they might be said to be treated as “not guilty until proven innocent”.
In other states, “factually innocent” means something substantively different (note to non-US readers: inconsistencies like these are extremely common). In Utah, it’s something a convict would put forward in an appeal to receive an acquittal. There, yes, they’re being treated as guilty, but it’s because they’ve already been found guilty. This falls within the category of defences referred to as “actual innocence”.
So in neither type is the individual risking anything over and beyond the previous outcome of the case. This, coupled with the apparent implication of the following sentence, is what I found to be most easily misinterpretable in your original statement.
Yes, but not because the alternative to a declaration of factual innocence is being found guilty. It ain’t. Being found not guilty is in many states the best that can be hoped for, and elsewhere is sufficient for many people’s purposes.
This is a misunderstanding.
Are those single quotes intended to be meaningful? If so, they may be part of the cause of this misunderstanding.
Anyway, “preponderance of the evidence” is a standard for civil courts (cf. the family of the deceased suing an acquitted killer for “wrongful death”). It is not the standard of proof which the prosecutor must meet in a criminal case; “every element of the crime with which a defendant is charged must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt”.
So in a criminal case, not guilty is not guilty. Yes they’re not guilty because the state did not meet the standard of proof, which was beyond a reasonable doubt. But an acquittal is an acquittal is an acquittal.
Yes, but,
This is wrong.
What it doesn’t do is remove the records of your trial. That is what “factual innocence” will do, in those states where factual innocence is not just another defence or appeal to be found not guilty, but a declaration above and beyond the not guilty finding.
But the latter is not the same as the former. Being found not guilty does clear you of the crime. Being cleared of the crime is not the same as having a statement from the state saying they affirm you did not commit the crime — and such a statement is not available in many states.
This is correct.
It’s called different things in different places, but you were more right the first time; such a beyond-not-guilty finding is usually called factual innocence, while actual innocence usually refers to a set of defences and appeals.
Simple and clear and wrong. So, maybe nonsense wasn’t the right word, since it was comprehensible while wrong. Allow me to subsitute: hogwash.
No, it isn’t. Like many misunderstandings of such, it bears a resemblance to basic American criminal law.
Heh. This, back at ya, is why I suggested it would be helpful for you to cite things.
I am following Lounge rules, since it is okay to say “This is nonsense. It might be helpful if you’d cite things.”
But is this really the same Joe who was just yelling “bullshit BULLSHIT” to someone else?
I’ll bet you’d have lots of fun divining from Alexa rankings.
You’re making up a narrative now, without any evidence. TET moved faster than TZT even when TZT wasn’t a designated place for unmoderated fighting and TET was alright for fighting. Sometimes it’s otherwise; on 13 October, Thunderdome moved much faster than the Lounge. Habit is probably sufficient to explain the general difference in speed. Thunderdome is a second endless thread, and lots of people were already accustomed to the first, and indeed barely have time to keep up with the first. Your ex culo argument does not account for the earlier difference in speed when TZT and TET did not have clearly different purposes; habit does account for this.
But what is the relevance of all this? Why are you bringing up Thunderdome to me? It seems that you think of me as a “regular of Thunderdome” who is intruding on your space. This is
nonsensehogwash. I am a regular of Pharyngula, full stop.And as such I expect to be treated fairly in the Lounge:
False. You should retract this claim. I did not try to wreck anything. I said only “This is nonsense. It might be helpful if you’d cite things.”
I am not trying to attack or hurt anyone. I said only “This is nonsense. It might be helpful if you’d cite things.”
This is outrageous. I said only “This is nonsense. It might be helpful if you’d cite things.”
And I am not trolling. I said only “This is nonsense. It might be helpful if you’d cite things.”
This is a personal attack from you, which actually is a violation of the rules of the Lounge. And I will insist upon being treated fairly here.
Improbable Joe
15 October 2012 at 1:20 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
strange gods before me ,
I feel a little bit sorry for you… in the spirit of being kind, I offer my hand in friendship to you. Take it how you will, but this is a one-time-only offer.
strange gods before me ॐ
15 October 2012 at 1:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Conversation about him? Maybe. I complain about him whenever he’s tangentially brought up. But I don’t remember him participating here — but then maybe he did in a thread I didn’t read.
strange gods before me ॐ
15 October 2012 at 1:23 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I have no need for condescension. I do insist upon being treated fairly.
Improbable Joe
15 October 2012 at 1:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No, you don’t. You insist on people giving you more respect than you extend, and I am done with you. Goodbye, and may you someday grow beyond the pathetic place you currently occupy.
chigau (みじん切り肝臓)
15 October 2012 at 1:30 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
both of you go look at the current google doodle
and take the rest of this to The [Thunderdome]
Improbable Joe
15 October 2012 at 1:35 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
chigau,
The Thunderdome is DEAD. No amount of trolling or baiting will change it! Go eat some deep-fried chicken livers, and then maybe braised cow tongue just to be safe. :)
strange gods before me ॐ
15 October 2012 at 1:36 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That is certainly not true. I do not insist that people not say to me, for instance, “This is nonsense. It might be helpful if you’d cite things.”
I do not make personal attacks in the Lounge such as claiming that someone is trolling, claiming that they came here to wreck things, claiming that they are not questioning in good faith, or claiming that they are here to attack or hurt people — all on the basis of them saying something like “This is nonsense. It might be helpful if you’d cite things.”
I insist upon being treated fairly here. By this I mean I object to the above listed claims, all false and all thoroughly unfair. I extend this same consideration to others in the Lounge.
strange gods before me ॐ
15 October 2012 at 1:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No one is trolling or baiting here.
Your accusations are false, unfair, and inappropriate for the Lounge.
chigau (みじん切り肝臓)
15 October 2012 at 1:42 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I wash my hands.
Improbable Joe
15 October 2012 at 1:50 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
chigau, I suggest you dry your hands really well. Otherwise, when you start breading the chicken livers, you’re going to get a pretty heavy coat of flour on your fingers. Which could be fine, to be honest… if you’re dropping the livers into the hot oil by hand, a coating of batter on your fingers could prevent burns.
strange gods before me ॐ
15 October 2012 at 2:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Scary tangent: when factual innocence means yet another thing (in this case, what a scientist rather than a lawyer might say).
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
15 October 2012 at 2:03 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
To someone who just woke up and read the whole conversation in one go, it looks like Joe is doing the baiting. And it even looks deliberate, even though I would like to believe you didn’t really mean it. wtf!?
Off to get coffee.
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
15 October 2012 at 2:10 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Although, really, baiting can’t be anything but deliberate.
It could be more or less malicious, so I’ll just keep hoping for “less”.
chigau (みじん切り肝臓)
15 October 2012 at 2:12 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I usually get the first cup of tea before I turn on the computer.
(and feeding The Cat comes before everything. Except the morning pee.)
so:
pee
feed cat
tea
Pharyngula
Jadehawk
15 October 2012 at 2:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
fascinating.
Improbable Joe
15 October 2012 at 2:16 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Beatrice, are you fucking kidding me?
Improbable Joe
15 October 2012 at 2:16 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Fucking bullies.
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
15 October 2012 at 2:17 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
bathroom
turn on computer while I wander aimlessly around the apartment
a million tabs reloading
*while I’m there, check the Lounge
**coffee
everything else
* and ** are interchangeable
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
15 October 2012 at 2:19 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well.
*stunned*
Improbable Joe
15 October 2012 at 2:19 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Is there a reason why I’m not allowed to have friends? Seriously, I’d like to know.
Jadehawk
15 October 2012 at 2:20 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
poor joe. being asked for citation is really cruel, no one should do that to you.
chigau (みじん切り肝臓)
15 October 2012 at 2:20 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Beatrice
No cat, then?
Improbable Joe
15 October 2012 at 2:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I want to break things, my feelings are so fucking hurt right now
Improbable Joe
15 October 2012 at 2:22 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Jadehawk,
Why is it ok to bully me? You, who never posts in the lounge, along with sgbm who never posts in the lounge, except tonight, to attack me? I post here ever day, support people here and get support from people here. Why are you here, to be kind? I don’t fucking think so.
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
15 October 2012 at 2:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No cat.
Parents. For that reason, no cat.
Jadehawk
15 October 2012 at 2:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
you’re not being bullied, not by me and not by SG. what bullshit. but thanks for reminding me why I told myself to stay away from the social part of Pharyngula.
Improbable Joe
15 October 2012 at 2:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Some of you know I suffer from pretty severe depression… doesn’t that matter? Or is it OK to go after people with depression if you’re bored enough and need entertainment enough?
Jadehawk
15 October 2012 at 2:27 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
and you’re most certainly not being bullied by beatrice
Improbable Joe
15 October 2012 at 2:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Jadehawk, you’re an awesome human being? When you’re done with me, why don’t you kick a stray dog? That seems to be about your speed.
Improbable Joe
15 October 2012 at 2:29 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No kindness, when you decide you’re too bored to be decent human beings. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you people?
Jadehawk
15 October 2012 at 2:29 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
yes, that’s why I’m here. I torture other depressed people for shits and giggles. jesus fuck. serves me right for wasting my first free day in a month on trying to catch up socially.
strange gods before me ॐ
15 October 2012 at 2:30 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I don’t think anyone here is strongly averse to being friends with you — though I wouldn’t take up that condescending offer from earlier, who knows, it might happen naturally.
If we’re talking about feelings, my feelings are hurt by the claim that I was trolling, the claim that I came here to wreck things, and the claim that I came in here to attack or hurt people.
(The claim that I was not questioning in good faith is mild enough that I am not hurt by it, though it is still false and unfair.)
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/10/12/lounge-373/comment-page-1/#comment-470635
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/10/12/lounge-373/comment-page-1/#comment-470653
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/10/12/lounge-373/comment-page-1/#comment-470800
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/10/12/lounge-373/comment-page-1/#comment-470808
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/10/12/lounge-373/comment-page-1/#comment-471330
and that’s five links, but there’s also 267, 275, 277, 280, 281, 298, 395
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
15 October 2012 at 2:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe,
Are you trying to manipulate me/us right now?
Improbable Joe
15 October 2012 at 2:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
All I’m trying to do is be social, I don’t know why every so often people decide to go after me when they’re bored, but they aren’t Lounge regulars are they?
Jadehawk
15 October 2012 at 2:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
minor detail: this is factually incorrect, as convenient a narrative as it may be.
chigau (みじん切り肝臓)
15 October 2012 at 2:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Beatrice
Do you need to feed your parents?
(cats purrr when you feed them)
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
15 October 2012 at 2:37 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I really don’t appreciate that (manipulation). I get that shit enough every day.
I’m not bullying you. I like you. And we talked about depression, so yeah, it’s really likely that I’d go stomping over you for fun.
I commented because I thought you were being unfair. If it’s a bad day, I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you you were right because you weren’t and you are now being even more wrong.
I’m not your enemy.
Improbable Joe
15 October 2012 at 2:38 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Beatrice, no I’m fucking really goddamned hurt right now. I’m fucking crying because this is the closest I get to having friends in my life and sgbm wants to ruin it because their bored on a Sunday night. My wife is 1500 miles away, I’m alone in a town where I have no friends and people shout insults at me when I walk my dog, and sgbm is so desperate to win fucking debate points over something that doesn’t even matter that much to either of us that they don’t care how much damage they do.
I’m just trying to get through my shitty fucking life without losing it.
HEY! strange gods before me! You’re right about everything, I’m stupid about everything! You win, I’m a fucking loser and I lose, can you please not take away my one social outlet please. Please? I don’t have anything else, I’m so fucking alone. You win, just stop… please, whatever you want just stop.
Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
15 October 2012 at 2:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I need to feed my parents too, but they don’t purr.
Hmm, I’ll have to think of a lunch for today.
Improbable Joe
15 October 2012 at 2:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Beatrice, OK, you’re right and I’m wrong just please don’t hate me please. I don’t have any friends please don’t cut me off.
John Morales
15 October 2012 at 2:44 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
<smirk>
strange gods before me ॐ
15 October 2012 at 2:46 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/10/05/lounge-372/comment-page-2/#comment-469544
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/10/05/lounge-372/comment-page-2/#comment-469598
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/10/05/lounge-372/comment-page-2/#comment-469611
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/10/05/lounge-372/comment-page-2/#comment-469639
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/10/05/lounge-372/comment-page-2/#comment-469648
Joe. No. I do not want to ruin anything for you.
I just don’t want all these false claims being made about me. I have feelings too. And I am especially interested in being treated fairly.
All I said was “This is nonsense. It might be helpful if you’d cite things.”
Now that is not the most polite way I could have said it. But it certainly does not warrant the responses you’ve given me.
What I want is to not be accused of all these things. It’s outrageous what you’re expecting me to put up with here. I really wish that I didn’t have to defend myself against all this stuff, but know this: if you make accusations about me which I think I ought to defend against, I will defend myself. I am not here to be kicked around.
Joe, I think that in the morning you may feel differently. So, I will try to stop replying — as long as you stop making accusations about me. I will only respond to defend myself, so please, don’t make me defend myself.
chigau (みじん切り肝臓)
15 October 2012 at 2:50 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m
[kill][hush] filing everyone except ME and going to bed.Beatrice, anti-imperialist anti-racist Islamophobiaphobic leftist
15 October 2012 at 2:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joe,
I’m not sure what you’re going through right now, but people aren’t going to hate you because of a little argument.
I certainly don’t want you to start calling yourself stupid to please anyone. Or beg.
You aren’t being cut off. We had a disagreement. When you calm down, I hope you’ll see that disagreement differently than you see it now.
Improbable Joe
15 October 2012 at 2:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I need someone to be my friend, instead of someone looking to destroy me because they disagree with me about some trivial matter. Why don’t I get to have that? What is so wrong with me that I don’t deserve friends?
nms
15 October 2012 at 2:58 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m sorry you’re going through all this offline, non-Pharyngula stuff, Joe. But no-one here is trying to ruin Pharyngula for you. sgbm is just being sgbm, some other people took issue with some specific things you said, that’s it.
Nobody here wants to hurt you, whichever endless thread they hang out on.
strange gods before me ॐ
15 October 2012 at 2:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I am not looking to destroy you in any way.
Please stop making these false claims about me.
Improbable Joe
15 October 2012 at 3:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
strange gods before me,
Why can’t you stop?
Improbable Joe
15 October 2012 at 3:01 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
strange gods before me,
You win, you beat me. Why isn’t that enough for you?
Giliell, Approved Straight Chorus
15 October 2012 at 3:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment