Comments

  1. The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge says

    @ azhael:

    Well, Diby is on record as thinking that Fat Tony is “an intellectual giant”. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Italian Fascism gets a bad rap by being the general term of abuse for the whole phenomenon, and Nazism is too specific and ethnically-based. Fat Tony is a Falangist, pure and simple, and that IMO should be the general term of abuse for right-wing authoritarian assholes like him.

  2. says

    @ Ichthyic

    Frowsty

    {scratchy scuttling sounds from off stage left.}

    … having a stale, warm, and stuffy atmosphere.

    {scritchy, scuttling sounds get louder. a small and rotund tardigrade wizzes across the stage on a unicycle, snatching the word “Frowsty”, from under the noses of the assembled horde}

    SHINY!!!

    {it leaves at high speed, exit stage right, followed by loud crashing sounds down the timber stairs behind the stage. There is a loud crunch as the new word is smashed to smithereens on the concrete floor of the basement…}

  3. azhael says

    @501
    Oh, i agree these people are falangists, but aren’s falangists ideologically fascist? Here both terms are understood as so closely and intrinsically related that they are usually used as synonimous.

  4. says

    @ Giliell

    I should start stealing entire phrases. Your:

    … people who fucked up so badly that authorities thought it necessary to remove them.

    (Though I have quite changed the context) … so perfectly describes the cat-lick priesthood. Removed from their protected positions in the church and incarcerated for their crimes. Removed from civil society to where they cannot do harm.

    .

    Is this the reason diby feels hir institution is under attack? Is this “persecution”?

  5. The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge says

    azhael @ 504:

    Oh, they are synonymous. No argument there. It’s a losing battle, I guess the terminology is carved in stone now, but I wish it had been chosen differently.

    I’m certainly no Mussolini apologist—I’m opposed to every principle of Italian Fascism just like all the rest. However, from the establishment of the one-party state in Italy in 1928 to its downfall in 1943, the number of people executed for political “crimes” was…17.

    Now certainly, that’s 17 too many, but I think it compares quite favorably with Hitler’s Germany from 1933 to 1945 or Franco’s Spain from 1935 to 1975(?) (How long has he been lying seriously dead now?) It just seems strange that Italian Fascism has become the type case for regimes that were much more murderous.

  6. says


    azhael

    falangists ideologically fascist ?

    Goddist fascists.

    They are not quite the same. In Italy the difference between the goddist fascists and Mussolini’s fascists were far clearer. The pope wanted to get his filthy paws on Italian children. But Mussolini wanted to run the schools. A deal was struck and a shit-ton of money changed hands (he essentially bought off the church, with land (Vatican and the papal holiday cottage), and cash that was directly invested in catholic missions … such as in Hong Kong and Shanghai.

    Allies perhaps, but their agendas were not fully congruent.

  7. says

    Allies perhaps, but their agendas were not fully congruent.

    When you have two factions that both think they ought to be in complete totalitarian control, you tend to get a few disagreements.

  8. The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge says

    Even Hitler said after his one meeting with Franco that he’d rather have several teeth pulled without novocaine than go through that again.

  9. says

    @ Lykex

    Luckily for Mussolini, the papacy was more than happy to prostitute its principles for a few baubles.
    (I don’t recall there being any horses heads in beds, but Mussolini was not beyond killing even his own family. God is not as powerful as a loaded revolver.)

  10. diby sursch says

    It seems just seems strange….hahahaha. Gee, could it be for the reason Belloc mentioned? A prejudice against Catholics and Daegos?

  11. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    A prejudice against Catholics and Daegos

    [delusional fools who believe in imaginary deities are authoritarian fuckwits]?Fixed that for you Diby. I don’t care what religion you claim to be, if you can’t prove with solid and conclusive physical evidence your deity exists, it can and is dismissed, along with holy books and theology. That is your problem here. Until you evidence your imaginary deity, dismissed.

  12. Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. says

    Hmmm. diby sursch seems to love fascists (as long as they are Catholic fascists). diby sursch also seems to really like the new pope. Who actively supported the fascist regime in Argentina. And even pointed out which priests were doing evil things — like helping the poor — and needed to disappear.

    Any else noticing a pattern here?

  13. Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. says

    A prejudice against Catholics and Daegos?

    Why are you using a bigoted and derogatory slur to describe Italians?

  14. says

    A prejudice against Catholics and Daegos?

    Er, no diby. A revulsion at people who molest children, and the institution that protects such people as a matter of course. My arguments are against your sordid church, that enables rapists, and protects them from the law.

    By supporting such iniquitous organisations, you make yourself directly a part of the problem. Don’t tell me The Devil ™ makes you tell the lies that you do. Or that He makes you an apologist for child rapists. That is all your own doing.

  15. Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. says

    I’m Italian.

    First, this is interesting, as you have intimated that your are Polish or USAnian.

    Second, daego is still a bigoted and derogatory term for an Italian immigrant. Why would an Italian use that term?

    Third, you claim that Catholics in your country are persecuted. Yet you claim to be Italian. You sure you want to go with that one?

  16. Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. says

    I’m also English and Irish. I’m American.

    Will this one change again as lies necessitate?

    So why are you, who claim to be an Italian American, using a bigoted and derogatory anti-Italian slur which has its roots in 19th century prejudice?

    Then again, why are you, who claim to be American, claiming that the Catholic Church is persecuted in your country? Why are you so quick to support fascists? Why do you support the violent and bloody overthrow of a government elected by the people? Why do you support the torture of people who are descended from practicing Jews? Why are you against human rights for all human beings? Why do you support an organization that has deliberately put child rapists into positions where they can rape again? Why do you support an organization that has had an active hand in the death of thousands of women just this century?

  17. diby sursch says

    I didn’t lie. Those are my ethnicities. You must have missed the Wells quote from the previous page where he used the word Daego – I believe he was quoting Belloc who was pointing out the prejudices of the English speaking world at the time.

  18. says

    @ Ogvorbis

    Then again, why are you, who claim to be American, claiming that the Catholic Church is persecuted in your country?

    The answer is not pretty. Police and justice departments have been persecuting pervert priests with impunity. But, diby is standing up to protect his little church though, with his courageous apologetics!

    Of 3,700 clerics publicly accused of sex abuse, 525 have been arrested, and almost all were criminally charged, according to BishopAccountability. The majority were convicted and have served time in prison.

    More than 3,000 civil lawsuits have been filed against the church in the United States, which has paid out more than $3 billion in settlements, BishopAccountability reports.

    The abuse scandal is likely to cost the Archdiocese of Philadelphia more than $11 million, according to a recent estimate by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput.

    The financial strain has pushed some dioceses to the breaking point – the Diocese of Wilmington filed for bankruptcy in 2009.

    Some dioceses closed parishes and sold the property in order to raise money,

    Does that not sound like persecution to you!?? And this frenzy of law enforcement was triggered by a mere 5,6% of all priests being accused of abuse. Yup, diby is in a persecuted minority in the US of A.

    (source: Sex-abuse crisis is a watershed in the Roman Catholic Church’s history in America … though it is trivial to find many other articles documenting the same “persecution”.)

  19. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Still waiting for your evidence your chuch and you are persecuted in whatever country you are in. Given your lies, I will need third party evidence of said persecution.

  20. mykroft says

    @dildo: 525
    When she gave up trying to play chess with me. I was beating her every time.

    Ooooh, try another one!

  21. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Jebus, the church being sued by *gasp* fellow Catholics whose children were raped by priests? *shock*
    I call all that bullshit an internal matter, not persecution by outside authorities. In fact, the Church, being a moral authority, should be acting morally in the matter. Acknowledging fault, seeing that the criminal priests are prosecuted, and that the victims receive significant compensation. The evidence for that is where Diby?

  22. says

    Just to make sure everyone can link to the above mentioned site: http://bishopaccountability.org/

    It has a large database of documents pertaining to the institutionalised child rape and the covering up thereof, that has been going on in the cat-lick church. Perhaps diby should go through some of the cases to see what a sordid set-up it is that he is lying for.

    (I enjoyed the part about all the bankruptcies. The evil empire is coming apart at the seems. And were it hurts the most … their wallets. The more churches are closed, the less people will suffer. )

  23. mykroft says

    @dildo:
    Here’s the short answer about the Church being under attack. The attack is, the Church’s privilege is no longer assumed. It has to answer to the same social norms (Thou shalt not rape!) as the rest of society.

    That is the attack. For most Americans, the RCC is no longer on a pedestal. You are not special any more. You have to answer logical questions, religious pronouncements are no longer considered fact.

    You assume the RCC has a rightful place on that pedestal. Just as slave owners thought they were in their rightful place. Just as the Nazis thought they were ascending to their rightful place. The world always looks proper to those looking down on others, never the other way around.

  24. diby sursch says

    1) The Church is being forced to pay for contraception against our religious obligations – a clear violation of the 1st amendment.
    2) Various states in America have forced Catholic adoption agencies to adopt to gay children, even knowing that when the law was passed they would shut down. All of the Catholic adoption agencies were forced to shut down due to this, and now children won’t have a home.

    3) We aren’t even allowed to have our traditional st. Patrick’s day parade anymore, unless we make the parade all about gays and their lifestyle. No gays were banned from the parade but they were barred from having lgbt signs like everyone else. Due to this sponsorships pulled out and boycotted and made the false claim that gays were discriminated against. They were not. They were simply crashing the parade to advance a political agenda. Now the future of the parade is in jeopardy.

  25. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    The Church is being forced to pay for contraception against our religious obligations – a clear violation of the 1st amendment.

    Nope, medical is not moral. Your stand against contraception, not only by your church employees, but society, is IMMORAL and presumptuous.

    Various states in America have forced Catholic adoption agencies to adopt to gay children, even knowing that when the law was passed they would shut down.

    Since those agencies work with public monies for said purpose, they disobey the law when they impose your IMMORALITY AND BIGOTRY on society.

    We aren’t even allowed to have our traditional st. Patrick’s day parade anymore, unless we make the parade all about gays and their lifestyle.

    Parades require public permits, with secular rules about how they are done. They apply to everybody. CLAIMING YOU DON’T HAVE TO OBEY THE RULES ISN’T BEING DISCRIMIATED AGAINST, IT IS CLAIMING SPECIAL PRIVILEGE.

  26. mykroft says

    @dildo:533
    Right. Because the RCC has the privilege of determining how women should deal with their health issues. It has the privilege of determining who is a fit parent, based on an iron age morality. It has the privilege of excluding people from public events, because their lifestyle doesn’t fit said morality.

    The pedestal is gone, dildo. Deal with it.

  27. Snoof says

    “Being forced to complying with secular law is discrimination” is crap.

    Otherwise I could claim that, for example, _not_ being able to kill you and devour your heart in honour of Chnorthvok the Worldslayer is a violation of the first amendment.

    (Also, you’re from the USA then. Noted.)

  28. says

    @ diby

    The Church is being forced to pay for contraception against our religious obligations – a clear violation of the 1st amendment.

    Fucking kiddies is fine, but don’t use condoms!

    All of the Catholic adoption agencies were forced to shut down due to this, and now children won’t have a home.

    No-one is forcing the cat-licks to be such outrageous bigots. And, at least, no-one is forcing you to place white kids with black families, or vice versa. Now that would be a moral outrage!!!!!

    Oh …wait a minute, diby,… when did you start caring about the welfare of children?

    st. Patrick’s day parade

    You do realise that around one in ten leprechauns is gay? They are fully entitled to celebrate their heritage.

  29. diby sursch says

    People like you are just fascists. Our parade, our rules. We don’t tell you how to run your atheist events, why do you think you have the right to tell us how to run ours?

  30. Snoof says

    I know, right? Wanting to make sure that the law of the land applies equally to all organisations and individuals! It’s fucking outrageous.

    Why, next you’ll be telling me that ritually burning down your house to celebrate the return of Chvorthq the Worldeater and the imminent annihilation of all things will be stopped by the police!

    (Care to actually provide some evidence of these parades actually, y’know, being rained on? Because I’ll bet you fifty Internet Dollars [which is 0.00000000000002 of a bitcoin!] that they’re ones receiving public funding and public assistance, which means they’re required to obey state and federal antidiscrimination law. And trust me, you do not want to see what happens when those things get repealed.)

  31. mykroft says

    @dildo: 538
    If it uses public funds, it is subject to public laws. There is no spoon pedestal.

  32. diby sursch says

    You can’t get it. Gays have always participated in the event, everyone is welcomed. No one, atheist, gay, whatever is turned away. All that was asked is that they didn’t hold light signs, since it’s a parade about our saint. Pro-life people are also prohibited from holding pro-life signs. It’s our parade. Our religious parade honoring a saint, not a time for politics.

    Why can’t you fascists respect that?

  33. Snoof says

    You can’t get it. Gays have always participated in the event, everyone is welcomed. No one, atheist, gay, whatever is turned away. All that was asked is that they didn’t hold light signs, since it’s a parade about our saint.

    Well, if it’s your (Catholic) parade about your (Catholic) saint, you won’t mind paying for it with your (Catholic) money then.

    Where did you say this happened again?

  34. anteprepro says

    WHO exactly owns the St. Patrick’s Day parade, again? I believe you mentioned that this horror of horrors, of gay people wanting to be included in “your” parade, happened in New York and Boston, yes? Parts of the country where gays tend to be accepted, yes? And where gays might also happen to be Catholic and/or Irish?

    Go fuck yourself diby.

  35. anteprepro says

    Pro-tip, Catholic supremacist: St. Patrick’s Day, in most sectors of society outside of the most rearguard, conservative factions of Catholicism, isn’t really considered a religious holiday in the U.S. It is a celebration of Irish American heritage, for the most part. I mean, seriously, the fucking St. is the the patron saint of Ireland. Even if you do incorporate religious elements into it, it is basically just Irish Nationalism Day. And yet you want to get your sticky fingers all over it, because you are a religious dogmatist and want to have control over everything.

  36. mykroft says

    @dildo
    Right. You can be gay, as long as you do it quietly. As long as you don’t try to do things like get married, or adopt children. Because Jesus loves you, even though you are not quite human….

  37. anteprepro says

    Gotta love the irony of diby saying this

    People like you are just fascists. Our parade, our rules.

    Yes, we are fascists, because you want absolute authority over what does and does not happen to a fucking parade. Riiiiiight.

  38. anteprepro says

    Yeah, already called that diby was a mini-Bill Donahue. Surprised it took them this long to link to the Grandmaster’s blatherings.

  39. Rowan vet-tech says

    Bill Donohue is only a puritan fascist when Diby needs him to be. And when Diby needs him to be a good little catholic, then Bill is one.

  40. mykroft says

    @dildo
    The RCC is a moral authority, in the same way that the Koch brothers are authorities on global warming. It’s all about power over others, and money.

  41. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    People like you are just fascists.

    No, you are the fascist, imposing your will where it don’t belong, and ignoring the human rights of fellow celebrants and paraders. Nobody can legitimately use religion to be show themselves to be a raging bigot.

  42. says

    Falange Española

    Falange Española, or Spanish Phalanx, had been born in the Comedy Theatre in Madrid on 29 October1933.

    Falangism differed from Nazism and fascism in its profoundly conservative nature. Mussolini used Roman symbols and imperial imagery in his speeeches merely for propoganda effect . The Falange, on the other hand, used modern and revolutionary phraseology while remaining fundamentally reactionary. The church was the essence of Hispanidad (Spanishness). The new state would ‘draw its inspiration from the spirit of the Catholic religion which is traditional in Spain’. Their symbols were those of Ferdinand and Isabella: the yoke of the authoritarian state and the arrows of annihillation to wipe out heresy. They did not just borrow the symbols, but tried to revive the Castilian mentality. The ideal Falangist was supposed to be ‘half-monk, half-soldier’.

    (Above quotes are from Antony Beevor.)

  43. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Diby, if you want to parade without gays, do some laps around the local high schools football field that allows that. Meanwhile, stay off public streets unless you agree to behave yourself as the public laws demands….

  44. says

    The Catholics adoption agencies were not forced to let gay men and lesbians to adopt children – they just couldn’t continue receiving government money if they didn’t. It had nothing to do with religious persecution and everything to do with sucking at the government teat.

  45. says

    diby

    I’m also English and Irish. I’m American. a liar

    FIFY.
    The question was clearly what country you’re from.

    1) The Church is being forced to pay for contraception against our religious obligations – a clear violation of the 1st amendment.

    Liar, again.

    2) Various states in America have forced Catholic adoption agencies to adopt to gay children, even knowing that when the law was passed they would shut down. All of the Catholic adoption agencies were forced to shut down due to this, and now children won’t have a home.

    They were banned from discriminating against people. Here’s the thing: If you want to operate a business that provides a kind of official service then you need to operate within the rules of the country.
    Also: what kind of assholes would (if it were actually true) jeopardize the wellfare of innocent children in need of a loving home just because they can’t make up the rules as they go along but have to obey the laws of the land like everybody else?

    3) We aren’t even allowed to have our traditional st. Patrick’s day parade anymore, unless we make the parade all about gays and their lifestyle. No gays were banned from the parade but they were barred from having lgbt signs like everyone else. Due to this sponsorships pulled out and boycotted and made the false claim that gays were discriminated against. They were not. They were simply crashing the parade to advance a political agenda. Now the future of the parade is in jeopardy.

    So, you wanted to regulate the use of public space, banning gays from their right to free speech.
    As a result provate business decided that they would no longer support your parade. Why do you think you’re entitled to their money? You are totally free to have your march any way you want as long as you pay for it yourself. How is that discrimination?

    Our parade, our rules.

    Then hold it in your own fucking country, i.e. the Vatican. Public space is for all of the public.

    Our religious parade honoring a saint

    Yeah, drinking green beer, totally religious devotion

  46. anteprepro says

    Oh my! Check out the first image in the gallery for the South Boston St. Patrick’s Parade. I guess it is a Catholic Event after all!

    I assume Palpatine was only able to appear in the marches closer to the Vatican. Can’t stray too far from the seat of power, even on the Most Catholic of Days, after all.

  47. says

    We don’t tell you how to run your atheist events…

    Actually, you do, sorta. A public atheist event has to follow all the same rules as a Catholic one. E.g. If I organize a public lecture, I can’t then say that Catholics aren’t allowed to attend. If it’s public, it’s public.

    Clearly, the problem you have here isn’t that Catholics are being discriminated against, but that you’re no longer getting the special benefits you used to. What you’re upset about is that you’re treated the same as everyone else. Well, boo hoo.

  48. says

    Hmmm…

    A Catholic school in Massachusetts is refusing to march in Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day parade for the first time in nearly 25 years because a group of LGBT military veterans were granted permission to participate this year.

    Last week, parade organizers said that the LGBT group MassEquality would be able to march in the St. Patrick’s Day after the request was denied four other years.

    Brother Thomas Dalton, principal of The Immaculate Heart of Mary School in Harvard, reacted on Monday by saying that band members and students from his school would not attend for the first time in decades.

    “The familiar scene of Saint Patrick joyfully giving his blessing to the crowds has, sad to say, come to an end,” Dalton told WCVB. “In the footsteps of Saint Patrick, IHM does not condone and will not appear to condone the homosexual lifestyle.”

    “Homosexual acts are gravely immoral and are not to be promoted in any way,” he added.

    “We must stand firm with the Church which states in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, promulgated by Pope John Paul II, that ‘homosexual acts are acts of grave depravity’ and ‘are intrinsically disordered… Under no circumstances can they be approved.'”

    (Reuters) – A gay rights group will be allowed to march in Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, event organizers said on Saturday, reversing a 20-year-long stance after the city’s new mayor intervened.

    It was unclear, however, if marchers from MassEquality, one of the largest gay rights advocacy groups in Massachusetts, would be permitted to carry signs or use slogans identifying themselves as gay men and women, which may yet prove a sticking point.

    “We don’t ban gays, we just want to keep the parade an Irish parade,” Tim Duross, the lead organizer of the parade that celebrates the city’s Irish heritage and honors military veterans, said in a telephone interview on Saturday.

    He cited parade rules banning political protest and references to sexual orientation, suggesting that MassEquality was established enough not to have to explain who they are.

    “Everyone knows who they are,” he said. “They’re a good organization, they help LGBT veterans, and if they help veterans they’re OK with us,” he added, using an abbreviation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

    MassEquality’s application to participate in the March 15 parade – the group’s fourth try in four years – was denied at first, said Kara Coredini, the group’s executive director, in a telephone interview.

    But the Allied War Veterans Council, also an organizer, reconsidered after Mayor Martin Walsh, the son of Irish immigrants, threatened to boycott the parade over the exclusion and began attempts to broker an agreement.

    “That there is a conversation happening around allowing openly LGBT people to march in this parade is historic,” Coredini said.

    She and Duross will meet this week to see if they can agree on how MassEquality’s marchers can identify themselves in the parade through South Boston. Coredini said the invitation would be meaningful only if their unit could march “openly.”

    “It’s not political to want to be equal. It’s not political to want to be visible and welcomed by your community,” she said.

    Sources: http://crooksandliars.com/2014/03/catholic-school-wont-march-st-patricks-day

    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/01/gay-rights-group-okayed-to-march-in-boston-st-patricks-day-parade/

  49. morgan ?! epitheting a metaphor says

    diby, this is a serious question: Why are you here? What is it that you hope to accomplish? Please answer this, and please answer it honestly.

  50. David Marjanović says

    Hey, diby, there’s a lot you still haven’t replied to.

    But the thirteenth century was probably the greatest, and that flourishing continued.

    Do you know how it began?

    With the translation of Aristotle’s works from Arabic into Latin.

    There was so much science going on from the thirteenth century and on.

    Science isn’t a synonym for philosophy…

    The Church created the University system

    Wrong. The oldest university is that of Bologna, which began when students who wanted to study law (mostly this law, not so much church law!) got their bargaining power together, looked for a good teacher, and found one in 1087 or 1088. Here, look it up.

    Oh, read this, too, at least the beginning of it.

    G.K. Chesterton: Thus, for instance, Catholicism […] It knows where the Bible came from.

    Oh, really.

    It also knows where most of the theories of Evolution go to.

    Yeah, they’re disproved, and only one survives: the theory of evolution by mutation, selection and drift. This happened several decades ago. :-|

    See, that’s the difference between science and religion, the difference between a field of study where there are external means of determining whether an idea is wrong and a field where that’s not the case. Voltaire wrote “there are no sects in geometry”. In science, much like in mathematics, if an idea is wrong, it’s possible to find out, and then people stop promoting it; in religion, that’s not the case, and all* ideas continue to exist alongside each other so that, for example, there are about 43,000 Christian denominations now.

    * Except, of course, for those whose followers are killed or otherwise silenced by the followers of another such idea.

    Strunk and White, Elements of Style

    read u some.

    First, our friend was quoting Chesterton here, he’s just too stupid to press the ” button. Second, linguists call it “the thrice-accursed Strunk’n’White” – because they did nothing else than trying to sell their personal tastes as objective facts by sprinkling some remarkably ignorant, sciency-sounding arguments over them.

    When you condemn atheistic communists, by far the greatest evil the world has ever seen, with the same fervor as you do More and a few dead, we can talk.

    …I’m not going to calculate quantitative evilness, but…

    What on the planet makes you believe we don’t already condemn the oppression and mass murder ordered by Lenin, Stalin, Máo Zédōng, Pol Pot, Ceauşescu and the like?

    They’re just not the topic, so nobody mentioned them in this discussion before you did.

    *headshake*

    They feared that the converts were still secretly Jewish and planning to overthrow the crown again. After 700 years of war, those fears are to be expected.

    They were completely irrational.

    Hilaire Belloc: The Mohammedan struggle was a very close thing; it nearly swamped
    us;

    Who is “we”?

    I’ve never been nearly swamped by a Mohammedan struggle…

    The onslaught […] of the Mongol hordes […] The barbarism
    of the eastern nomads was eventually defeated; very tardily, but
    not too late to save what could be saved.

    Roflcopter. The Mongol hordes massacred a whole army of knights at Legnica in what is now Poland, and then they suddenly turned around and rode home because Ögödey Khaan had died and their presence was needed for the choosing of a successor.

    Quite similarly, the first Ottoman siege of Vienna (1589) was aborted because the sultan had died (I forgot his name). The second (a hundred years later) was defeated, but the first ended with the Ottoman army simply standing up and going home.

    Belloc… Belloc… where have I heard that name in a different context..

    Piltdown Man loves him.

    Even Hitler said after his one meeting with Franco that he’d rather have several teeth pulled without novocaine than go through that again.

    Interesting. Why?

    When she gave up trying to play chess with me. I was beating her every time.

    *steal*

    Oh my! Check out the first image in the gallery for the South Boston St. Patrick’s Parade. I guess it is a Catholic Event after all!

    :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

  51. David Marjanović says

    What. Is the class=”creationist” attribute suddenly no longer allowed!?!

    test
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .

  52. The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge says

    David Marjanović @ 565:

    Even Hitler said after his one meeting with Franco that he’d rather have several teeth pulled without novocaine than go through that again.

    Interesting. Why?

    Here’s a brief précis of the meeting at Hendaye—basically Franco wanted French Morocco and Oran in return for entering the war, Hitler didn’t want to aggravate Pétain by giving them to him. The quote was supposedly to Mussolini afterwards.

    In the process, I found this (warning: PDF), which is a very interesting article on the meeting. I love that Franco was expecting German Wunderwaffen to win the war up until the last minute—he thought they were going to harness the power of Cosmic Rays!

  53. throwaway says

    diby sursch – I asked you a question earlier: If the First Nations people were to ever become capable of rounding up and torturing non-natives, until they swore to leave and murdering them if not, would you find such a course of action moral and ethical?

    Perhaps I missed the answer since you don’t address who it is you’re talking to (hint, hint.) Anyway, I’d love your input as to whether the above is acceptable to you and your imaginary god.

  54. says

    throwaway:

    diby sursch – I asked you a question earlier: If the First Nations people were to ever become capable of rounding up and torturing non-natives, until they swore to leave and murdering them if not, would you find such a course of action moral and ethical?

    May I riff on your question a bit? Mr. Sursch or Pilty, whatever the case may be, if the Indigenous peoples of the U.S. and Canada all of a sudden had all the power, and rounded up all the non-indigenous people, subjected them to long, forced marches, then corralled them all into existing reservations, would that be okey dokey with you and that psycho god of yours?

  55. diby sursch says

    That’s not an accurate analogy at all. It would make sense, sure, if during those times of war, the Indians won. Catholics stopped the Muslims at France and then pushed back for the next 700 years. It was continual. It wasn’t as if they just decided one day to take back Spain. It happened gradually.

  56. says

    Spain is a whole different country from France. When you say the Catholics stopped the Muslims at France you’re really admitting that the Muslims took and held Spain for centuries.

  57. rq says

    Inaji

    if the Indigenous peoples of the U.S. and Canada all of a sudden had all the power, and rounded up all the non-indigenous people, subjected them to long, forced marches, then corralled them all into existing reservations, would that be okey dokey with you and that psycho god of yours?

    Why, only if they were catholic, of course! Because Catholics Are Always Right!

  58. rq says

    myeck waters
    Unless the Muslims were coming through Germany, or Italy. Because they could have, you know.

  59. omnicrom says

    I notice as well that diby gave a complete non-answer to the questions throwaway and inaji asked in 571 and 572. It’s understandable though, to answer the questions concretely would invite the accurate parallels diby wishes to avoid. The choices then are hypocrisy or providing proof positive of being absolutely vile, and diby refuses to let their ONE TRUE ATTRIBUTE be their vileness lest they taint all Catholics absolutely everywhere with the dibyverse’s rules of homogeneity.

  60. Rob Grigjanis says

    diby sursch @573:

    Catholics stopped the Muslims at France and then pushed back for the next 700 years.

    Of course, it was much more complicated than that. Local Muslim rulers enlisted aid from Christians against other Muslims, Christians sought Muslim allies against Christian rivals, and mercenaries of each faith fought for ‘the other side’. In other words, politics and war as usual. The mythologizing of the Reconquista began long after the Battle of Covadonga.

  61. says

    I’ll just take this chance to recommend this blog post; Coming Out as Feminist. A brief taste:

    See, I used to be the guy who didn’t like the word feminist. I thought it promoted inequality. By its very nomenclature, it was unequal. I thought it was “all about women.” I preferred words like humanist or equalist.

    However, whenever I started to bring up actual specifics, like pay discrepancies or gender portrayals or sexual assault or human trafficking or even the way traditional gender roles tend to disadvantage BOTH men and women in different ways, people would begin to use this word to describe me.

    “Feminist.”

    Oddly, this never happened when I brought up the inequalities of men. No one labeled me a masculist or called me out for ignoring the plight of women. As long as I was talking about men’s issues I was talking about human issues and general equality. Men’s issues were human issues. Women’s issues were well…you know…some chick thing.

    It’s a lot longer and it’s quite good.

  62. says

    Diby:
    Each time you comment, I expect a certain level of historical ignorance, bigotry, disdain for the rights of others, whining about catholics being treated like others (rather than given special treatment) or severe assholishness. You continue to meet, nay EXCEED my expectations.

    That you continually fail to condemn the institutionalized child sex abuse perpetrated by the RCC while being such a hateful smugnoramus is disgusting.
    That you would condemn me to a lifetime of subhuman status bc I am a man who sucks dick, but priests who rape children get a pass is vile.

  63. says

    Tony:

    That you continually fail to condemn the institutionalized child sex abuse perpetrated by the RCC while being such a hateful smugnoramus is disgusting.
    That you would condemn me to a lifetime of subhuman status bc I am a man who sucks dick, but priests who rape children get a pass is vile.

    If diby is yet another nym for pilty (Piltdown Man), that’s par for the course. The last time I remember him showing up here, he was “Mari O’Nette”, and ranting about how the only catholic priests molesting children were gay, and that yes, gay men needed to be routed from the church, because all gay men are pedophiles.

  64. says

    LykeX @ 579:

    I’ll just take this chance to recommend this blog post; Coming Out as Feminist.

    Bookmarked, thanks.

  65. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Diby, you hopefully have read about today’s human rights gain with gay marriage being legalized in Oregon. You are obviously a delusional homophobe.

    Your test, is to explain why gays getting married in Oregon hurts the Redhead’s and my 40+ years as a married couple, since we no evidence of any hurt since her gay cousin married his long-time partner. And when I first mentioned at a family reunion, that they sounded like an old married couple (het), the lights in some of the more religious folks eyes attending appeared to blink and open to real possibilities.

  66. Ichthyic says

    People like you are just fascists.

    people like you, RWAs, just can’t help utilizing projection as a defense mechanism.

  67. says

    @ Inaji

    … pilty (Piltdown Man) … Mari O’Nette …

    Did the (Dungeon) amnesty extend to pilty?

    Here are some anagrams of diby sursch: cushy birds, his buds cry, by his cruds ….


    Ichthyic

    RWAs, just can’t help utilizing projection as a defense mechanism.

    Yup, they are pretty desperate. Here is an analogy:

    If cognitive dissonance made a sound … Well, imagine living with the roar of a jet engine in your head 24/7/365.

  68. Ichthyic says

    Did the (Dungeon) amnesty extend to pilty?

    is that who this is?

    does not really seem like him; too subtle… (yes, that’s a joke).

  69. omnicrom says

    Oh my is this THE Piltdown man? They were before my time, so I’ve only ever heard pilty referred to in reverential tones as a platonic ideal of a boring, stupid, insipid troll. If this is indeed the legendary Piltdown Man I can now truly understand why they would be held in such honorably low regard, diby is a boring, stupid, insipid troll with few peers.

  70. Amphiox says

    That’s not an accurate analogy at all. It would make sense, sure, if during those times of war, the Indians won.

    Temporal might does not make right, dibsy.

    Shame on you. As a CATHOLIC you should have known that. It is only, oh, one of the foundational moral tenets of your so-called faith.

  71. says

    That’s not an accurate analogy at all. It would make sense, sure, if during those times of war, the Indians won.

    In that case, why do you accept the Jewish claim on Israel? They didn’t win. They lost one fight after another, losing more and more of their sovereignty until there wasn’t hardly an Israel left. Their state was occupied and finally annihilated, with the Jews spread to the wind.

    Israel hadn’t been under Jewish control for over a thousand years, so how do you defend their claim, while also denying the claim of the Native Americans?

  72. diby sursch says

    Because the Jews gave us God. The Jews are good. There’s a romance to the Jews having Israel. Plus, it’s better that the Muslims have turned their attention to Jews, so as to distract them in our time of spiritual bankruptcy. We won’t have to worry about more invasions.

  73. says

    Because the Jews gave us God. The Jews are good. There’s a romance to the Jews having Israel. Plus, it’s better that the Muslims have turned their attention to Jews, so as to distract them in our time of spiritual bankruptcy. We won’t have to worry about more invasions.

    It’s like playing chess, isn’t it? Everybody else is pawns, or maybe a rook, but you don’t mind sacrificing them because it’s not like they’re actual human beings.
    There’s obviously no crime you aren’t willing to defend for the greater good of being catholic.
    No mass-murder, genocide, rape, paedophelia, war. All good because god. Complete moral bacruptcy and yet you complain about other people.

  74. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Because the Jews gave us God.

    God doesn’t exist until you provide conclusive physical evidence for it. Presupposition is dismissed as fuckwittery. And why any moral based on a phantasm can be dismissed to.

  75. azhael says

    It’s so nice of you to acknowledge that god is human-made and that your mythology is derived from jewish mythology.. Seriously, i couldn’t have put it better. The jews invented your god.

  76. says

    diby:

    Because the Jews gave us God.

    Bzzzt! Wrong answer.
    So sorry.
    If you weren’t such a bigoted assclam, I’d offer a consolation prize. As it stands, you’re getting coal in your stocking.
    The correct answer is “Human beings created the god of the bible. As with all other gods, there is insufficient evidence to support the belief that it exists.”
    Still waiting on you to provide evidence that any god exists–and NO, the bible does not count as evidence. Until you do so, your claims will be dismissed.

    Also still waiting on the evidence to back up pretty much every other claim you’ve made. Your smugness is misplaced, bc your assertions do not match reality.

    Oh, and feel free to apologize for your homophobia and misogyny too. I’ll even help you out. Your apology should look very similar to this:
    “I am sorry for making homophobic and misogynistic comments.”

  77. rq says

    There’s a romance to the Jews having Israel.

    There’s a romance to the Muslims occupying Spain.

  78. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    PZ gave Diby the banhammer over on the Oregon thread.

  79. Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. says

    Because the Jews gave us God. The Jews are good.

    I hope everyone notices the racism in this statement. ‘The Jews are good.’ Which, I guess, in Pilty’s diby’s mind, means that American Indians are not.

    The level of racism and bigotry, coupled with the expectation that Catholics should be allowed to use public streets, be served by public safety organizations for their parades, and ignore the laws of the land, coupled with the idea that despite accepting state and federal money, the RCC can ignore the law, all adds up to one large heaping pile of bullshit (not the useful stuff — his bullshit is infested with things you do not want growing in your garden).

  80. chigau (違う) says

    Tony!
    specduckular’s particular schtick doesn’t seem familar to me.

  81. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    specduckular’s particular schtick doesn’t seem familar to me.

    I think it’s MRA script #25, one of the more subtle ones.

  82. Mr.Diby StillObjects says

    [Diby was banned for being a bigoted asshole. The person named Diby, not the pseudonym. You don’t get to come back under a different name. Stay away, don’t come back, all of your comments will be deleted. YOU ARE BANNED, JERK. Why is it so hard for trolls to comprehend that? –pzm]

  83. consciousness razor says

    Thunderdome puts the lotion on its skin, or it gets the Diby again.

  84. Owlmirror says

    FWIW. . .

    Having argued with Pilt for many years, my take is that dilby does not seem to have the same style as Pilt. I suspect that dilby is a morph of a different troll, but I am not sure which one.

    Pilt has been going by “jonathangray” on the rest of FTB, where, so far as I know, he is not banned.

    An exhibit of his more recent bizarre eructations is here. I didn’t continue arguing with him (or mocking him) because I didn’t have the time, and because he’s rather sickening. Plus I consider it a victory that I got him to blaspheme the church.

  85. says

    This doesn’t have anything to do with the previous discussion here, but I thought it went well with the previous threads about the use of the word cunt and that silly idea that it is not sexist language in Britain. I have been watching a documentary presented by Lucy Worsley and stumbled across this page when trying to find some more information:

    http://is-a-cunt.com/2013/10/lucy-worsley/

    for a word that apparently does not have sexists and sexual connotations in Britain there is an awful lot of focus on how she looks, and the question, “But is it fuckable?”. In addition, the comments are all about whether the commenters would have sex with her.

  86. says

    Diby has entered the post-banning, frequent re-registration under a different pseudonym phase of trolldom. Four pseudonyms so far, all squashed, and will continue to be deleted for as long as he persists.

    I really can’t stand bigots.

  87. says

    “The Jews gave us God”?

    I’m LOLLing at an instant mental image of Jon Stewart as “Jewish Gramma,” going, “Honey, I got you a present…”

    “Oh Gramma, you shouldn’t have!”

  88. The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge says

    Since Diby’s been banned from the Oregon thread (well, not just there), I’ll just dump this here. I’m sure he’s still lurking.

    Your support of a “vote of the people” to limit someone else’s rights, as long as you agree with that limitation, is very short-sighted. You do realize that for at least the first 3/4 of the history of Anglo-America, if Catholicism could have been outlawed by “a vote of the people”, it would have been, right?

    That’s why I wanted your take on the Gunpowder Plot. When Jamestown was founded, it hadn’t even been two years since a plot by Catholics, led by a Papal agent sent directly from Rome to blow up the King and both Houses of Parliament had been foiled at the last minute. You say it was perfectly reasonable for Ferdinand and Isabella to set up the Spanish Inquisition because of fear of a Muslim revanche in Spain? Why shouldn’t English colonists have been terrified of Catholicism?

    Then for most of the next two centuries, Indian raiding parties from Canada, frequently lead by Catholic priests, murdered and kidnapped English settlers. It’s really a miracle Catholicism wasn’t outlawed specifically in the Constitution. Fortunately the Founders™ lived in a more enlightened age and enshrined religious freedom in the Bill of Rights.

    Most important of all, the Bill of Rights guarantees that your rights, my rights, everybody’s rights, are not determined by a “vote of the people”. What do you think “votes of the people” would have done after 9/11? The same thing they would have done after the Gunpowder Plot. If votes of the people could take away religious freedom, you and your co-religionists would have been in deep shit for most of American history. Instead, you get to spread your toxic swill anywhere you want. If you annoy one blog owner, you can switch to another.

  89. Amphiox says

    Because the Jews gave us God.

    Since when can any person or group of people “give” the creator of the Universe?

    And he called himself a catholic??!!

  90. The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge says

    Is it wrong of me to want to send diby over to Dispatches, to get into a kook fight with heddle?

  91. CJO says

    Since when can any person or group of people “give” the creator of the Universe?

    It was an early form of “re-gifting”

    Sarah: “Abe, what’s this tatty old thing in the back of the closet?”
    Abraham: “Oh, that. Says it’s ‘I am what I am.’ Cryptic bloke. Grandiose. Full of half-assed promises.”
    “Do you want to keep it?” (holds it away from self, looks dubious)
    “No, I don’t really have any use for it, to be honest. Felt bad about throwing it away. Seemed sincere, if a little… out of touch.”
    “Well, maybe the Horowitzes would like it….”

  92. The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge says

    Oh, that. Says it’s ‘I am what I am.’ Cryptic bloke.

    Popeye the Sailor Man is God? <boggles>

  93. says

    The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:

    Is it wrong of me to want to send diby over to Dispatches, to get into a kook fight with heddle?

    To the best of my memory, I’ve only interacted with heddle a handful of times-and that was years ago-so I don’t remember anything other than him being a theist. What would they fight over?

    btw, is it ok to shorten your ‘nym?

  94. The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge says

    Tony! Please feel free to call me anything you like. I’m tired of the ‘nym now, but I’m too lazy to change it. (Most people don’t remember the Unitarian Jihad now anyway.)

    I didn’t want to get into the discussion on the fatties thread about whether their choice for the new Wonder Woman is physically right for the part, but some people were just born to play certain parts—and Shelly Duvall was born to play Olive Oyl! (Just as John Goodman was born to play Fred Flintstone.)

  95. Ichthyic says

    Diby has entered the post-banning, frequent re-registration under a different pseudonym phase of trolldom. Four pseudonyms so far, all squashed, and will continue to be deleted for as long as he persists.

    He and old Pilty shared quite a few personality traits.

  96. The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge says

    Heddle jumps on every thread on Dispatches that retails an atrocity committed in the name of Christianity with a continuous barrage of No True Scotsman arguments (and when someone calls him on that: “Nuh-uh!” arguments) followed by theological arguments from an extreme Calvinist POV*. Once he starts up, there’s no stopping him. I look at the comment count on posts…17, 23, 14, 125…uh, oh, heddle’s loose!

    *Although I don’t know if his position that the Second Person of the Trinity (Jesus Christ, that is) created the universe 4,000-13,800,000,000 years before he was born is standard Calvinist theology or not. If he believes the Universe was created by a demiurge, that makes him a Cathar or Gnostic, but then he denies he said what he just said! I thought he and diby might have some interesting discussions.

    He is on record that if he thought his God ordered him to commit genocide, he would—he’s said it more than once, but as usual denies it when called on it.

  97. Ichthyic says

    Because the Jews gave us God.

    always good to see the religious realizing that their god was nothing more than an invention; even less than the standard primary plot device of a modern fiction novel.

  98. Rob Grigjanis says

    The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge @621:

    Most people don’t remember the Unitarian Jihad now anyway

    Some of us remember well.

    /Blessed Thompson Submachine of Compassion

  99. The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge says

    Boy, diby’s morpha-palooza is leaning heavily on “Mr. Diby StillObjects” and “Mr. Diby StillCertainlyObjects”. My quoting of H. G. Wells’ takedown of Belloc must really have gotten under his skin! Good.

  100. Owlmirror says

    He is on record that if he thought his God ordered him to commit genocide, he would—he’s said it more than once,

    I’ve argued with heddle a lot, too, and that doesn’t look like something he’s ever said even once, or would say at all.

  101. says

    x posted to the Lounge-

    I’m at home being completely unproductive (I need to get *something* done today). I have the radio playing in the background and suddenly I hear the radio host mention a new product: drinkable sunscreen.
    This was quite jarring, so I figured I’d check it out.
    The Guardian has something to say about The Mail’s reporting on this product.
    From The Mail (www.dailymail.co.uk/ *):

    The days of carrying bottles of suncream to the beach could be over, as the world’s first drinkable SPF is launched.
    Harmonised H20 UV claims to provide holidaymakers with up to factor 30 protection, meaning sunbathers could be able to soak up the rays for longer without fear of getting burned.
    Once ingested, the product’s liquid molecules vibrate on the skin, cancelling out 97 per cent of UVA and UVB rays, according to US company Osmosis Skincare.
    […]
    Dr Ben Johnson, who founded the company, adds in his blog: ‘If 2 mls are ingested an hour before sun exposure, the frequencies that have been imprinted on water will vibrate on your skin in such a way as to cancel approximately 97% of the UVA and UVB rays before they even hit your skin.
    ‘This results in coverage for approximately three hours.
    ‘This is similar to the amount of UV reflection created by SPF 30 titanium/zinc sunblocks but distinctly better than UVB chemical sunscreens which prevent certain damage that leads to the visible/painful/inflammation reaction we identify as sun damage.’

    *The Mail’s site contains something called donotlink.com. I’ve never seen this before. The link says:

    Who uses donotlink?
    Skeptics, bloggers, journalists and friends on social media use donotlink to link to scams, pseudoscience, misinformation, alternative medicine, conspiracy theories, racist / sexist blog posts, etc. without improving the search engine position of the site they are discussing.

    Interesting.

  102. cm's changeable moniker (quaint, if not charming) says

    H. G. Wells’ takedown of Belloc

    I didn’t say ‘thank you’ for that, and I should have. So, thank you. It’s sharp, witty, and often hilarious, e.g.:

    Mr. Belloc’s next Argument from Evidence is a demand from the geologist for a continuous “series of changing forms passing one into the other.” He does not want merely “intermediate forms,” he says; he wants the whole series–grandfather, father, and son. He does not say whether he insists upon a pedigree with the bones and proper certificates of birth, but I suppose it comes to that. This argument, I am afraid, wins, hands down. Mr. Belloc may score the point. The reprehensible negligence displayed by the lower animals in the burial of their dead, or even the proper dating of their own remains, leaves the apologist for the Theory of Natural Selection helpless before this simple requisition.

    I think this might have been what medic0506 was after. ;-)

    Also, apparently, I’m “Father Smith & Wesson of Mercy”, which, interpreted literally, would be illegal where I live. (The firearms part, not the mercy.) So, erm, keep that schtum, kay?

  103. says

    Tony:

    Dr Ben Johnson, who founded the company, adds in his blog: ‘If 2 mls are ingested an hour before sun exposure, the frequencies that have been imprinted on water will vibrate on your skin in such a way as to cancel approximately 97% of the UVA and UVB rays before they even hit your skin.
    ‘This results in coverage for approximately three hours.

    Jesus Effin’ Christ. Hello, skin cancer!

  104. says

    Inaji:
    Yep.

    More reporting on this:

    Dr. Daniel Aires, a dermatologist at the University of Kansas Hospital, says the best way to protect your skin from the sun is to cover it with clothing or a hat and sunscreen.
    When he heard about drinkable sunscreen, made by Harmonized H2O, Dr. Aires was skeptical.
    On its website, the company claims the harmonized water is a combination of waters that contain different vibrational frequencies. The company claims those different frequencies harmonize the internal imbalances in the body. Basically, the company claims one of its harmonized water products protects your skin from UV rays.
    The company says you can use 2 mL every three hours for it to be effective. Dr. Aires says if the water could actually prevent sun damage, it’d be revolutionary.
    “If anyone had figured out a way to make water vibrate and cancel out radiation, that person would be up for a Nobel Prize, they wouldn’t be trying to sell drinkable sunscreens,” said Dr. Daniel Aires.
    http://fox4kc.com/2014/05/19/drinkable-sunscreen-creates-interest-draws-skepticism/

    Even HuffPo was critical of this pseudoscience product:

    While the company notes on its website that the Food and Drug Administration has not evaluated the claims, Johnson, who is not a dermatologist, told HuffPost that his company tested the stuff. Subjects were told to drink the Harmonized Water and apply conventional sunblock on most exposed parts of their body while leaving one limb free of any substance. After sun exposure, the limb without a topical sunblock was compared to the rest of the body.

    “We believe this is testing at SPF 30 or higher,” he said.

    The company website contains several positive testimonials, but some experts are skeptical.

    New York dermatologist Dr. Jessica Krant told HuffPost the products are “totally unsubstantiated pseudoscience” that “do not list any active ingredients anywhere publicly available that might suggest true efficacy in any kind of protection from sun damage.” (The company lists the ingredients as “Distilled Water, Multiple Vibrational Frequency Blends.”) Krant added that “even known oral antioxidants that can provide some protection from the sun are not able to achieve more than a few notches of SPF protection from UVB rays.”

    Dr. David J. Leffell, professor of dermatology and surgery at the Yale School of Medicine, wrote to HuffPost: “Being very familiar with the biology of ultraviolet radiation and the skin, I would be very suspicious that this product would not be validated scientifically. Moreover, why would you want to take something that affects your whole system when you are dealing with what is effectively a surface issue?”
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/19/drinkable-sunscreen_n_5351851.html

    Checking out Dr. Ben Johnson’s website where he sells this (and other skin care products), I found that I cannot access the published research on their products unless I register (and even then I’m not guaranteed access).

    http://www.osmosisskincare.com/PublishedResearch.aspx
    Our published research archive is only available to registered professionals. To access the materials in this section, please login.

    If you do not currently have an account on our website, register now.

    Please note, customers must first complete the registration form and be approved. This is a necessary precaution taken in order to protect our customers. Once approved, you will have access to purchase and view professional only content. Approval generally takes 1-2 business days. You will receive an email once your account has been approved.

    I guess potential customers are supposed to accept the anecdotes as evidence of the efficacy of his products. Yeahbutno.

  105. says

    Tony quoth:

    I would be very suspicious that this product would not be validated scientifically.

    Oh for pity’s sake, why mince words? It’s water, nothing more, and it’s damned obvious it wouldn’t work.

  106. Ichthyic says

    the company claims the harmonized water is a combination of waters that contain different vibrational frequencies. The company claims those different frequencies harmonize the internal imbalances in the body.

    ugh.

    there is so much wrong my brain refuses to even TRY to parse a response beyond…

    ugh.

  107. Owlmirror says

    Re “drinkable sunscreen” — I bet it all boils down to the priming effect of homeopathy. Water is magic! It can absorb “energy” from substances and that “energy” can cure illness!

    If you already believe that, it’s not much of a leap to believing that something in water that’s drunk can magically block UV.

    Bah.

  108. Ichthyic says

    It’s likely the government here in NZ would file suit against them for public endangerment for this “product”.

    not kidding.

    UV is nothing to fuck around with down here.

    you really can’t stay out in the direct sun in the summer for more than about 30 mins without some kind of protection here.

    I’m already noticing I have 50% more skin lesions related to UV exposure, and I’ve only been here 5 years!

    pretty much the only significant downside I have experienced to living here. I grew up practically on the beach in SoCal; spending 4 or 5 hours at a time playing volleyball or just laying out.

    not here, at least, not without either full sunscreen or a shirt on.

  109. Ichthyic says

    Once he starts up, there’s no stopping him.

    which is why I am still glad he no longer posts here.

    I seem him on Ed’s blog from time to time, where he does the same exact thing you describe.

    it matters not how many times you walk him through, step by step, pointing out to him why his arguments are nothing but projections on his part.

    like you said…. NUH UH!! is his primary, and only, defense any more.

    it’s too bad really, as most blogs could use more input from people with serious backgrounds in physics.

    …but not Heddle. He just can’t help himself.

  110. says

    Using donotlink.com to cite a website hides the original http referrer, so that anyone looking at the logs at that site can’t easily tell where traffic has come from – which would easily allow a reverse attack. Secondarily, a donotlink URL on a reputable site that is used to conceal the link to a disreputable site means there won’t be a benefit in Google rankings from that site being linked. As an example, David Futrelle at Manboobz wehuntedthemammoth.com cites the worst of the MRA websites using donotlink. It won’t necessarily stop a determined attempt to analyse traffic but it makes it far less easy for the bad sites to identify it.

  111. Ichthyic says

    He is on record that if he thought his God ordered him to commit genocide, he would—he’s said it more than once,

    …that sounds more like Vox Day.

    Heddle is more along the lines of:

    Xians can’t be doing “X” because I don’t do “X” and I’m a xian.

    In fact, he probably has indeed come into a thread on Vox Day and made the Scottsman’s argument… against Vox Day!

  112. Ichthyic says

    . What do you think “votes of the people” would have done after 9/11? The same thing they would have done after the Gunpowder Plot.

    or after Pearl Harbor….

  113. Snoof says

    Since the current chewtoy has met their inevitable end, a recent thought:

    I’ve seen it argued (usually by apologists for killing) that the biblical injunction “Thou shalt not kill” should better be translated as “Thou shalt not murder”. They then go on to define “murder” as “unlawful killing”.

    Is it me, or does this completely remove any meaning from the commandment? If something is unlawful, it’s already forbidden. This basically reduces the commandment to “thou shalt not do that thing you’re already forbidden from doing”. With those definitions, it’s not an law or commandment at all, it’s merely a reminder that other laws already exist.

    (“Thou shalt not kill” may have problems as a moral stricture, but at least it actually suggests/proscribes a course of action.)

  114. says

    Hi Tony!

    Predictably, I saw the parallel discussion about this on the Lounge after I’d posted my response here. And there’s one other thing I have to say about donotlink links – when you visit a site your web browser exchanges all sorts of information you may not want to disclose, so if presented with a donotlink that I want to examine myself, I know to use the ‘stealth’ or ‘incognito’ mode of my web browser, which won’t accept cookies, won’t be able to use the login status of my WordPress, Google, or Twitter accounts, and so on.

  115. The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge says

    Snoof @ 641: These people must have seen the signs on all public housing complexes around here: “Loitering and illegal activity prohibited in this area”. I always think to myself: “Isn’t the essence of illegal activity that it’s prohibited in every area?” They would just derive a new meaning of the word “prohibited”.

  116. chigau (違う) says

    I want my friends to stop dying.
    Don’t they understand how inconvenient it is?
    ‘course it’s just the old, decrepit ones
    stroke on Monday, dead by Thursday
    pancreatic cancer diagnosed on the 1st, dead by the 19th
    しかたがない。

  117. ChasCPeterson says

    UV is nothing to fuck around with down here.

    ?
    Why is that? It’s a generally higher latiitude than Southern California.
    Ozone hole?

  118. The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge says

    Chigau @ 644:

    Wow! I’m really sorry. That sucks!

    There’s no such thing as “luck”, but it sounds like statistics have fluctuated you upside the head for some little while. Here’s hoping they fluctuate the other way for longer.

  119. ChasCPeterson says

    There’s no such thing as “luck”

    ?
    Of course there is. What does it even mean to claim otherwise?

  120. The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge says

    ChasCPeterson @ 645:

    I wondered about that too. Here’s “Ask an Expert” from A(ustralian)BC Science:

    The stratosphere in the southern hemisphere — the layer of atmosphere where the ozone layer lies, 15 to 50 kilometres above the Earth’s surface — is about five degrees Celsius colder than in the northern hemisphere.

    “We get more ice in the stratosphere in the southern hemisphere, making the ozone-depleting chemicals more potent,” Fraser says.

    “This leads to that disparity between hemispheres as far as ozone [depletion] is concerned since it’s not the level of chemicals that is driving them, but the ability of those chemicals to deplete ozone.”

    I suspect this is because the Southern Hemisphere is higher than the Northern—everybody knows the Earth bulges at the equator, but also it doesn’t go back down quite all the way south of the equator. It’s as if the Earth were a globe made out of two halves that were slightly different sizes.

  121. The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge says

    Chas @ 647:

    ?
    Of course there is. What does it even mean to claim otherwise?

    “Luck” is when the laws of probability don’t operate. If you believe in “luck” you must also believe there are ways to “change” your “luck”. Wearing the right sweater, praying to YHWH, whatever.

    “Luck” means the game is rigged.

  122. chigau (違う) says

    The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
    Ináji
    Thanks.
    I’m going to bed.

  123. says

    chigau
    Big hugs

    +++

    Once ingested, the product’s liquid molecules vibrate on the skin, cancelling out 97 per cent of UVA and UVB rays, according to US company Osmosis Skincare.

    How on earth is that even supposed to be possible?
    How long does it need for the water to get to my skin from my belly? And how does it get onto my skin anyway? Do I need to do a run to get sweaty? And if I get sweaty, does it wear off (or go for a swim). Seriously, anybody who buys this should not count legally as an adult

  124. Ichthyic says

    Ozone hole?

    big time.

    UV radiation here has increased by about 15% over the last 20 years (on average, some days worse than others), though it seems to be stabilizing a bit recently.

    odd, but just that apparently small increase is VERY noticeable on your skin.

    like I said… you burn inside of 20 mins here if you are fair skinned. I have friends from India who even complain about it; they’re shocked that the sun actually bothers them here, and they can’t stay outside for very long.

  125. Ichthyic says

    actually, it’s not directly “the hole” so much as the influence of it over Antarctica, but in the end, it ends up being the same thing.

  126. knowknot says

    @ 641 Snoof
    Re: “thou shalt not kill”
     
    You’re in your cubicle. The phone keeps ringing. People come by and talk to you about assorted nonsense. Email is a swamp. You go to lunch and become more distracted than you already were. As a result, you forget stuff. In order to remember important points, you put post-it notes up on your wall.
     
    There weren’t any office supply stores in the desert, so the post-it stone was created. It stuck to stuff.
    (Also, lunch fell out of the ceiling.)
     
    Solved.

  127. rorschach says

    but just that apparently small increase is VERY noticeable on your skin.

    Australia has the highest skin cancer incidence in the world, with NZ not far behind. It’s a deadly combination of a population consisting of lots of anglo-saxon whities with type 1-2 skin, and a relentless sun beaming down through a weak ozone layer.

    My transition to skin cancer specialist will be complete within a year or two, it’s a nice job, wielding a handheld microscope some days, cutting out moles on others.

    The science of it is quite fascinating, actually, and high-magnification pics of skin cancers are just as beautiful as space images from Hubble, if in a morbid way.

    And I say that as someone who used to get a thrill only out of resuscitating people.

  128. Ichthyic says

    My transition to skin cancer specialist will be complete within a year or two, it’s a nice job, wielding a handheld microscope some days, cutting out moles on others.

    good luck with that, it’s surely needed!

    hell, I may come for a visit once you set up your practice.

  129. rorschach says

    once you set up your practice.

    The holdup is that besides getting a university degree in skin cancer medicine while working full time in general practice, you need to acquire fellowship of the GP college first, which involves another exam.

    And right now I neither have the time or money to do both(while working as apprentice in general practice, 35-40% of your earnings is decucted from your pre-tax pay to remain with the clinic, not dissimilar to hookers working in a brothel).

    But yeah, the goal is somewhat in my sight. I never thought I would ever be able to actually do a job that I enjoy. Might actually happen after all.

  130. Snoof says

    knownknot @ 656
    That’s kind of my point. It turns “thou shalt not kill” from a commandment against a specific course of action (killing) to a mere reminder that other laws exist, somewhere. As such, it can’t possibly be the basis of any sort of system of morality or law, since it doesn’t actually have any moral meaning in itself.

    Antiochus Epiphanes @ 662

    In a trivial sense, all sunblock is drinkable.

    But not all sunblock is drinkable more than once.

  131. rorschach says

    PZ is going to close this one in a minute anyway, so I’m a going to get a nice song in before close of play, in the tradition of the endless thread…

    Day Dream Believer

    To embed, or not embed?? I’m curious myself.

  132. twas brillig (stevem) says

    In a trivial sense, all sunblock is drinkable.

    [Capt. Obvious here]: but once drank, does it still block the sun? That a sunblock is safe to drink does not make it a drinkable sunblock. The “drinkable sunblock” is the homeopathic version; of course you can drink water, but the homeopathy nature of it will block the UV before it even hits your skin. How the water in your blood produces a StarTrek energy shield is the homeopathy/mystery part. How could anyone ever accept this as real?

  133. says

    I remember once I was sitting in a library in VT, in a sunny reading alcove, and my skin started to tingle. I thought, Wow, my skin feels just like it did when I got off the plane in NZ.

    That night and the following night was the biggest display of aurora borealis I’ve ever seen in the northeast.

  134. rq says

    chigau
    So sorry. :(
    *hugs with rum* are on offer, and *chocolate covered sour cherries*

  135. knowknot says

    Chigau:
    Understood, at least to some degree.
    May some form of beauty overtake everything else, and may the wake of those lives be part of it.

  136. chigau (違う) says

    Diby’s in more than one thread at Ed’s.
    PZ, you should apologise.

  137. morgan ?! epitheting a metaphor says

    chigau,

    I’m so sorry to hear your sad news. Hugs and comfort.

  138. Dhorvath, OM says

    chigau,
    Hard news. I will raise a rum for you at my earliest convenience.

  139. David Marjanović says

    Hm. I thought diby was much stupider than Piltdown Man. But comment 591 is so far over the top it could actually be Piltdown Man parodizing himself to troll us. But the morphing is not so much like him (in the last 5 years).

    Last time he was here, he commented simply as “Alex” and was logged in via Facebook. He’s *shudder* married and has two daughters.

    —basically Franco wanted French Morocco and Oran in return for entering the war, Hitler didn’t want to aggravate Pétain by giving them to him. The quote was supposedly to Mussolini afterwards.

    Ah, that makes sense.

    In the process, I found this […] a very interesting article on the meeting. I love that Franco was expecting German Wunderwaffen to win the war up until the last minute—he thought they were going to harness the power of Cosmic Rays!

    LOL! Now I’m imagining Hitler facepalming that Franco actually believed the propaganda!

    …No. Not Hitler. Hitler believed it, too.

    Plus I consider it a victory that I got him to blaspheme the church.

    + 1
    (And an entertaining read that is, too!)

    Dr Ben Johnson, who founded the company, adds in his blog: ‘If 2 mls are ingested an hour before sun exposure, the frequencies that have been imprinted on water will vibrate on your skin in such a way as to cancel approximately 97% of the UVA and UVB rays before they even hit your skin.

    I can tell that Dr Johnson doesn’t know that UVC exists. What did he get his doctorate in…?

    Tony quoth:

    That meaneth he sayeth, not he quoteth.

  140. Ichthyic says

    35-40% of your earnings is decucted from your pre-tax pay to remain with the clinic, not dissimilar to hookers working in a brothel

    O.o

  141. says

    Tony! This was noticed on Facebook also, where Ophelia gave an explanation. He is banned, or rather his comments automatically go to moderation, where they exist at Ophelia’s plaisir. Ophelia let that comment through because it was such a witless, foolish mistake of a comment – it serves as a negative example of the quality of his posts. Apparently Steerstroll was emboldened to post a much longer comment as is his wont, and this did not please Ophelia nearly so much – he is a tedious ass.