It’s always good to see more atheist role models in the media.
(Episode CCLVIII: A message from Obama.)
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
It’s always good to see more atheist role models in the media.
(Episode CCLVIII: A message from Obama.)
My impression of that episode is that Dexter is an emotionless monster who thinks believing in God is silly, but if it helps his Kid then okay! Pretty much the opposite of the kind of atheists I want on TV.
Aaah, fresh thread. Just in time for me to be thinking about heading to bed. Imma tired of work.
I love Dexter and this season will be fantastic if it underpins how ridiculous religion is.
@ SQB
Far too modern for Prof. Poopyhead. We need to get positively medieval on his
tentaclesears.(Linky: Portcullis)
Play teh pipes, beat the drums (and dogs) and sing along: “Portcullis, portcullis,…. *clap, clap* … portcullis, portcullis…!”
@ Benjamin
“Fish & Chips” Pizza (Image to follow
after the portcullissoon.)Schitte ikke warren geportcullisedt!
*Kindly ignore the above, it is now irrelevant.*
Hm, maybe I should start watching Dexter again. I’ve only seen the first season in the whole, and bits and peaces of later seasons. I forgot how much I liked his no-nonsense ways.
Brice, why so?
I kinda agree with Brice.
The three most notable atheists on American TV today are a serial killer, a certified Jerk With a Heart of an Even Bigger Jerk, and an alcoholic anthropomorphic dog.
Not a lot of “you can be good without God”. Plenty of “you can be a complete and utter jerkass without God” though.
[Dexter]
The lady in the audience in the next video is better. (ignore the title) Linky.
@ Benjamin
Fish ‘n Chips Pizza: Home made speltdough pizza with rosemary potatoes and anchovies + onion, olives and olive oil. Delicious. *burp*
Picture
I tend to agree with Brice and Benjamin. Sure atheists are making appearances, but they’re all anti-hero’s, miscreants and the socially dysfunctional. It’s a form of demonisation for the atheist to also be a serial killer.
Why can’t one of the other, nondescript characters turn around after the conversation ends and quietly whisper to Dexter; “Yeah, you know, It kinda gets on my nerve when he starts talking all of that Catholic bullshit. Personally I’m an atheist, I don’t see any evidence, and I certainly don’t think children should be subjected to that kind of indoctrination.”
Just to clarify for the pop-culture-deficient: we’re talking about the serial-killer character, right?
This Dexter-atheism connection can be interpreted two opposite ways. One might think that Dexter is a monster, a serial killing maniac, who couldn’t stop killing because he never got to learn Christianity. Dexter himself seems to admit to this fact, by encouraging a religious upbringing for his kid (who Dexter wants to grow up normally, not a killer like himself).
Dexter might be perceived as a hero to society, sending criminals to the hell were they belong. And his simple ignorance of religion, the fact that he’s never really thought about it that much, can indicate that religion isn’t necessary or relevant to the life of a hero. Dexter is not just being altruistic, he has a strict set of rules to abide by, very similar to that of commandments.
_______________________________________________________________
This split of interpretations will most likely continue throughout the series.
Dexter is clearly the good-guy/hero of the show. He hardly every kills people that don’t deserve it. (Just like most educated atheists!)
On top of that, he is clearly smarter than everyone else on the show. If the sharpest character on the show is the one that says religious ideas ‘make no sense’, then I’m for it!
Gotta love Hollywood atheists. If not monsters, we’re jerks.
ChasCPeterson,
We are talking about the serial killer character. Dialogues like the one in the post are what makes the character appealing, and what I meant by no-nonsense ways. Not the killing part. Which now makes little sense since being a serial killer pretty much defines the character. OK, singing praises for Dexter does sound a bit disturbing, but it is a good series.
Aye, this is just more Hollywood Atheism, quite frankly.
Remember, the serial killer is the one who does not have this need for god in his heart. Just a coincidence I’m sure.
I must admit, it IS irritating that there rarely is a decent atheist in american television, that the atheist must always be depicted as a flaw, or as otherwise the consequence or even the cause of other character flaws.
And generally speaking, even when you DO get a decent atheistic (or agnostic) character, they’re usually atheists because of some traumatic event, and YOU KNOW the writers are planning for that character to find their faith again once they start feeling better (look at Firefly for example, and Mal’s own little issues with religion. Had that show gone on long enough, you can bet he’d have found religion again *grin*).
Quite frankly, and maybe this is just my modern-culture ignorance speaking, but it feels like the last decent atheist I’ve seen on mainstream American television is Carl Sagan.
Itkovian
“The three most notable atheists on American TV today are a serial killer, a certified Jerk With a Heart of an Even Bigger Jerk, and an alcoholic anthropomorphic dog.”
Probably the most famous atheist on American TV is Kurt on “Glee.” He’s both unabashedly gay and unabashedly atheist. Now that my daughter’s off at school we don’t watch it, but last I saw of him he was steadfastly resisting the easy answers that his peers wanted to inflict on him.
My take is that Dexter knows he’s abnormal, and he really sucks at figuring out what is normal, so he’s just blindly accepting what other people tell him. He’s so broken inside that he needs help figuring out what normal people do like a blind person needs help with color coordination, and he’s got to take what he’s told about being normal on just as much faith. Angel and Deb say raising a kid with religion is what normal people do, so Dexter is going to go along with that. If Angel and Deb had told him that religion wasn’t important to a normal upbringing, then he’d believe that, too.
Yeah, I figured. Probably a big part of the whole appeal is that the writers work hard to portray an utterly loathesome amoral killer in a nevertheless sympathetic light.
Put that way, it kind of reminds me of the Old Testament.
I am a huge fan of Dexter, and I think that some of the concern about the portrayal of an atheist character is warranted..
…however, the most fascinating part of his character, and the series as a whole, is that they DON’T demonize him.
I’ve always thought of it as a modern super hero story turned on its head; all super heros kill “bad” guys, it’s just that Dexter does it with knives and not with POWs and BAMs. For all his social deviancy and moral questioning, his victims, in almost every instance, are portrayed as far more despicable than Dexter. The moral ambiguity of his actions is what drives the show, and that’s why I think the portrayal of his presumed atheism is more complex than just “he’s an atheist; of course he’s a serial killer.”
For the benefit of us non-USAians, who are you talking about, besides Dexter?
Waaaay behind, as usual, but I just wanted to wish your wife all the best, ‘Tis Himself. Hope she’s recovering well (waiting on, hand and foot sounds good!)
Hi. Can you support this: http://www.avaaz.org/en/the_world_vs_wall_st/?fpla
Thank you.
Well, the alcoholic dog would presumably be Brian from Family Guy.
No idea about the jerk though…
Dexter is a sociopath. He doesn’t think like normal people. He tries to blend in by acting like the people, by trying to work out the rules or society. By using logic, as it were.
Which is why religion makes no sense to him.
I’m guessing that the Jerk is Dr. House.
Hey, wait, you’re all forgetting Lisa Simpson: smart, intelligent, female, atheist.
And isn’t Bones an atheist, too?
Unfortunately, I have to admit that I am with Brice Gilbert on this. I enjoy Dexter, but the character could hardly be called an atheist role model. As Benjamin “Acts of Baker” Geiger @ 7 points out, the vast majority of fictional atheists on the small and large screens (in those rare instances where atheists are acknowledged to exist at all) are not merely flawed but actively depicted as broken, and usually more so than other characters. Brian from Family Guy is a socially dysfunctional alcoholic who is wholly incapable of sustaining any kind of meaningful relationship and tends toward bitter, directionless cynicism and the anthropomorphised dog equivilant of a mid-life crisis. His relationship with Stewie is also deeply and wierdly co-dependent.
As for Dexter, this is a blood-fixated serial killer character who has a quite literally sociopathic lack of personal morality. He exists by a ‘code’ handed down by his adopted father – he is a ‘hero’ by accident, and the show makes it clear that he could just as easily have been a monster if the cards had fallen slightly differently. Furthermore, the part in the video where the Angel character says that faith is something you feel is significant – the Dexter character has a long-standing difficulty with social interaction and often states that he has to ‘fake’ emotions because he feels nothing. It seems likely that the writers of the show are pitching Dexter’s lack of religion as a side-effect of his emotional incapacity – the tired old atheist-as-emotionless-spock trope writ large.
Sadly, some theists may snidely agree that Dexter is an atheist role-model – they would smugly claim that Dexter kills because he knows no better, because one ‘cannot be good without god’, and that he is simply a fictionalised extreme expression of the nature of all atheists – broken, amoral people who lack empathy and humanity.
This is, of course, the height of bigotted, blinkered stupidity, but that will not stop them saying it, nor will it stop the general public believing them, especially with cultural reinforcement of this misconception provided by the depiction of atheism in mainstream media.
Perhaps Dexter’s principle redeeming factor is that he tries to be a good father to Harrison but, as pointed out upthread, Dexter’s approach to protecting Harrison from becoming as damaged as him is a religious upbringing. This seems to be clearly positioning even Dexter himself as viewing his atheism as ‘bad’ and religion as ‘good’. At the very best faithist drivel, at the worst out-and-out demonisation of atheism.
Make no mistake, shows like Dexter are most certainly not setting out to help us. The atheist character is almost always shorthand for a damaged, unsympathetic or even dangerous figure or, even worse, for a character heading for a nauseatingly trite ‘personal salvation’.
jeebus @ 16;
Two points:-
1) It is way too early to pass judgement. Give it a couple more seasons. There is plenty of time for the writers to subvert the apparent ‘good guy’ status of the character. It is unlikely that they will go after his sexuality due to the show’s demographic, and that leaves his atheism as the obvious target.
2) Even if this character is an exception, that doesn’t alter the fact that the majority of atheist characters in television and film are depicted in a narrow set of generally negative and stereotypical ways. The general trend remains the same, even with the odd outlier.
Wouldn’t the main character of the TV show Bones count as a notable atheist?
Oh come now? We have had some excellent atheists on TV
Ah but we have had some excellent skeptics. Not every character brings up religion as a sticking point.
It’s implied that the entire Star Trek universe runs on reason with spirituality being meditation rather than “woo”. The humans explicitly are all skeptical, with the religious Bajorans being treated as “nutcases”.
The big freaking harpoon thrown at religion in Stargate is quite good too.
The Doctor is implied to be a skeptic since his entire universe works on technology. Even when faced down with Satan he doesn’t consider him a magical entity, merely another sort of alien. Although it may help that he comes from a race with nearly god like control of technology. It’s hard to believe in a fire god when you have matches.
I mean this is just something that rarely ever comes up. If not for being involved in the atheist community, I wouldn’t really discuss religion on a daily basis. I am sure it would almost never come up.
Fifty years ago you could not see a gay character on TV. Forty years ago the only gay men you saw on US TV were flamboyantly campy stereotypes who were on one episode and gone. In the early 1980s the Showtime channel, which has always positioned its original programming as being too “adult” for broadcast TV, had a show called “Brothers”, the entire premise of which was: one brother is a burly construction worker, the second brother is an ex-football player, and the third brother is…gay.
Small steps.
A serial killer and a jerky doctor? It’s a start. We just need to keep pushing our secret atheist agenda.
I really like Dexter. The character as well as the main show. He starts out as someone with borderline psychopathic tendencies, he really doesn’t care about anyone, and stays friendly with his sister and goes out with a woman to keep up appearances. But over the course of the show he actually develops real feelings for these people. By the time his son is born he actually starts to feel normal. I think he’s becoming more sane all the time. Without Harry’s code I think he could become a monster, that darkness is in him all the time, but now he actually relates to people more than he did when the show started.
This season got to a great start too, I wasn’t expecting the pro-atheism stuff to be honest but I thought they put it in in a good way. And to all the people moaning about him ‘faking’ it at the end so his son gets into a new school: open your eyes, people do this in the real world all the time. Sure, you can be ‘principled’, or you can be realistic. For someone like Dexter, living in Florida, there’s not a whole lot of choice and Catholic schools are probably the best choice. Plus, he knows that is a good school because his friend Angel recommended it to him.
I don’t like Dexter. I have serious issues with my suspension of disbelief and icky feelings about how they portray sociopaths and serial killers as basically supernatural monsters without the magic part.
The first season where it sort of hammered home that a traumatic experience didn’t just mentally damage someone but turned someone who (presumably?) was ‘normal’ to begin with and made them a sociopathic serial killer…oh and it is a reproducible result since the same affect happened to someone in the exact same situation (attempted spoiler free version)
I’ve never watched Dexter – It started while I was in The UK and the ads never interested me. I don’t know, maybe I just don’t care for serial killers as lead characters.
But as for positive atheist role models on tv? Give me Bones & The Mentalist any day.
Hey now. Leave me out of this.
Oh. Wait. (Points…) You meant him?
(/Carry on, then.)
I recieved a misdirected email today. And I could not read it without laughing:
The part that choked me was scientific investigation to document claims. And I wish I were at REDACTED as this would be frikkin hilarious.
Hilarious? It’s clearly a serious investigation. Why, they’ll be using video, audio and EMF equipment!
@ Giliell, connaiseuse des choses bonnes and Ulgaa;
Look carefully at the Dr Temperance Brennan character in Bones. She is depicted sympathetically in many regards, and she is certainly intellectually capable, but she is also depicted as a severely socially dysfunctional character, particularly in the early series. It is the devoutly catholic Sealey Booth character who is the one with the tact and the understanding of social nicities – he is also the character who is a traumatised former soldier; who has seen more of the ‘real world’ than the ‘ivory tower’ inhabiting Brennan.
Time and again Brennan’s character has to be reeled in when she is in danger of running roughshod over others, or has to have pretty basic points about such things as relationships or really any aspect of society outside her narrow field explained to her.
Her atheism may be intended to be incidental to this, but I am not so sure. It all seems to play back into the pervasive trope that atheists are just ‘off’ somehow – that we don’t really understand how society works, that we just don’t ‘get it’ the way other, normal people do.
It also doesn’t help that, the more series go by and the longer Brennan and Booth are together, the less prominant Brennan’s atheism seems to be…
I am not so sure about whether Lisa is even supposed to be a an atheist. Her character is certainly supposed to be more rational than most others, and she does mock particularly egregious examples of religious stupidity from time to time, but I do not recall any explicit statement of atheism from her character other than one image of a so-called ‘Dawkins Fish’. The Lisa character could just as easily be read as an agnostic.
Cool. I even got as [close italics] fail.
I haven’t seen much of Dexter, but I have to agree. To the extent I know his character he isn’t really the atheist role-model.
As for atheism, the last episode of The Cleveland Show spent about half the episode on atheism, same has been done in Family Guy. Even the last Simpsons episode touched on it briefly.
Is there a current trend in the US to bring up the subject of atheism in TV-shows?
@38
As far as I can recall, Lisa Simpson is supposed to be a Buddhist.
One thing that seems to have been missed in this discussion is that the Edward James Olmos character seems to be EXTREMELY religious, killing in religiously themed ways (possibly to bring on the end of the world?), and appears to be this seasons foil for Dexter.
The fact that we as atheists missed it, however, probably means that religiously minded folks also missed it. Those people are probably thinking Dexter is an atheist because he’s a serial killer, and Olmos is a serial killer because he’s misinterpreting his religion and not a “true Christian”, lol.
It doesn’t appear to me that this storyline will be anything but Atheist Serial Killer Dexter vs. Relious Nutball Serial Killer Olmos. I wish it was more than that, as that alone will probably either do nothing or harm the atheist image (at least among some who probably don’t even watch the show but hear that the serial killer on that nasty pay-cable show is an Evil Atheist).
I can still remember the first atheist character I saw on tv–Mr. Garabaldi from Babylon 5. All his line consisted of was something like a sarcastic “that god of yours”…and that was pretty much the only clue in five seasons. The writer/producer of the show had to confirm it. (There might have been a couple more clues–my memory of the show has faded.)
I would like to hear some folks here articulate why they like this show. I’ve never seen it because I don’t watch much TV and it’s on Showtime, but I’ve heard that he’s a guy who kills killers. Now this show has been on for several seasons and gets critical praise, so I’m going to assume that it’s not just revenge porn. Still, since we’re all against the death penalty, then there must be some other reason people here are drawn to this show.
That, and you have to figure that if he tried to impress the whole lack of god thing on a kid, the audience would flip their collective shit. Killing people is fine, indoctrinating a kid into communist atheism? Shock horror!
Perhaps the worst thing one could do to atheism’s public image
The episode with Steve Gould showed her thinking that religion was all bunkus.
I would assume that the real Dexter, of Dexter’s Laboratory, is also supposed to be an atheist. :)
Patrick Jane on The Mentalist is unbendingly rational and godless. A recovering sideshow psychic and ghost whisperer con, every episode includes a “There’s no such thing as …” statement about one form if woo or another. It is so out if place to see that in the hero on a TV show, I think a lot of viewers probably take his skepticism as a reaction to tragedy in his life – but it’s not. He’s just in on the con.
Also helps if you’ve met “The Devil” on two separate occasions before (they were two separate beings then too)
(Fenric and the Daemons for those curious)
Really presuming that The Beast is if anything one of the lovecraftian horrors from a previous universe like Fenric, The Intelligence, and The Toymaker are/were is a good null hypothesis.
Planet of the Dead also slipped a subtle “ignore it if you want” hint that The Doctor was Jesus which was always my favorite theory on the 8th Doctor’s regeneration.
@Rey Fox:
It’s kind of revenge porn and regular porn together, tbh. I kind of wasn’t too impressed as it went on. It’s kinda… meh.
And, of course, in Doctor Who [late season spoilers!]
people’s faith turns out to quite literally kill them. Only Rory the atheist makes it through unscathed.
None of the characters come off as
perfectgood but you do have Adrian Veidt, Doctor Metropolis and Rorschach from Watchmen as atheists.Oh and gods are most likely a race of aliens that feed on faith.
And of course the more subtle moral that the best thing you can do for a religion that has outlived its use in a secular world is to let it die.
Well, whether you like the show or not, they did make some good points both on account of junior being an atheist and the reasons the others weren’t. Essentially the point made was that they were black people in the south, so of course they had to be Christian! The obvious point being made that religion is heavily dependant on (local) culture and not so much individual choice.
@Rey Fox
It’s really about the characters. Not to spoil it too much, but he had an emotionally damaging childhood that has had a lasting effect on his personality. You sympathize with him over that and before you know it, you’re almost wanting him to kill certain people. And then you don’t… and then you do. It’s obviously fiction and it’s just an interesting and entertaining take on morality. The stories and style of the show are also very good.
As far as him being an atheist, it’s been brought up a couple times throughout the series when he comes across religious characters. He’s a good role model in some ways (good scientist and skeptic, gathers evidence, etc.), but the premise of the show just ruins any kind of positive atheist image. It isn’t his atheism that is letting him kill people, but most people won’t separate that fact. Especially those riding on the ‘Hitler was atheist’ bandwagon.
The Office (U.S. version) has at least one, possibly two atheist characters. Late last season (the episode where Dwight takes over as acting manager), Gabe clearly states that he doesn’t believe in god. (Unfortunately Gabe isn’t a very likable character.)
That same episode, when Dwight is leading the office in the Pledge of Allegiance, Oscar pointedly looks at the camera with his mouth closed during the “under God” part. It’s not clear whether he’s fully atheist – though he obviously feels “under God” shouldn’t be part of the pledge (a common feeling among us nonbelievers).
Hoping for more on Gabe and Oscar’s beliefs (or nonbeliefs) this season.
That.
Tho’ I’m having difficulty determining something, as per our previous discussion on television/film/pop culture mores…
We currently have, on the ethical scale, re Hopkins’ observation that if you lick a nipple, it’s an R-rating, but slicing the breast off gets you PG:
murder/mutilation > consensual/enjoyable sex…
We also have, as per Dexter:
murder/mutilation > teaching child gods are for suckers…
But I’m not clear on whether consensual/enjoyable sex is worse than/on the same plain as/better than teaching a child godless Communism.
More data required, I guess.
In other news, I’d like to point out that I was being mostly pretty productive this morning, even managing mostly to avoid this site, right up until the Jehovah’s Wanknesses knocked on the door and derailed my chain of thought…
… yes, there’s a ‘No Soliciting’ sign. Which is kinda a functional necessity, as I work from home, and derailings of my train of thought often take some time to recover from. But apparently that doesn’t apply if you’re carrying a holy book.
… like a sucker, I answered it. Don’t, usually, actually. But it’s election day, here, and I figured it was prolly a get out the vote worker, and I could do them (as, y’know, they’re actually doing a civic good) the courtesy of tellin’ ’em fine, move along, go get someone else, I’ll be out in a bit/it is on my schedule…
No. No one so actually useful to the world, who might have actually had some justification for ignoring the sign. Just a coupla idiots, pushing a cult… And apparently, belonging to a proselytizing sect also makes you illiterate/unable to read such notices.
Now I think this is to my credit, however, and so I’d like to point this out: my above-implied clearly atheistic sociopathic tendencies are decently restrained, now. As I have, in part, learned society’s rules, I did not sweetly invite them in, then poison their tea and dump the bodies in the river. I just very impatiently said: ‘I’m working’, and closed the door sharply…
… then got back to my machines to realize I couldn’t remember quite where the hell I was in today’s insanely fiddly integration.
So, you already knew this, but: proselytizers are assholes.
FTFY
I’m sorry, I can accept a humanoid abomination time god that travels in a relic from the Beatles Era fighting anthropomorphic weaponized suppositories but my suspension of disbelief broke at Dexter’s backstory.
Avicenna @ 29;
We must watch different channels.
Is not the very fact that critique of religion is often avoided as a plot point suggestive?
Well, that could be contested. One could argue that the ‘Q’ are demi-Olympian. Not nice, not ethical, but also not seemingly limited by scientific principles either. If you name is Q (one letter names are so in right now), then you just snap your fingers and matter and energy dance a merry jig to your tune sans technology. If that isn’t woo, I don’t know what is.
There are many religious races and species in the mythos. The Federation is implied to be skeptical and to prefer science (or at least techno-babble pseudo-science) over ‘spirituality’, but notice that there are few ‘dickish gnu-atheist’ characters that ever call those religions that do exist on the harm they causes. If the Federation is atheist, then it is Mooney’s vision of an accommodationist utopia.
You are forgetting a critical qualifier – the Goa’uld are seen as evil in part because they are false gods. Same with the Ori. The show most certainly does not take a stand against the idea of ‘true’ faith or religion. Indeed, a great part of the background to the opposition to first the Goa’uld and later the Ori is because the go about repressing existing faiths. I think it a stretch to say that Stargate is taking a shot at religion here – the bad guys are the godless ones subverting the faith of others to rule them. The Goa’uld are all atheists, mostly because their overbearing arrogance and pride is such that they would never bend the knee to anyone or anything willingly, rather than because of any rational standpoint or ethical conviction. Now, where have I heard that description of atheism before…?
Even where someone is masquerading as a god, that’s OK so long as they mean well, as seen with the Ancients and the Asgard in several episodes – even though pretending to be a god and gulling a less advanced culture with your technology would inevitably stunt that society’s social and technological development. To me this bears the whiff of faithism.
I’ll give you that one.
But that’s the whole point, isn’t it? It is not that religion doesn’t come up often because the topic is irrelevant – it doesn’t come up because any suggestion of criticism of religion is taboo – it is just not something that is done in polite society except by those awful, shrill gnu atheists.
Controlling the parametres of the discourse like this is just another expression of the unearned soft-power privilege that religion enjoys in Western society. It is no surprise that it is also replicated in works of fiction born of that culture.
It’s a funny scene, but by the end of the episode the signs are all there. The past seasons were all about Dexter learning to make connections: Familial love, romantic love, friendship. By season’s end, Dexter will have his “spiritual awakening.” Because dogmatic religion isn’t cool for Hollywood, but belief in belief is a cornerstone.
If there’s not some scene in the season finale where something unlikely happens, and Dexter chalks it up to a “miracle,” I’ll be shocked to death.
Hey, speaking of television, did anybody hear that the Simpsons is facing possible shutdown due to the outrageous salary demands of the voice talent? Though I suppose it’s more likely that they’d just hire scabs.
@57 Gregory
And you didn’t even bring up the last story lines of the SG universe season.
Except one of those Dicks is Captain Fucking Picard. He stared down what claimed to be, and was believed to be by an entire planet, The Devil and said “you’re lying, and you’ve all been fooled by a charlatan”
He fucking put the Devil on trial and basically used the skeptics handbook to make his case.
I’ll give you the serial killer and the dog, but why in the world would a Pharyngulite be upset by the portrayal of atheists as jerks?
Or are we upset on behalf of other, theoretically non-jerk atheists?
Because I don’t know of any in this community. I know of the regular, foul-mouthed Pharyngula type jerks (my kin), and the non-foul-mouthed but ‘Rebecca Watson is a whore’ sexist jerks.
Are there others? Are we not alone in the universe?
@Brownian
Because House is a medically unethical sexist jerk?
Oh shit, did we mention Sheldon and Leonard from Big Bang Theory?
Yeah, I don’t’ want that as our spokes-mascot.
Rey Fox @ 43;
Undeniably true. Part of the core premise of the show is that Dexter’s victims supposedly deserve to be sliced and diced – it plays into various revenge or personal, vigilante-esque pseudo-‘justice’ fantasies – but ‘corrupting’ the poor innocent baby with evil atheism? Polluting its mind with skeptical rationalism? That would be going to far for the average Joe. Almost as bad as having it adopted by a same-sex couple…
It is a sad indictment on society when a serial killer can be a hero, but reason (not to mention same-sex relationships) is still the eternal villain.
Carlie @ 45;
Fair enough. I never saw that episode.
I wouldn’t know. I have never seen the show you speak of. I take it from the smiley that there would be a humorous juxtaposition between this Dexter’s Laboratory show and a show about a serial killer?
Reminds of of B5 that had an episode about a serial killer who was brainwashed into becoming a monk, and he was named Dexter.
It’s funny in hindsight.
AH! Red Dwarf!
Lister, though his hygiene is so repellent that an android recognizes him as barely human, is explicitly an atheist (dubbed the ULTIMATE atheist on the show) and is the show’s conscience.
In one episode it is shown that he considers his sense of morality to be the lynch pin of his self identity.
The Cat from what I gather is also an atheist, in regards to the traditional God of his species (Lister)
“Why do people like this show? I’ve never seen it but I don’t like the idea.” Come on, that almost sounds like it is coming from a believer. “Why don’t you believe in ID? I’ve never read anything about evolution, but I don’t like the idea.”
If you have never seen it, relax, it isn’t that bad. If you have seen it, relax. The level of energy being used (today) to analyze the motivations of this fictional character is surprising.
Any atheistic character who could be considered any sort of ‘good guy’ (and Dexter is a relatively good guy) on modern television is progress. Comments like the one he made would have been impossible a few years ago. This is a good thing…so relax
No, but I did hear that it is facing possible shutdown due to Fox’s demands that the voice actors take a 40% pay cut from what’s been their standard salary for the last several years, after they already agreed to a 30% pay cut.
Interesting how different news outlets are reporting it differently…
jacobblock @ 60;
I can’t comment on that. I havn’t seen it yet.
I havn’t seen the episode in a while, but I seem to rememeber it being about a con-artist who used some holographic tech to impersonate various religious figures (including an entertainingly stereotypical devil) and a ‘gravity generator’ to create seeming earthquakes. Picard sent an away team aboard her ship, got hold of her tech and exposed her as a fraud. I did not read that as ‘putting the devil on trial’ so much as ‘exposing the fraudster exploiting religious traditions for profit’.
I am quite prepared to admit that I may be wrong here, but I am still not overly impressed with the critical thinking value of Star Trek when it comes to religion. The one exception being where Picard was mistaken for a god, and he went to great lengths to debunk his accidental deification, ultimately risking injury to do so (if not actual death given the medical technology depicted in the series at the time).
I would also like to point out that I am not just ‘Trek-bashing’ for the hell of it. I enjoyed the show on many levels, and my comments here are in no way intended to detract from the other areas in which the various incarnations of the show were very progressive.
It’s a cartoon by Butch Hartman, and the Dexter in question is a 3-foot tall boy genius, whose main nemeses are his sister Didi and another boy genius named Mandark. My very favorite episode ever is one in which Dexter decides to learn French via a record while he sleeps (to have more time for inventing during the day), but the record skips and he ends up only able to say one phrase. And it has burned its way into his head so that it is the only thing he can say. episode (it’s about 7 minutes long)
Okay, so he’s less like a Pharyngula atheist and more of an ERV atheist.
I covered those two groups.
I’ll let everyone take this story as they will.
chigau,
From the last thread
Is it made from pot roasted teens?
Nope. I’m afraid that DeeDee was the atheist in that one.
Kat Lorraine, I found the show to be meh too. I only saw part of the first season and I don’t have Showtime anymore. I did read the first two books (I assume there are more now) and they are quite different than the show. The basics are the same, but the details are considerably different.
Oh and the whole ‘bad childhood’ thing? No. It was one event that fucked him up. His foster father, the cop, wrote off the older brother and took Dexter in the hope that he was young enough to be okay. Obviously that didn’t work out. However, the foster father provided a good childhood for him.
Do kids these days know what a record is?
my grass, get off it and all that
Gregory @ 70
Ah, possible spoilers:
It was basically they detected a signature in the MBR (microwave background). I think they might have even said it must have been from a creator. Investigating that signature was becoming the major plot line, but the show was cancelled. Who knows where they might have gone with it.
@ SmooveBB #12:
Killing is never deserved. It is beyond the scope of deservability.
SmooveBB:
Here’s a helpful hint: don’t tell people here to relax, chill or calm down. We aren’t all worked up. What’s happening here is called a discussion.
There’s Sastra.
And…
…
…
That’s all I got.
Ooo, you are correct. It’s been too long since it’s been on tv.
That’s one of the blatant “grab the parents and keep them from complaining about what the kids are watching” techniques that Hartman and Genndy Tartakovsky are very good at – putting anachronisms like those in to amuse the adults.
A new company is claiming cold fusion.
Every time one of these comes up, I go through a conflict. We know that current science has a lot it doesn’t understand, so there are plenty of holes out there for new physics. And it’s almost guaranteed that, at some point, someone is going to stumble on such a hole and end up sparking a(nother) revolution in science.
Yet, we also know that every instance of this being claimed in the past has been bunk, and that the likelihood of any hole discovered by some random person being exactly the one that leads to cold fusion is so far past the decimal point it may as well be in the next zip code.
I’d love it to be true, but really doubt it is. I really want to see what we could do with abundant, inexpensive, nonpolluting energy. If nothing else, it’d make it easier to Get Off The Planet.
SC:
Desert Son, OM.
Carlie @ 71;
Yup, that is definitely different. The lil’ mad scientist with the cod german accent is adorable, and his sister is suitably annoying.
Still, wiring a self-destruct into your improbably technologically advanced suburban lab that will go off if the password is uttered incorrectly? Not very smart…
jacobblock @ 78;
That sounds interesting. Its a shame they chose to axe it.
Giliell- Didn’t you know, some women and girls don’t believe in God, but it’s only men who are able to be atheists.
I consider myself a foul mouthed non-jerk
I’m most definitely an asshole, not a jerk.
Pretty much every season of Dexter involves him pursuing some new lifestyle or worldview, assuming something like “If so many people do it, it must be normal,” only to discover the uglier side of it as the season continues. So to all the people who are accusing this episode of endorsing religion because Dexter ends up sending his kid to catechism, give it time and see where the show goes from here before you start condemning it.
discussing cancer treatments with a friend (prompted by Steve Jobs alleged belief in woo)
So they say, that actually many cancer patients don’t die because of cancer, but because of the treatment like chemotherapy. I’d like to call BS on that, but you don’t want to offend friends, so does anyone has a nice link with some data at hand?
Personally I have only anecdata, my father went through chemotherapy, and it was a lot of pain etc, but that wasn’t what killed him in the end…
@Gregory Greenwood:
Make no mistake, shows like Dexter are most certainly not setting out to help us. The atheist character is almost always shorthand for a damaged, unsympathetic or even dangerous figure or, even worse, for a character heading for a nauseatingly trite ‘personal salvation’.
I completely agree. Dexter is a monster. And his portrayal as an atheist is intended to add to his monster aspect.
So, we’re upset at the portrayals of atheists in the media because we can name two (and Rev BDC) who don’t fit the stereotypes?
Next time you want to misrepresent me, please have the courtesy to use my handle.
Calmer than you, dude.
R @ 86;
Sadly, there are plenty of cretins from the more MRA-riddled sections of the atheist community who might actually claim that with a straight face, rather than ironically as I assume you are.
Of course, there are several women just on Pharyngula (let alone the broader atheist community) who do not believe in the sky fairy and most certainly are atheists, and easily a match for any male atheist.
To adapt a quote from Mr T, I would pitty the fool who tried to tell the likes of Carlie or Janine that they ‘can’t’ be atheists.
Verbal evisceration, battle cries of ‘cupcake!’, and inventive suggestions for the possible uses for decaying porcupines would be sure to follow…
OK, they did cite some anecdata, that a friend underwent cancer treatment, had a bad liver, and that chemotherapy damaged that liver leading to death from that. I know it’s a painful therapy with a lot of side-effects, but surely there’s data for that?
What makes woo-peddlers so dangerous is that most of the attested methods are painful and often do not have too high success rates, so anyone likes to jump on “nice alternative methods”. At least that’s how I understood the situation, as a non-medical doctor.
Dexter is basically Batman, except he takes his vengeance all the way. His atheism and his “dark passenger” are not connected.
That being said, I’m leery of where it seems the show is heading. He enrolls his son in Catholic school so he has something to believe in? Really?
Lotharloo @ 90;
And that is bad enough, but I am really hoping that the show doesn’t attempt any ‘redemption through faith’ plotline. If it does, I will be… annoyed, to say the least.
An outright atheist anti-hero is far from ideal, but I can live with that. It is the ‘godless-sinner-seeking-religious-redemption’ stuff that really ticks me off.
Hey, FTB didn’t let me log in! Have I been banned? :(
I know we’re discussing TV right now, but one of my favorite atheists in film is the father in the French films “My Father’s Glory” and “My Mother’s Castle” (based on the books by Marcel Pagnol).
From Wikipedia:
The father is kind, smart, funny, loving; he is portrayed as an all-together good guy and sympathetic character. And he is adamantly and unapologetically atheist.
******
Btw, has anyone been having issues with the FTB site? It moves very, very slowly, and sometimes times out when I’m trying to connect. It took a long time for my preview to show, too (after a few error screens).
I disagree
This depends on culture, I suppose. I’d say in Germany it doesn’t come up mostly because most people consider it a private matter. it only comes up at moments like the papal visit and such.
Damn, another thing I did wrong…
Gregory Greenwood
Well I saw them more like the traditional Holmes/Watson combination. But even though she’s socially a bit incompetent, she’s a deeply moral character who is shown to do voluntary work and is willing to donate her money (even though she acts as if she doesn’t care)
pelamun
No actual data, but a place to go looking: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/
Brownian:
I’m not upset about it.
Gregory:
As I started the battle cry of Cupcake, I think I oughta be mentioned! I can get stroppy, ya know. ;p
I am way behind on threads, endless or otherwise. Spouse and I are poorer than we were yesterday as spouse’s car had to have the CV axles replaced.
Work is very busy coinciding with an eviction from my current workspace. My former-still-kinda-current department* used to get moved in the building every year and half or so on average. I was previously evicted from the old office and placed awkwardly in a cubicle sea that left me with banker’s boxes taking up most of my desk space (and overflowing into the adjacent cube). Now I’m being evicted from this set of cubes to make room for the annual contract auditing team.
*They decided when the head of real estate left to start his own business, that they didn’t need to replace him. They parceled out a lot of what we did among people with no idea what they were doing. Then they shoehorned me under someone more on the oil side of the company, and I’ve been chugging along semi-autonomously for ages.
The Simpsons has infinitely variable continuity. What happens in one episode has no bearing on the next, unless the writers want it to. So Lisa is a Buddhist in some episodes, and an atheist in others, if I recall correctly.
Except the argument Picard made for why it isn’t the devil is that it’s much more likely that the “miracles” were technology and if not that than something like Q than it was actually a God. He never entertained the possibility that a supernatural event was occurring.
——————–
I will admit to finding it hilarious/brilliant if the Dexter show goes the opposite route and instead has the kid being abused by a religious person; thus Dexter going along with religion because it was the right thing to do exposed the child to danger.
————————————
For those talking about the redemption through faith and religion, you do know that in the books the series is based on he turned out to be possessed by a demon right?
Ric @ 95;
I am not sure I would agree with you there. Dexter’s ‘dark passenger’, and it is implied his atheism, are symptomatic of the core conceit of the show that his early life trauma made him into a serial killer. In the same way as he has such difficulty forming ‘normal’ relationships with others and understanding social norms, he supposedly has similar difficulty ‘connecting to god’ or some such similar drivel.
The idea that such trauma ‘creates’ serial killers’ is, frankly, not only extremely simplistic but somewhat offensive to anyone who has actually experienced such trauma*, and the idea that the same trauma that somehow made Dexter a serial killer may also have made him an atheist is difficult to read as anything other than a dig at atheism.
Dexter is the only openly and obviously atheist character on the show, and he is also by far the most damaged and morally ambiguous character, with the possible exception of those that end up gracing Dexter’s own kill-room.
Perhaps the two things are unrelated, but if so, why highlight Dexter’s atheism at all?
* For the record, I haven’t experienced any such trauma, but I still think it is unfair to those who have.
Giliell, connaiseuse des choses bonnes @ 98;
That’s a fair interpretation. Brennan is not depicted as being without empathy, and the show certainly has a buddy-comedy vibe mixed with the expected unresolved sexual tension. It just seems to me that Brennan is depicted as being slightly odd, and her atheism is part of that oddness. Not evil or anything, just weird in the same way as her total lack of undestanding of social context is weird. Maybe I am seeing something that isn’t there.
Caine, Fleur du Mal @ 99;
How remiss of me to omit you! You are, of course, among the first teir of kick-ass lady atheists to be found on Pharyngula. I regularly enjoy your displays of clinial troll dismemberment.
Also, please don’t hurt me!
*wibble*
Ing @ 102;
Oh, I see how that puts a different spin on things. Well, it has been a long time since I watched the episode. I concede your point.
Unfortunately, I doubt that any mainstream studio would take such a risk in this day and age. A single crazy no-true-christian? Maybe, but it would be highly controvercial. Religion in general? Never in a million years (6000 years for all the YECs out there). It would be as good as declaring open season on the show and everyne associated with it. Apart from anything else, it would be really bad for business.
No, I didn’t know that. As of yet, I have only read the first novel.
I wonder if the series is going to head in the same direction? I hope not, but you can never tell.
Ok, now I’ve got the invisible pet-duck of my daughter’s invisible walruss-friend sleeping on my couch because it made too much noise in the nursery.
Would you think they ever even asked me?
FTB is a pain in the ass tonight
Have to agree with the 1st comment. The only 2 leading atheist characters on TV (Dexter & House) are morally vacuous. Both fun to watch but that aspect is extremely annoying. I’ve suspected for a long while that that is the only way a producer can get an atheist leading character — that the audience is supposed to be somewhat sympathetic to — on television.
Just in case, on House, Wilson is very likely also atheist, though probably the not-a-dick type. The guy from the Mentalist as well, and while that’s not really a great show, it’s one of the most popular crime shows.
Re: Dexter. I really like the TV show and I think it’s much better than the books.
Brice Gilbert says:
It’s not that simple though. Dexter is an emotionless monster, but he’s perpetually confused as to how to make his child not like him, so he wants him to grow up like “normal” children. He’s truly baffled as to why “normal” means the sick torture Jesus image.
I don’t think it’s likely at all that Dexter will have a religious awakening. The worst (best) villain in the whole series was a preacher, and not even a proper cult preacher, but a fairly mainstream one. This season the bad guy seems to be another religious nut, probably even worse.
Also, the show is very loosely based only on the first book “Darkly Dreaming Dexter”, which even then has major differences even in the main characters including Dexter, and it’s completely different by book 2.
Spoiler alert!
I’m on the third one (it’s on pause for a while until I finish Brian Greene’s new book), but as far as I can tell yet, it’s not a “proper” religious-type demon, right? It’s like some killer being which has been changing hosts since the dinosaurs’ time and stuff.
So they say, that actually many cancer patients don’t die because of cancer, but because of the treatment like chemotherapy. I’d like to call BS on that, but you don’t want to offend friends, so does anyone has a nice link with some data at hand?
Do you have any particular cancer in mind? Cancer is rather a broad term.
Some cancer patients do die of therapy related complications. That’s definitely true. But more survive because of it. Take, for example, acute myeloblastic leukemia. The natural history of AML is not pretty. Death is rapid, unpleasant, and inevitable. Without chemotherapy, 100% of patients die in a manner not unlike what is described in the link, though modern supportive care can make the end a bit more prolonged, but less painful. Today, with chemotherapy, a young patient with AML has an over 50% chance of being alive and probably cured 10 years later. Not direct, placebo controlled trial level proof, but it’s hard to see any explanation other than cure by chemotherapy for this difference. 0% to over 50%.
@#38, Gregory:
Dr. Temperance Brennan, either through accident or design, is one of the better portrayals of an adult on the autism spectrum in modern media, showing classic symptoms of Asperger’s Syndrome while being a brilliant academician, implausibly popular crime novelist, crime-fighter and all-around action girl.
She’s a clear counter-example and part of a popular show actually heavily populated with atheist and agnostic intellectuals, most of whom are, like most atheist intellectuals, just people. So you don’t get to just brush her off because she has poor people skills. There’s actually something there.
All of this, plus a strong tendancy to 404 FORBID me.
–
By what I’ve been told, Buddhism is a deity-optional philosophy/religion; I’ve read it described as “non-theistic” rather than atheistic.
–
Not sure what went wrong with my links earlier. Trying again…
link 1
link 2
#105, Jim:
If that were actually the case, I’d agree with you.
It’s not though.
JediBear @ 109;
I hadn’t thought of it like that. I wonder if that was the writer’s intent all along?
Are any of the other characters explicitly identified as atheist? I don’t recall that being the case, but I could easily have missed it.
OK, let me be absolutely clear on this. It was not my intent to ‘brush off’ anyone, whether real or a fictional character, because of poor people skills. I was wondering if the character’s poor people skills may simply have been the writers perpetuating the myth that atheists are somehow lacking in social graces or out of touch with the rest of society by sole virtue of being atheists. Obviously, if the writers are trying to write a believeable character who is on the autism spectrum then I misinterpreted what is going on, and I apologise for any offence given.
Thank you, Dianne, a great example, I will remember that.
I do know that this is vastly different for different cancer types, but of course discussions like these are never that specific. I’m not a medical expert, but I do place enough trust in the system that therapies would only be done if the benefits to the patients’ health outweighed the damages. To suggest otherwise is the usual m.o. of scaremongers and woo-peddlers, trying to stoke the fear and distrust towards medicine.
If you read German, the Sprachlog discussed the usage of certain words by proponents of alternative medicine here (basically framing the issue in a way by likening medicinical treatments to herbicides and other chemicals):
http://www.scilogs.de/wblogs/blog/sprachlog/sprachverwirrung/2011-10-04/verblendung-chemiekeule
@cicely: Yeah, I got a 404 today, too. I’m at work, trying to sneak peeks at Pharyngula, but it takes FOREVER for the pages to load. It’s really annoying. Then again, maybe I should be working…
I’ll admit to never having watched Dexter but I find the very idea of glamourising a serial killer – whatever the supposed justification for his crimes – sick. Quite a few serial killers do imagine themselves to be dealing out justice – usually to “impure” women.
I’m about to occupy the fuck out of my city. Well, I’m about to talk about occupying my city (the first meeting for our Occupy group is tonight). I’m pretty excited. This’ll be my first protest.
There’s obviously some problem with FtB. An hour ago I got a 403 Forbidden error when I tried to get here.
KG, I had the same view (and still do about “American Psycho”) before I started watching, but Dexter is not like that. He’s not glamourized, he’s a very confused individual, he doesn’t imagine himself “taking out the trash”, only that his foster father made him realize he had a “need” and in order to protect himself needed to channel it where minimum damage was possible (killing other killers). He doesn’t even try to justify himself, he knows he’s a bad dysfunctional monster, only the others are as bad as him or worse.
OK, I need help from somebody who knows something about computer security *looks towards Katherine*
I cannot log into my Administrator-account on my laptop, even though I’ve written the password down.
So I’m a bit afraid that somebody else changed it.
How can I find out and how can I hack my own computer again?
This. As I said the show uses “Magic Trauma”. Serial killers there are presented not as actual people or even actual mentally ill people or sociopaths, but as something more akin to ogres posing as people. They’re a boogieman that has more akin to the vampire than to Jeffery Dahlmer.
Frankly, most attempts at explaining the ‘origin’ of a serial killer fall into this, but Dexter more hilariously wrongity wrong awful so.
Watched season 1 and I have to say I find Dexter’s father to be the actual villain of the show. this sick fuck starts seeing the signs of violent sociopathy and trauma induced mental illness in his kid and his thought is to train the kid into being a killer against “acceptable targets” rather than getting him any help? Oh and training him in the skills he’ll need to kill and avoid detection? The guy took a damaged kid and turned him into a weapon for his own ideology. The only way the show can impress me is if they do bring up the “no so different” quality of one killer following God’s code and Dexter following his father’s.
Ing, later on it is suggested that Dexter’s father committed suicide when he realized Dexter was actually doing what he’d been taught.
It’s been going on all day.
I wonder if it’s a DoS by the kooks PZ alluded to.
I doubt that they have the numbers nor the intelligence to make that happen.
*peering around cautiously*
Is it … is it working again?
One would imagine that with Pharyngula broken half the day, I would be much more productive. One would imagine. BUT APPARENTLY NOT.
There isn’t enough stunned horror in the world for what Topeka, Kansas is apparently considering.
I very much doubt he would have. Joss identifies as a secular humanist, and his shows seem to mostly fit in with that, although of course the world of Buffy and Angel is a highly paranormal one so there are some deity things in it. One of them, Jasmine, is pretty much the best thing ever :) A deity that wants to bring everyone together in love, but eats people, so the main gang has to get rid of her. I would sooner think that Shepherd would start struggling more with his faith than that Mal would struggle with his lack of it.
I love Dexter, as entertainment. I don’t think I’d ever consider him a good atheist character. Actually I find it hard to believe that a thirtysomething blood-spatter expert who spent days sitting in a two inch pool of blood as a toddler and grew up struggling with urges to kill animals (and human bullies!)has never also struggled with the possible existence of a soul,an afterlife, or a god, and has such a blank-faced and no-nonsense approach to religion.
For really great atheist characters, I prefer the three main protagonists of the movie “Paul”.
I mentioned Dexter’s atheism and the (apparent) religious theme of these season last thread. I frankly don’t know how to feel about it. He’s the “good” guy, but he’s also a psychotic serial killer, albeit one who kills murders and monsters* It doesn’t, however, seem to be a simple case of Hollywood Atheist (though it is listed as an example on that page).
* Three exceptions I can think of. One was a mercy killing of a friend and another was killing that later turned out to be an innocent person. It would have been nice if they explored the implications of the latter case more. The last was a random killing because he was pissed off at his wife’s death. There was no justification in that case whatsoever. It was actually presented as somewhat of a good thing since it showed he was having an emotionally reaction to a tragic event and then it was promptly forgotten.
I was thinking the exact same thing.
Is Preview not working for anyone else? I blame that for all the errors of #129.
@First Approximation, I tried to respond and tell you I was still having the same technical problems when the site completely died on me. So yes, it’s hosed.
I’d wait a bit longer to pass judgement on the whole Atheist Dexter revelation. I’ll grant that he isn’t exactly a role model, but he is the protagonist of the show. A common theme in the series is that as fucked up as Dexter is, he’s a good guy aside from the murdering. Sure the fundies will trot out the serial killer atheist trope, but they do that anyways. It seems like they’re setting up this season to be pretty antireligious; Angel seemed like an idiot for saying why he believed in god and the serial killer antagonists are religious.
I’m sure the nuance will go right over the fundies’ heads, but I think this season could potentially positively promote atheism
@ Giliell
Cain and Abel is supposed to be a good password recovery tool.
ditto what butchkitties said at 17.
One thing I would note though, is that it is interesting that Dexter IS an atheist.
Apparently, his Dad never told him the importance of religion in looking “normal” to most Americans, so Dexter defaulted to atheism.
In that sense, it’s pretty cool.
Or the other way around.
I don’t know if this has already been discussed or if this comment will go through, but good news! 0xabad1dea alerted us on Twitter that PZ’s book is available for preordering on Amazon.com!
FFB is unusable right now
Of course I haven’t caught up. *lamentation*
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When my uncle visited last year, he brought a bunch of American food specialties/curiosities. One of them was Trader Joe’s® Natural* Buffalo Jerky. Well, even beef jerky is unknown over here, and this buffalo jerky seems to have an indefinite shelf-life as long as the package is closed, while it should be used up in 3 days once opened. So we didn’t see a point in opening it. But I’ll visit that uncle before coming to Rhinebeck, so I figured I had to open it today. :-) Given its content of paprika and soy sauce, and ignoring its content of loads of sugar, it tastes like a seriously hot version of this (as opposed to this). I have to eat a breadroll with it – uh, no, two.
* Asterisk in the original. It refers to “NO ARTIFICIAL INGREDIENTS” and “MINIMALLY PROCESSED”.
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Poland will have parliamentary elections on Sunday.
On the one hand, they have a new party led by a guy called Janusz Palikot who was not allowed to participate in the TV confrontation. It is left-liberal and wants to… brace yourselves… fully separate church and state, abolish religious instruction in school, and legalize abortion and marijuana. 8-) The polls are at 10 %, which is awesome, because it means it will probably be impossible to form a government without them!
(Just why do they want to introduce first-past-the-post? WTF?)
On the other hand, one of the candidates of the (mainstream) social-democratic party SLD is a 23-year-old female student of poli sci who has uploaded a video somewhere. In that video, she strips. The moment she opens her bra (or so I’ve read on TV), her breasts are hidden by the word “censored”, and the video changes to text: “Want to see more? Vote SLD. Only we can do more.”
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I’ve watched more Voyager. The only character who really likes people, Kes, is 1) female and 2) mildly telepathic (she feels disturbances in the Force even from other timelines).
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Or starship captains. ;-)
Averted hard in House. There’s that episode where he secretly reads sermons, and everyone finds out and thinks he’s going to convert – and then it turns out the sermons are by his father, a preacher, and House only reads them to get to know his father. Plus, House is smarter than everyone else in the cast.
That varies somewhat; the Vulcans are portrayed as the most rational ones, but perform more rituals than the rest of the quadrant together. But still. :-)
What is interesting for its totally casual lack of religion is the Disney universe. There doesn’t seem to be a single church in all of Duckburgh or Mouseville, just like how there isn’t a single light switch. There’s a witch or two, but that’s it.
Darwin fish. :-)
Win. :-D
Yes. In particular, sites only load at the 3rd attempt, and when I click “submit”, I get “the page cannot be displayed”.
(That’s on top of FtB’s usual inability to deal with long threads: from less than 100 comments onward, typing is seriously slowed down.)
In Star Trek (original series), Jack the Fucking Ripper is precisely such a
ghostenergy being capable of interstellar travel.*sigh*
Oh, some kind of attack with very similar effects has happened before, on ScienceBlogs.
Haven’t tried.
Atheism as a clinical symptom.
argh
argh
my friend is on a liquid fast
she has consumed only liquids for three weeks
argh
argh
argh
Greetings Threadlians,
I’m afraid real life has gotten in the way of reading or posting. I have the enviable problem of trying to decide between two very nearly equally attractive jobs. One (my current job at the Integrated Worldwide House of Rocket Exploration –IWHORE) is probably a wee bit more what I’d really like to be doing, but it comes complete with a senior colleague who has taken up a hobby of stabbing me in the back…well not just me. He’ll stab pretty much anyone, but I am a favorite of late. As it is a position with the ebil gummint, they have also become rather stingy with research and conference funding–not good for a mid-career scientist. The other would allow me to manage my own group–but there’s that word “manage”. I’ve always thought of myself as more the anger management rather than the technical management type.
My current management is trying to work up a plan, and it looks great…4 years out. The immediate future, not so much. And of course I have to decide by Monday. It is a genuine approach-approach conflict. Why is it that the human psyche finds most difficult to resolve those choices where ther is no bad choice?
…at the first attempt.
Forgot to mention that the blatantly unnecessary sugar in the buffalo jerky has given me a pretty serious sugar craving. I’ll now go to bed, having eaten several crystals of brown rock sugar.
I think the best religion vs. atheism show was ‘Second Coming’, (warning: spoilers) starring Christopher Eccleston as the messiah.
A lot of the atheist characters listed in previous comments can also be interpreted as being on the autism spectrum; that might be why they have non-NT social skills (and a lazy way of having more ‘minorities’ represented on TV is to have characters each portray more than one).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I told one of the teenage boys (the lodger) about the hot-pot idea, but complained about how little meat there would be (they’re all slim to skinny).
He said, “Well, you don’t need much meat for a hot-pot if it is high-quality, low fat.”
Then I said “I wouldn’t dare, because what would your mother say?”
He instantly replied “Is there any for me?”. =ô_ô=
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Preview is working intermittently for me (just now, having worked (after several attempts) it vanished altogether) and sometimes pages fail to load at all.
Zingularity says all the fuck ups are the techs tweaking the server. They should be smacked.
*taps thread* Testing, testing, is this thing on?
I keep getting a “403 Error” telling me that FTB is there but I have to sign in to view the page. Of course, I can’t sign in unless I am in the site and, when I finally get into the site (fifteenth or twentieth try) I find that I am stil logged in. And I don’t think it is just this computer as it happened at work, too. Is anyone else seeing any of this? Or am I just independently insane?
Nerd:
For the moment…
Preview seems to be dead though. Ah well, back to working on my part of the Support Rebecca Watson project.
Great ending. “well you have to take it on faith.” Response, ” Cuz it makes no sense.” hilarious.
Ogvorbis:
It’s been 403 and 505 all day. According to Zingularity, the techs were “tweaking” the server.
Gregory Greenwood – Given that I am a woman and an atheist, I meant it as commentary, not as something I actually believe. :-)
Cool. So I’m not insane. That’s good gnus.
And in really, really, wonderful gnus, the New York Yankees lost!
So, off to bed. Another dentist appointment tomorrow. And then work. And then a football game. Full daze ahead.
I don’t know this Dexter character but I wonder if making him atheist means he can ponder who deserves to die instead of saying that God will do the punishing. Then I remember all the good, Godly characters who never bother their heads about such a restriction.
About “Most High” kings, I read once that the King of Hawaii, when he went visiting, had to be carried everywhere because whatever he walked on became his. I guess Hawai’i was all his so it didn’t matter.
@pelamun: I had a friend who died of chemotherapy. It damaged her heart muscles so badly that she dropped dead of heart failure in her 40s. Of course, she also didn’t die of childhood leukemia 30 years before, so there was that plus.
I suggest you ask around atOrac’s place for better information.
To me, the main theme of this scene was that Angel, an intelligent, capable and fundamentally decent homicide officer, was entirely unable to formulate even a single coherent defence of his religious beliefs.
Dexter simply reacted as anybody without a background of indoctrination would react to such an empty proposition.
Someone mentioned roasted tomato and lentil soup. I think tomato & lentil is a marriage made in heaven. My favourite pasta sauce is tomato sauce with lentils & basil. Yum!
Dexter is actually a very appealing character. Sure, at first he was emotionally a shell, a counterfeit personality, but he’s the only sane person on the show, this being Miami and all. He’s the one everybody else relies on, a faithful friend, a loving father and husband, immensely strong and unfailingly resourceful.
He is rather coldly logical, and at worst his lack of emotion allows him to realize that the notion of God is ridiculous.
slignot @126:
O.O
WTF, Topeka?!?!? WTM-FF?????
–
In Babylon 5, Jack the Fucking Ripper works for energy cephalopoids capable of interstellar travel. :)
Cicely:
You captured my reaction well. That is a fine example of the banality of evil in action. Let’s see, it’s already beyond difficult for many women and children to try and deal with domestic abuse situations, it’s already beyond difficult for many women and children to get the fuck out, to find support and to have some way to legally deal with it. So, let’s just let all the abusers off the hook here, ’cause that will help. Yeah.
WTF just isn’t enough. I’m at a loss to express myself over such insane wrong.
Topeka could quit prosecuting drug possession cases instead. That would save a lot of money, I bet, enough to fund all the domestic-assault cases in the state.
But that would make too much sense.
Quote of the moment
I don’t know if it was the caching problems with FTB or just my eyeballs missing the entry, but I did find the FTB discussion about PZ’s upcoming book. A separate “discussion” is already underway at Amazon, too. :D
—
@Caine, Fleur du Mal
Where is this happening if I might ask?
I learned a scary lesson tonight.
There’s always someone out there angrier and crazier than you.
Especially when driving.
Aratina Cage:
Everywhere (by mail). Send an email to Onion Girl at oniongirlsays at gmail dot com for details.
Rev. BDC:
What happened? Case of road rage?
Hotshoe:
QFT. I can hear ’em whining “the war on drugs is important!” We’re right back to bitches ain’t shit. :Sigh:
If there was a Hell, it would need to have a special circle for people who write (even with pencil) in library books.
And those who dog-ear pages.
—–
David Marjanović, OM
re Voyager
The Kes character gets very, very, very interesting. Later in the series.
Very.
There is a Wikipedia article about dog-ears.
huh.
Yes.
So I’m going 80 in a 70. 4 18 wheelers in the right lane and I’m just starting to pass #1.
Some ass pulls up behind me and is right on my ass flashing his lights.
I have 4 trucks to pass before I can pull over.
I ignore him for 1 truck but he keeps it up.
So I hit my brakes to back his ass up.
He keeps it up.
I get past all four, he doesn’t give me time to pull over and he goes around me barely missing my front bumper.
I hit him with the brights (not smart but I’m also an aggressive asshole sometimes.)
Mrs. BDC “What the fuck are you trying to prove?”
SO he drives way up.
We go around a turn and BOOM he’s there slow as shit waiting for me.
This is I-77 70 mph outside of charlotte.
He starts jockying to get in front of me and slowing down to 20 or 15 mph
Yes 15-20 mph on a 70 MPH interstate.
Trucks barely missing us. He’s riding the middle of the line to keep me from passing. I’m driving like speed racer but still blocked off and dodging the traffic behind me.
Mrs. BDC is freaking out. Dogs are freaking out.
Finally he gets in the right lane in front of me, and slows to 5 mph, 18 wheelers barely passing us as they come up on us.
I pick a spot and gun in around him on the right on the shoulder and floor it.
Mrs. BDC on the phone with Highway Patrol calling in our locale and his license plate.
I’m going 95 to get way out in front of him.
Mrs. BDC not happy and almost crying.
me worried about him showing up as we get stuck behind a couple trucks.
Morale of the story: While you might be in the right and you might be wanting to show some random possibly unhinged motherfucker that you aren’t going to take it.
Dont be a fucking asshole. It’s not worth it.
The most recent Molly was awarded for June.
@ Caine
I hate to say it, but the Dutch parliament is starting to get more reactionary wrt their current liberal drugs policy. They are voting on amendments today that will reverse aspects of the current, effective policy.
Link in Dutch. It concerns limiting the THC content in weed. The better shit will become class I (hard) drugs. Poorly thought out and likely unenforceable, they are still pushing for it.
Eikels!
I would have to go with Stargate SG-1 being anti-religion.
You get the false god goa’uld. They are overly proud manipulative parasites.
The asgard who sort of pretended to be Norse gods, but they didn’t interfere with the culture other than allowing them to see some effects when they protected planets. They never claim to be gods during any episode, iirc.
The Ancients are ‘evolved’ humans who have left their material existence behind. They have amazing powers, due to understanding the fundamental laws of the universe way beyond our knowledge. But they have strict non-interference rules. Violators lose their special status and are returned as normal humans.
The Ori are similarly ‘evolved’ humans, but they gain their amazing powers by worship. They also lie to their worshippers and are the worst of fundamentalists. They are ‘convert-or-die’ in the extreme, and they want to destroy the Ancients.
But the key precept of Stargate SG-1 (and Atlantis) is that all the myths of religion are outright frauds or misunderstood technological events. Even when you think something is a miracle, it is later identified as interference from the super-evolved humanoids.
Also, look at the effects on the people they encounter. Those with unchanging religious beliefs are always villians.
In particular watch the episode ‘New Ground’.
Notice how the commander refuses to accept any new information because he has spent years studying their holy book.
Scientist: “What if they are telling the truth? What if it is a gateway and the Optricans are right?”
Commander: “No! It’s a lie.”
Scientist: “But how can you be sure?”
Commander: “I am sure because we have not spent our lives praying to a god who does not exist. Any many of our people have not lost their lives fighting a meaningless war. I won’t accept that.
I’ve studied the book of nefurto word for word, cover to cover. It is the truth.”
Scientist: “What if it is not?”
Commander: “It is the truth. We began here.”
Commander: “That device is a fabrication to fake the Optrican gateway myth.”
Scientist: “To what end?”
Commander: “To sow the seeds of doubt among our people. To sow dissension from within. I will not allow our people to have their faith attacked in such a cynical way.”
A wonderfully accurate protrayal of a fundy.
Stargate SG-1 is anti-religious. Even though they never mention anyone as an atheist. Senator Kinsey is the only overtly religious character and he is a conniving self-serving arse.
(Note, I am not certain of the spelling of the names above)
Good mornining
Nice to see FTB working. The dumbnutts are probably asleep.
Voyager
I couldn’t stand Kes at all. She was such a nice girl, she made my blood boil.
Computer problems
Have been solved. The “hacker” admitted to having changed the password and “oops, didn’t tell you, darling?” He’s sworn to never ever do this again…
Rev. BDC
Ahhh, I love those people. Best thing about pulling the caravan: You simply don’t see them.
It’s kind of cute imagining them (because you know they did) flashing up their lights, driving up close, playing with their muscles to the back of the caravan.
The lesson I learned from those people several times is to go slowly. If you happen to be on that road for longer you’ll see them again, when they’re at the side of the road with a broken car.
I once had this with an American soldier who couldn’t bear the thought of a woman overtaking him. So he accelerated every time I tried to pass him. I slowed down and let him gain some distance. 10 minutes later his car broke down :)
Support Rebecca Watson Project
Thanx for the reminder, will go to the post office today
Testosterone and gasoline, an inflammatory combination already.
And then plus ethanol? Crank, whatever?
yeah.
Out of curiosity, what was the guy driving?
@Caine – Thanks for the info on that support project for Rebecca Watson.
@Rev BDC,
Sheesh. That’s some crazy, creepy stuff. I’d be worried that the twerp might have a gun at that point if he waited for me like that.
Wow Rev BDC, I thought that kind of behavior only existed on German autobahnses (esp, those without speed limit, where some people -usually males around 40 – assume that the law guarantees them to never have to go slower than 100 mph, ever). I’m always tempted to hit the brakes in such situations, but so far have always followed your advice there, fortunately.
174 posts and no one has yet mentioned Han Solo!?
Han Solo was an atheist (or agnostic at least) in a world where Jedi and Sith had seriously (demi) god-like powers.
Also the force turned out to be the creation of microscopic “mitichlorian” bugs. Hmm .. not bad for a mythic space fantasy series really.
Also no one has mentioned David Attenborough, Brian Cox and Phil Plait who’ve all had TV documentary series and are all athiest or agnostic.
(Carl Sagan & Richard Dawkins have featured on TV docos too although, I guess this is in a pretty different sense to the fictional characters role models thing.)
I understand that a character doesn’t have to be a representation of a perfect human being to be a good role-model, but I think House’s atheism has just plain been written as a character flaw for most of the series run.
And then there’s episodes like the one where House electrocutes himself after someone who’s had a near death experience contradicts his biological explanation of it just a little bit. That’s more the reaction a distant relative to a Chick tract atheist would have than anything.
It’s a depiction of atheism as uncertain, fragile and basically kind of desperate. And one that hasn’t considered/been exposed to some basic contrary notions.
Han Solo equated with “David Attenborough, Brian Cox and Phil Plait”.
huh.
I’m for bed.
We actually have techs now ? How cool is that !
Worst shift ever today, well, for the last 5 or so years anyway. Came on to triage category 3 (meant to be seen within 30 minutes) patients waiting for 8 hours in a bed without a doctor so much as eyeballing them. Madness.
How are Sagan and Dawkins different from those three?
Now, this, on the other hand…
I’m sorry.
Are you okay now ? Anything we can do to help you decompress ?
@19. asmallcontempt : (6 October 2011 at 1:15 pm)
Really? What about Batman? Or the Doctor?
@42. jacobfromlost : (6 October 2011 at 2:20 pm)
Babylon-5 had some great nuances and hints and characters when it comes to religion / atheism.
Susan Ivanova was nominally Jewish but blasphemously & jokingly claimed to be God. She went a bit crazy throwing in “God sent me!” in one speech just before being horribly (fatally-but-not-actually-dying!) injured.
Dr Stephen Franklin starred in one episode – ‘Believers’ – where he uttered the great line : “God Save us from false religion.” Franklin himself followed a new religion created after “First Contact” that was pretty strange but mild and inclusive.
The Shadows and Vorlons and Ancient races fought god-like amongst thememslves and interfered but finally got pushed out by the “younger races” – sort of like giving up religion in metaphor?
The Minbari had a clash between Warrior and Religious caste which was resolved with both those castes having reduced power and the workers having more. (Implying Religion should lose power relative to ordinary folk and be less involved in politics.) The Minbari (& Narn?) religion also had a definite Sagan~esque deist flavour to it with “sentience as a candle in the dark” and “we are stardust” riffs.
Yeah, B-5 was one awesome show with so much intellectual / philosophical depth to it. Still my favourite TV SF series ever.
@43. Rey Fox : (6 October 2011 at 2:22 pm)
Actually I’m not. I’m in favour of capital punishment properly applied. I think there’s a place for the death penalty – & times when its the most appropriate, most worthwhile course of action. Now I don’t think it should be abused (duh!) and it MUST only be applied to those guilty without any doubt but for the worst criminals – serial killers, murders, terrorist leaders (eg. Bin Laden, Abu Bakir Bashir, Hamas’ Sheik Yassin) and for pedophiles, and the worst rapists (eg. those who rape disabled or elderly victims, serial rapists who attack women unknown to them on the streets, etc ..) – the death penalty is pretty much exactly the right thing to do.
Oh, thank you. I’m fine, just a bit tired. Bit of inebriation now, then beach with my son tomorrow, then off to Thailand on Sunday. It gets better…
@ 180. andyo : (7 October 2011 at 8:21 am)
Well they’re different individuals with different personalities & life stories! ;-)
I guess Sagan and, especially, Dawkins are more outspokenly (dare I say militantly?) athiest than Attenborough, Cox & Plait.
I’m not quite sure what you are meaning with that comment to be honest.
@178. chigau () : (7 October 2011 at 8:02 am)
Well, only in the loosest sense that they’re all non-religious heroes albeit of very different (Chigau!) kinds.
@126. slignot : (6 October 2011 at 10:04 pm)
What. The. FUCK!?!
Please tell me that’s a sick unfunny joke. [Clicks link.] Ye-non-existent-gods. Seems not.
I am just stunned and appalled. No words can properly sum up how disgustingly WRONG that misognyist Topeka policy is. Yikes.
StevoR:
You’re easily impressed.
I take it you never saw River of Souls, where all the individuals of an entire race (one billion), um, “evolved” past a threshold and left their flesh to become, um, “energy beings”, thus confusing the Soul Hunters (who thought they were dying) who proceeded to trap their souls in an, um, “timeless” domain inside an artifact, where after 10,000 years in said timeless domain half of them went insane.
(Almost as bad as Stargate, but not quite as silly)
—
Garibaldi was alright, but.
Looks like our favourite son is back. Again. (If I may)
Ray Comfort, abortion, and the fallacy of arguments from popularity
Planning a nice lunch because it’s mum’s birthday. Dad has taken a couple of days off work, so he’s bored at home and is currently trying his hardest to convince me I’m going to fuck it up. Despite having cooked since I was 14, that still makes me hesitant and prone to actually fucking it up from sheer anxiety.
Yay for parents screwing with your head in every little way they can think of.
I really need to find a job and get out of here.
Beatrice
Ahhh, there’s nothing like a man who knows everything.
I swear, if I listen at my dad and my dad-in-law, you could think they both raised their kids single-handedly while actually never being much at home.
And last week, when doing the shopping, my dear Mr tried to tell me what pasta to use for a gratin. He can’t cook a frozen pizza without stting off the smoke detectors, but here he goes.
I’m very sure your lunch will be fabulous. Just ask your dad nicely if he could go out and get X because you forgot to buy it.
decriminalizing domestic violence
How the hell does that even work? I’m not familiar with the US-system in depth, but, how can you make a violent assault legal? I mean, can you make murder legal? Or theft?
Dying from chemotherapy
I think what a lot of people don’t understand is that chemotherapy and radiation are somewhat fundamentally different from other medical treatments.
Taking a headache-pill, negative side-effects are a bug. With chemo-therapy, they are a feature. It poisons the body in hope of poisoning the cancer more than the rest of it and that the rest of the body will recover.
Chemotherapy and radiation severely damaged my mum-in-law’s heart. The further she moves away from it, the more her heart recovers. And her heart was very healthy before, so, yeah, with an already damaged heart, it might have turned out bad. But she lives and has beaten breast-cancer.
My aunt’s teeth are falling out, one after another and she comes down with a cold every other week. But she lives and has beaten lung-cancer.
In Australian news: New species of frog are climbers not hoppers.
Is FTB finally working again? Have the flamthrowers flushed the Gremlins out of the system at last?
Ing @ 121;
The ‘inhuman monster’ trope as applied to serial killers seems to me to be an extreme expression of the media’s tendency to paint anyone who is mentally ill as the ‘other’ – not dealing with them as people who are experiencing a disruption to some of their neuro-chemical processes, but instead treating them almost as alien, as fundamentally different from ‘normal’ people. Whether this supposed difference is treated sympathetically or not, it is still extremely exclusitory toward those who have experienced some form of mental illness.
Then there is the sloppy and annoying tendency seen in some popular culture to lazily equate any general, unqualified statement that a character is ‘mentally ill’ as also automatically meaning that the character is sociopathic.
I remember scratching my head when they first came out with the plotline and thinking then that Dexter’s internal monologue should have gone:-
“I found myself sitting in a pool of my mother’s blood and… umm… now I kill people. Just because…”
That seems to be the level of thought the writers put into it, after all.
Rey Fox @ 135;
and David Marjanović, OM @ 138;
You’re both right. Often seen in TV and film is the atheist bashing tactic of implying that a person cannot simply be an atheist based upon a rationalist, sceptical mindset. There either has to be a clinical reason why someone would ‘reject god’, or they are just cynical/evil/’angry at god’. Of course, ‘all of the above’ is also considerd an acceptable answer…
R @ 149;
That was my first guess, but you have to be careful. A new sub-type of Poe has emerged; it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell a parody of an MRA from the real thing…
I solved the mystery of the lag. It’s login vs not-login. Not-login, lag. Login, no lag.
I found the exchange between Dexter & Angel quite funny. I mean, he’s a godless monster but is the only one concerned about the appropriateness of exposing young children to violent imagery. He asks Angel: don’t the kids find it a little scary? I dunno, maybe I just have a dark sense of humor but that was funny.
As to an atheist being a serial killer, well The Trinity Killer John Lithgow played was a minister. And the show depicts plentu of violence associated with religion, usually santa ria & voodoo. This season they are going to explore faith. For non Dexter fans the whole show is basically social commentary & explores social mores in the most unflinching & sardonic way possible.
The only other tv show characters I can think of off the top of my head are Captain Jack from Torchwood/DrWho & Patrick Jane from The Mentalist. Torchwood is full of atheistic subtext & so is The Mentalist.
slignot @ 126;
I can’t even… what the hell are those idiots thinking? They have budgetary problems, so they decriminalise domestic violence? I wonder, which projects are so important that they think it justified to keep them running while basically declaring open season on vulnerable spouses and partners? Do these morons even realise that domestic violence often escalates to GBH and outright murder? Do they care?
Oh, right. The bulk of domestic violence victims are women. Foolish of me to think that the powers that be in Topeka, Kansas would concern themselves with something so apparently unimportant as the safety of half the population.
Everytime I think it can’t get much worse, along comes a new low to disabuse me of that silly notion.
If there isn’t a rule that says that ‘however bad you think it is, it can always get worse’, then there should be.
As has been noted, Dexter-the-book-character and Dexter-the-TV-series-character are quite different.
—
Since Brice never responded, I note neither is emotionless (this is explicit); they merely lack affect to various ordinary stimuli.
It seems that the novels that Dexter is adapted from include elements of literal magic.
So in a sense the bogus nature of Dexter’s origin story in the television series might originate from there.
Ah, I notice too late that Ing already made mention of the whole demon possession thing. Ignore me!
News item of possible interest from my own hometown of Adelaide :
http://www.adelaidereview.com.au/article/1046
where a small group of “Christian” hate preachers have infested a key city street – but face opposition from the rational and tolerant majority. (Well I hope we’re a majority anyhow.)
In case folks hadn’t heard of this already.
StevoR, why do you put Christian in scare quotes?
Hooray, FtB is working again!
This is a video that explains the last episode of this season’s Doctor Who in song. For an amateur job, it’s pretty great. (Spoiler warning: it explicitly lays out the entire plot of the finale.) It was on The Mary Sue blog a couple of days ago.
I have been greatly enjoying the Stuff you missed in history class podcast. It’s pretty awesome.
Hugs to Rorschach. I’ve never been able to understand how anyone could have the steely constitution needed to work in an ER at all, let alone a continually understaffed one.
Rev BDC, I’m glad you survived. I’d have tried to ignore him for all 4 trucks, perhaps flashed back or given him the finger, but slowing down while overtaking? Let alone while overtaking 4 18-wheelers? That doesn’t even compute. Plus, if he kisses your rear bumper in that situation, it’s all his fault.
And later, when he slowed down so much he could get fined for it, I’d have pulled over to the shoulder and stopped. When I cannot drive because there’s an unpredictable moron in front of me, I cannot drive. Just let him pass and disappear in the distance. He was over the speed limit anyway (…as I gather from the fact that you were…).
I agree on the dog-ears, but the scribblings can be very interesting and/or funny. :-)
Oh. Which season?
:-D
To be fair, he says “hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster by your side” only before he watches the opposite happen and stops shooting first.
Well, yeah, but that’s obviously retconned. The original 3 episodes are all clearly intended as newage.
Or maybe like that throwaway line about the gods of our own making in the last chapter of Godzilla vs. Cthulhu. Once you drop “omnipotent” from the definition of “god”, lots of things become imaginable!
Why?
And that’s before we even get to the question of how the fuck you’d establish “guilt without any doubt”.
What. Stargate is sillier than that?!? That’s scary.
In particular, how can you do so in one town? Are there really no laws against domestic violence at the state (if not federal) level? That’s what makes this whole thing look so unreal to me.
Oversexed and underfucked, or something like that. Or maybe it was overworked and underpaid. I can’t remember, it’s all a blur these days.
Thai massage and spa Monday. It’s all good.
Also, the good thing of seeing a patient after they have been in the ER for >6 hours waiting to be seen is that you can triage them pretty quickly into those that can go home and those who need ICU.
And yes, I am cynical…;)
Santería.
I was thinking of treating myself to some nice cheese in tonight’s shopping. Maybe a nice Brie, maybe even some Roquefort. But after reading all the to-and-fro about Steve Jobs and Apple products, I’ve realised that spending extra disposable income on something I personally find aesthetically pleasing means I’m some kind of idiot, and I ought to just settle for mousetrap cheddar.
Reminds me of Dr. Cox in Scrubs (which is said to be horribly realistic) explaining something important to his assistants: with them in tow, he walks briskly through a large room and points at every bed, loudly saying “dead – dead – dead – dead – dead – dead – oh! How nice! At last somebody we can help!”
Enjoy the beaches.
moggie, spending extra disposable income on something [you] personally find aesthetically pleasing ≠ keeping up with the Joneses ≠ succumbing to marketing.
(I haven’t purchased Apple products because I personally seek value for money. I do buy quality cheese, now and then, for the same reason)
Nobel Peace Prize shared between three women
Ooops, here’s the proper link: Nobel Peace Prize shared between three women
Rev, I’ve only had anything close to as scary as that once, and it still gives me chills. Glad you got out of it ok.
So I downloaded the mp3 of the Doctor Who parody. Was just listening to it on my mp3 player, and then the alphabetical listing went to the next song, and it was TMBG’s song explaining speed and velocity. And then, the next one was a song about sponges by The Arrogant Worms. I don’t think the fact that the next on the list was Stairway is enough to counteract the fact that I apparently have the dorkiest music library of all time.
moggie
If it’s any help to you:
Getting Brie and Roquefort (I don’t even like Roquefort) is easy here, but getting some decent cheddar is hard, so from my POV, cheddar would be quite bourgeois ;)
Topeka
I’m neither a lawyer nor particularly familiar with Kansas, but my hunch goes like this:
1. home rule: many states outside of the East Coast have home rule for cities larger than a certain size, i.e. they can make any kind of law unless state parliament objects
2. usually there are several classes of crime, with felonies being worse than misdemeanours, and at the same time, many states restrict prosecution of judicial matters to misdemeanours (in Texas, Municipial courts have shared jurisdiction of misdemeanours with state courts, exclusive jurisdiction of city ordinances). So if state law allows, city ordinances could allow the city council to create new types of misdemeanour.
3. policing: in most US cities, the main police forces are maintained by the cities, and thus dependent on city budget constraints and other city-relevant factors, though prosecution usually rests in the hand of state attorneys. State police are much too thinly spread that they would probably not do this on a large basis, and the feds usually do not get involved in crimes restricted to one state only, so if the city police pulls out, you’re pretty much fucked. In the Topeka case, it seems that the State Attorney decided not to prosecute certain types of offences due to budget issues, and the City Council apparently is doing the same. Even if state law would define something a misdemeanour, and I presume domestic violence is one at the state level, the city could decide to direct resources towards certain types of crimes over others. Probably there would be some legal wrangling about what would be within legal limits etc. (a well known example would be sanctuary laws, whereby city police do not ask for immigration status, and the rationale that city police do not enforce federal law seems to have been accepted so far).
A lot of speculation on my part, but I felt like it… Please correct me where I’m wrong…
addendum: State Attorneys go by different names in different states, but they’re often elected, roughly on a county by county basis, and are not part of some kind of state wide judicial apparatus, unlike in many European countries.
Considering how many former winners have blood on their hands, I’m not sure why anyone would want to win it.
moggie, $$$.
Giliell:
Clearly your tastes and experience differ from mine, and therefore you are objectively wrong. Sorry, but those are the rules!
Some kind of late 80’s toyota. Maybe a Camry.
Giliell,
I went out to buy a bouquet, and set my temper and nerves to ignore.
Huh, same problem here. I have no idea what people here have against cheddar, but it’s difficult to find any kind of cheddar, not just the decent kind. I usually buy it in Slovenia, but that’s not exactly practical.
moggie
Tsss, I’m disappointed, you’ve forgotten to mention that I happen to be female and therefore, by definition, wrong.
The headline is misleading. A city council does not actually have the power to decriminalize domestic battery. It remains a crime under state law.
Rather, the city wants to remove domestic battery from the city code, so that the city attorney (a lawyer appointed and paid by the city) will no longer be responsible for prosecuting domestic battery cases, and so that these cases will no longer have to be heard in the city’s municipal court (a court operated and funded by the city). Instead, they want domestic battery cases to be prosecuted by the county district attorney, and heard in the state district court; so that the cost of prosecution and trial comes out of the county’s budget, rather than the city’s.
You can argue that it’s a bad thing to do, but they are not talking about “legalizing domestic violence”. They don’t have the power to do that. (And the city police will still have to respond to calls for domestic violence; they are obliged to enforce state laws as well as city ordinances. The difference is in who prosecutes the case, and which court it is heard in.)
This is extremely confusing for non-USians, since most countries have a single unified judicial system, and do not have separate “municipal courts” and prosecutors employed by cities. (Some countries, such as Australia and Germany, have separate federal and state judicial systems, but they still have no equivalent to municipal courts in the US.)
Btw,
Walton, I read your response to me on your blog. I have to admit I am in holiday mood right now, and intend to pretty much drop blogging and commenting for the next week, so don’t take the fact that I don’t respond to youre response personally.
Ok, fair enough. I apologize if I overreacted. I just disagree with you strongly on this subject (notwithstanding that I agree with you on many others). Enjoy your holiday.
oh the City Attorney. I thought that was mainly an office representing a city in judicial matters but it seems that in some states that office also handles certain types of offences, mainly misdemeanours.
So it boils down to a situation where both the City Attorney and District Attorney have jurisdiction, and one side had unilaterally decided to drop the misdemeanours onto the lap of the City Attorney’s office which is woefully unprepared for it. Thus the City Council’s move. It kinda makes sense to me now.
You can get a feeling for it from the following article in the local press
http://cjonline.com/news/2011-10-06/domestic-battery-state-now-leader-voices-outrage#.To72HZuBq0s
(Commissioners are the politicians overseeing the county)
and you can see it is probably still a power play, with mutual finger pointing etc between various players on the city and county levels, what you can expect in times where local governments are strapped for cash.
Oh, almost forgot to share:
Nice blockpost with and overviw of LGBT cuture in Victorianism
Addendum: Ensley is another County Commissioner
oh I forgot to share this quote with you, also involving the use of gendered language.
Ing @ 121 says:
This…
Dexter’s background is filled out gradually in the other seasons of the show. The flashbacks and/or ghost like appearances of his father are a common device in the series and almost become irritating at times. There is even a hint that Harry may even be Dexter’s biological father due to an affair Harry had with Dexter’s real mother.
In later episodes Dexter is, at times, struggling with who he is and what he does. This is presented as a narration by Dexter and arguments with his father (Harry.) Dexter even gets to the point where he considers to give up killing and just live a “normal” life with his family.
I don’t find it so easy to simply dismiss the story as one that tries to legitimize a serial killer. Dexter, as presented in the show, is unlike real life serial killers. With one exception he only kills to protect others from being killed: He kills killers (many of which are serial killers.) I think there is only one instance where he kills in self-defense. There is also one incident of a “mercy killing” where Dexter kills a dear old friend who is suffering from terminal cancer and the chemotherapy. He does it at her request.
While I do believe that killing is wrong and I am not even sure I could kill someone in self defense or defense of others. I am not so sure that it is wrong to kill in self defense or the defense of others. In this context, Dexter is no more a “monster” than a police officer who kills someone in the defense of themselves or others. He is no more a “monster” than a member of the armed forces who kills to protect fellow soldiers, citizens and property… perhaps even less so. He is no more a “monster” than the judge, jury, prosecutor and executioner that kill people for killing others… perhaps even less so.
I have watched all five full seasons so far and the first episode of the 6th. I got all the disks via Netflix and watched them all over a few days. I didn’t spend too much time trying to analyze them. Not that I am capable or qualified for much in depth analysis. I have also not spent all that much time reading about the show.
I am interested in where the writers, producers and directors take this show. I am interested in seeing how they will work the atheism and religion angle in this season.
Giliell:
I was kinda saving that for after you refused to come back to my room for a coffee.
so probably that means the City Council is repealing a law that requires the City Attorney to prosecute domestic battery. Which doesn’t influence state law.
Originally the dictrict attorney wanted to foist all misdemeanours onto the city attorney, as the city attorney is required by city law to prosecute those cases if the district attorney handed the cases over. However if the city chose not to have the city attorney prosecute those cases anymore, it would fall back to the district attorney, because usually crimes are prosecuted by the district attorney (as is the case in most states, the city level is usually more about traffic violations).
So politically speaking, I’d say the county is in a stronger position, though it is a idiotic move to use domestic battery as political capital. Also power asymmetries spring from the fact that the DA is elected, but the equally elected Commissioners have some say over the purse strings, and the City Council controls the city police and city attorney more directly.
Maybe though the Attorney-General’s office might get involved, though I’m not sure if a Kansas Republican would care about domestic violence.
Which, in a twisted sort of way, is almost a good thing in that it indicates that they think that domestic violence is an important and supported enough issue that it is a huge bargaining chip that neither side can afford to lose. But then again, they are bargaining with it, and when you gamble like that, losing is always a possibility.
oops, I meant the city of course. because usually people associate the city with traffic matters, and expect the DA to prosecute crimes, so if the DA pulls out, he looks bad, not so much the city.
Yep. In some states, the city attorney (or “city solicitor” in some places) is just the legal adviser to the city government, and represents the city in civil and administrative litigation. But in others, the city attorney also prosecutes criminal misdemeanours and city code violations within the city. In a few states, including Kansas, cities also have their own “municipal courts” which are funded and operated by the city.
Yes, that’s my understanding.
It’s all a weird product of the hyper-localism of the justice system in the US. This situation would not exist in most other countries.
Yay! The election here in Ontario is over and the Liberals have another mandate. I would there were other, better options, but I much prefer the Liberals to the other two major contenders. It seems most people haven’t yet forgotten that the Progressive Conservatives wanted to introduce faith schools.
Texas does too, but I think it was mostly about traffic violations. (Texas also has tow court, however that works). So I guess in a municipial court system, separation of powers requires that the police still hand it over to a prosecutor, and I guess that would be the City Attorney usually, or are there systems that function without one? But traffic cases are dime a dozen, I mean in Texas more serious cases like DUI are handled by the state courts anyways…
Posting this from my “new” computer. A snazzy laptop with docking module from a corporate department move to a new building, where they got all new equipment including new computers, and their recently purchased equipment became reduntant. Which our IT department jumped at. *Does a quiet happy dance*
Right wing anti-abortion nutters are going after Planned Parenthood using a different tactic.
http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/investigation_ppfa/
There’s a petition you can sign to protest the massive investigation initiated by Congressman Cliff Stearns. The bogus investigation is really just a means of shutting down Planned Parenthood clinics. Stearns and his cohorts wrongly claim that Planned Parenthood misuses federal funds to pay for abortion services. Representatives Henry Waxman and Dianna DeGette are fighting back. They are joined by several citizen groups.
http://democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?q=news%2Franking-members-waxman-and-degette-urge-chairman-stearns-to-reconsider-planned-parenthood-inves
Aw.
:):):):):):):):):):)
Abso-fuckin’-lutely. And where is the “But What About Teh Menz!!!” crowd, bravely speaking up against this on behalf of the male victims of domestic abuse?
–
Probably the State-Attorney would protest, and like in that scene in the Wire, the federal government might also dispatch someone to threaten to withhold federal funding. Though I don’t exactly understand the Obama Administration’s stance on drugs. IIRC, their enforcement vis-a-vis medical marihuana has been quite varied…
Attorney-General..
Well, so if I get the situation correctly, two different branches of the judicial system are playing a neat little feud over funding on the back of abuse victims…
Just sayin’ as somebody who’s knowledge in law is rather limited…
Yes, Giliell. While Germany has one criminal code for the entire country, the US has one for each state and also a federal one (so if you kill someone in a postal office, in a national park, or a reservation, federal law applies). The same for other types of law. And in many states, cities can make their own ordinances, also in criminal area. So you get an immensely complicated legal system, fascinating for me as a layperson to watch, though I might not necessarily want to live under it for life..
So if you ever wondered why there are so many lawyers in the USA, this is part of the answer
Fascinating.
Mr. is watching a football game on TV and he’s having a conversation with somebody who obviously shares at least a minimum amount of interest in this. Only it can’t be me because I don’t qualify. Must be the duck or the walruss again :)
Oh,
moggie
Uff, thanks, and there’s me thinking I’d done anything wrong. Hope you enjoy your cheese.
Only if it is a federal reservation. There are state reservations for natural areas.
I can’t speak for other federal agencies, but LEOs I know in the Forest Service, Park Service and Bureau of Land Management have told me that they often turn the case over to the state unless the crime directly involves federal employees (as the victim) or is concurrent with other federal crimes. They do this because federal officers in land management agencies tend to be very well trained for drug plantation investigations, theft and other property crime investigations, as well as natural or cultural resource crimes but have very little experience with investigating murder cases (National Parks have the lowest murder rate of any other part of the United States (yet the GOP forced through a bill to let visitors carry guns, so that will most likely not last)). Most National Parks have concurrent jurisdicition agreements with local or state law enforcement so that the federal officers can concentrate on the crimes which directly affect the protected area.
WTF Kansas? What idiot introduced that particular bit of stupidity?
Bones is definitely an Athiest, but I’m sure that she isn’t meant to be Aspergers. (That would be Zack, a former character now confined to a mental institution..le sigh)
According to the story line, Bones hyper-rationality is due to her parents disappearance at age 15.
Sorry Father O, by reservation I meant those areas of federally recognised tribes. One of the reason Mulder and Scully go there, because within their jurisdiction.
Thanks for the glimpse on the world of national parks though. It was my understanding that they can turn it over, as in the cases you described.
So if I’m on the same subject, let me ask you: until Texas changed its state law, in Texas you didn’t have to put on a seat belt in the back seat. However, in Big Bend National Park you did. Is that due to a federal statute, or regulation, or why? I found it funny that in Big Bend Ranch State Park you wouldn’t need to put on the seat belt, just next doors…
First I’ve heard of that. I was under the impression that traffic laws in National Parks (as well as Forest Service and BLM roads) generally followed the same laws as the state in which the park is located. The only variances to that I am aware of are ones involving recreational vehicles (for instance, snowmobile traffice on US 20, US 191, US 89 and US 287 between West Entrance (just east of the town of West Yellowstone) and Old Faithful). I was unaware of any additional seatbelt laws. And, when I check the park’s website under laws and policies ( http://www.nps.gov/bibe/parkmgmt/lawsandpolicies.htm ) I see nothing about auto or light truck regulations. Not saying you are wrong, just not familiary with the law or policy.
Hi, everyone. A question for non-US pharynguloids who work in medicine or know anyone in medicine: Are you having shortages of chemotherapeutics? We’ve been desperately as in “people not getting it and dying” desperately, short of cytarabine, doxil, BCNU, and a couple of other drugs. I’ve just now been told that hydroxyurea/hydrea is out, both generic and brand name, as well. So, is this a US problem or a world problem?
Father O, as I understand now you have to wear a seat belt acc to Texas law. I just remember reading it in a Texas newspaper. I like remembering this kind of useless tidbits… But of course memories can be wrong, and the press is also not known to report everything correctly..
@Teutys
I think you’re mistaken. The show has never outright said it but it’s been said off-camera.
http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/ellen_gray/20070131_
Dianne:
I’m in the US, but here’s one link that suggests Doxil, at least, is in legitimate short supply.
I know there have been problems with radioactive isotopes being in short supply because of plant shutdowns and issues, but I can’t list which ones.
Dianne:
Another article written more broadly: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/CancerPreventionAndTreatment/drug-shortages/story?id=14593880
Speaking of Aspie characters, anyone else irritated with the response of The Big Bang Theory people to the suggestion that Sheldon seems Aspie? I am, kinda.
Richard, thanks for the links. They seem to confirm that this is a US problem. I’m seriously wondering if I can simply send patients to Canada for their drugs. Does Canada have an adequate hydroxyurea supply? Brownian?
small rant:
I swear there’s a demon living in my embroidery machine. I’m working on my autumn sweater, and I managed to get 5 out of 6 designs done without fucking up one and I can assure you that’s a rare occasion.
So, I’m watching design number 6 stich out, making sure nothing goes wrong because it’s on a difficult spot.
And the machine fucks up. First it shifts the design 1/5″ to the side after 2 colours and then, when I manage to fix that, it turns the design upside down on the fourth colour.
Tomorrow I’ll attempt to fix it…
Good night
Dianne, FWIW, I asked Google News in German, Chinese and Japanese, and it seems that at least the press using those languages is at least not reporting on the issue…
Let’s just say with one of your compounds, two out of three of the generic suppliers have dropped out of the market, and the third wasn’t ready to ramp up the supply. It is being worked on.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
…I’m back. So much driving. So much stress. Messy apartment, suddenly empty. Stopped along the way to visit my nieces and my parents. Ahh, baby therapy. To think they’ll be dashing around on 2 feet in a few months. Missing StrangeBoyfriend, kind of dazed, should really sleep but I can’t. While I was visiting my parents I happened to read the editorial page of my hometown newspaper. Egad, it was so annoying. It’s the same group of editors from when I was in high school, and they really revealed themselves to be old fogeys with their “Get off my lawn” equal-opportunity rant about Tea Partiers and Occupy Wall Street.
Here, read: http://thedailystar.com/editorials/x708027730/Protesters-on-both-sides-need-to-be-more-specific
I used to write a lot of letters to the editor when I was in high school. I feel compelled to reignite that tradition.
I finally have a computer again (office management decided I had to relocate massive amounts of files again, 3rd move in 1.5 years).
I agree that the headline wording of what they’re planning to do was not as clear as it could have been, but it is nevertheless unconscionable. The county DA has already stopped prosecuting domestic battery cases, meaning that the only hope victims in Topeka had was the city. And now the city is considering doing precisely the same thing for budgetary reasons. They may not be legally decriminalizing battery, but that will be the effect of this decision.
It is telling what is prioritized during a financial squeeze, and it’s clear that bitches really aren’t shit.
re: drug shortages.
Comradde PhysioProffe had a comment on the subject.
But as per usual, I can’t figure out what his point was supposed to be.
Completely bankrupt, here.
Anyway, is anyone else having any problems w/ FtB profiles not saving changes? It took me several attempts to get this and now it won’t let me change my name back.
*sigh*
Oops, never mind. Apparently, it has changed back.
*grumble grumble*
Gah! Okay, I give up. Comment 260 was supposed to be “purveyor of candy and lies”, but apparently my changes took after I posted.
*grumbles some more*
pelamun: Thanks and I am in awe of your linguistic ability. Nerd, thanks, but the underlying question is why are so many generics not being made. And doxil isn’t even a generic drug…something seems badly amiss.
Bones?
Her real name is Mary Sue.
(Irritating)
On this day in history these people were born.
Also, too, me.
Sorry, it is off composition of matter patent. Ergo, it is a generic drug.
Happy birthday, The Sailor!
October birthdays are the best! (I should know. Mine’s in a week.)
Happy sailor birthday.
October birthdays are the result of mid-winter cabin fever fucking.
Dianne, I’ll just say that when dealing with very potent compounds with a long lead time, a blown batch or two can cause shortages down the road. If you want to discuss this further, try me at radish*1182*@comcast*.net. Remove the asterisks.
Rey:
Hey, when you live in the northeast, you’ve gotta do something to stay warm and sane.
Although I’m not keen on equating the two very-different movements, I do think the author has a point about the vagueness of most protestors’ demands. Protests about broad economic and political issues tend, necessarily, to be rather vague and ill-defined; after all, it’s not easy to boil down complex questions of public policy to pithy slogans that will fit on a protest sign. (I felt the same way about the student protests last year in the UK.)
I prefer to participate in protests and campaigns that have a specific, concrete goal on which all participants are agreed: opposing the death penalty, supporting abortion rights or same-sex marriage, closing Guantánamo, ending deportations to a dangerous country, and so on. This is why I like Amnesty International; they’re well-organized, and their campaigns are targeted, specific and often effective.
Over on ScienceBlogs, txpiper said “organization demands an organizer”. Several people proved him wrong, and then Owlmirror piled on the mockery in the most delicious way. Thank you, Owlmirror, in Russian.
In Greece, the church has a lot of financial privileges and is the biggest owner of real estate. There are now more and more calls to change that, even though the church runs a large part of the social system as well.
In Italy, the president of the conference of bishops now calls for a loud and clear statement against Berlusconi’s morals, even though Berlusconi provided conservative legislation and generous tax privileges for 10 years.
I’ll spend much of the weekend plucking apples.
It’s cheese. Man, you can ask questions.
1) Link doesn’t work.
2) I love syllable-final fortition. So… exotic. :-)
People there act as if Austria had won against Germany :-)
Stupid.
:-)
:-(
*rock candy*
Here, have some more additions to the sweet treats basket…
*jelly babies*
*Turkish Delight*
*lemon sherbet*
*chocolate chip cookies*
*croissants*
(Speaking of which, it’s probably time for the Walton’s dinner.)
*blueberry muffins*
*pancakes*
*Danish pastries with apricot filling*
*strawberry pavlova*
Ooooh, I nearly forgot…
*granola*
(I like granola. It was in the sale at the supermarket this morning, and I managed to get two boxes for $1.99 each. This made me happy.)
re Wall Street Protests need direction
I’m not sure if this is the right link but there was an interview on TRMS with Naomi Klein on this very topic, and I think I’d agree at this point with her
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#44811000
You first need to see where this movement is going, so coming up with specific demands would be counter-productive at this point, and at the same time while not disparaging what NGOs do, the left DOES need some kind of movement that is broadly supported. Here’s hoping that this is the beginning of such a movement.
Walton:
Oh, blechh!
In place of turkish delight (*shudder*), I will put homemade chocolate cupcakes in the treat basket!
*hugs* To Sally Strange. I’ll bring you lots o’ booze next week. :)
I know there’s tons more important crap going on, but still…
a) is something wrong with the Preview function? I already shut down Firefox, restarted it, updated it, restarted computer, reloaded page, allowed FTB in Noscript, all that good stuff.
b) and I just saw the “Vampires in Venice” ep of Doctor Who for the first time, and… yeesh.
(warning, rot13 rant)
Gur favqr frkvfz ERNYYL tbg ba zl areirf. Onq rabhtu gb unir gur pyvpur’q onpurybe-cnegl tneontr va gurer ng nyy jvgubhg gur naivyvpvbhf gerngzrag NAQ pneelvat gur gverq wbxrf guebhtubhg gur jubyr rcvfbqr. Abj V’z guvaxvat fbzr bs gur pevgvdhrf bs Zbssng’f jevgvat qvqa’g tb sne RABHTU. /rot13
*key lime pie*
*strawberry vanilla ice-cream sundae*
*ice-cold lemonade*
*oatmeal raisin cookies*
*meringue*
*Black Forest gateau*
(Ok, now I’m getting carried away. Rather like Graham Chapman at around 2.45 in this sketch, only with desserts instead of sex.)
Ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul!
(Oh, sorry. Wrong invented language.)
Oh, yes. One of the greatest poets Wales has ever produced. It’s a shame nobody could spell his name. (Of course, he was seven foot tall, so everybody just called him “Little Hugh”.)
(Ignore me. I’m becoming delirious from lack of dessert.)
*hides from Walton in a bunker of shortbread and tiramisu*
Pteryxx, preview is working fine.
(Check if you’re blocking any scripting)
(Just checked my settings, are you allowing wordpress.com, Pteryxx?)
I am soliciting ideas for dressing, (the almost stuffing kind,) with no turkey involved. This weekend is Thanksgiving up here and we do ham, but I really want some dressing this year.
And hey, it’s the Sailor’s birthday. Have a good one.
All I can say, is my local “family restaurant” uses the same stuffing for pork as turkey/chicken. The gravy (institutional yellow or brown gravy) gives it its final flavor…
Fuckke and shitte surely. I gave up on trying to parse the posts there.
Hang on, I just updated Firefox, yet it says version 3.6.23; is that correct? (And yes, I have both FTB and WordPress.com permitted in Noscript; usually FTB alone would allow preview)
Nerd,
Gravy is for poutine. Oh. OH NO! Oh, this is terrible. Now I have a wicked idea. An awful idea that should never see the light of day. Curse you gravy and cheese curds.
Virtual birthday cake for all!
Happy Birthday to The Sailor.
—-
Dhorvath, OM
Include some chopped-up spicy sausage in your dressing.
Chigau,
I was thinking chorizo, but it may be pepper Octoberfest instead.
I think I should go see The Rocky Horror Show on a Sunday.
Geez you guys. It’s an avalanche of sweet combustibles! No wonder I’ve been gaining weight. (I need to get back to working out regularly. Don’t worry though, I’m not neurotic about my body image.)
Seriously though, it is rough and I have me here a list of Medicaid-covered therapists in my town. I’ve never really done therapy before. I just think it’s going to be helpful to have someone listening to the goals I have set for myself and taking me seriously about it. Otherwise I will procrastinate.
Watching last Monday’s DWTS episode is making me maudlin. It’s the emotional back story week. Soldier guy dedicated his dance to all the people who didn’t make it back, and he pulled it off with sensitivity and panache.
Ordered in: sezhuan dumplings and miso soup.
Pteryxx, I’m running FF 7.0.1 in Vista.
You might try temporarily enabling all on this page, and if that works, start disabling selectively until it stops working.
Oh, and NoScript 2.1.4
Pteryxx,
The latest version of Firefox is 7.0.1 (or something like that).
I’ve been having problems with preview on-and-off, but I only really notice it while I’m using my phone.
Blasphemer!
Fresh Turkish delight is delightful. (Of course, I had to be taught that by someone familiar with it after my only Turkish-delight experience to that date had been a single bite of a stale piece. That DID deserve a “blechh”.)
O_o Gah. I may have to reinstall Firefox completely, oh joy. Thanks y’all.
After creating a vast banquet of desserts in my imagination, my actual dinner is very disappointing… rubbery mushroom ravioli, heated in a pan. That was stupid. For a couple of dollars more I could have gone out for dinner and actually had an enjoyable meal. (I only bought the ravioli because I bought a tub of grated Parmesan cheese the other day, and felt obliged to use some of it up, lest my money be wasted.)
Since I’ve been here, I’ve come to hate and dread cooking. I hate using a kitchen shared with strangers, and any cooking skill I once had has long since evaporated (despite many people sending me recipe books). Cooking can be fun when you (a) have a whole day set aside with nothing to do but shop, plan and cook, and (b) have other people around who will help with the cooking and share the food. Cooking for oneself on one’s own in a dorm is absolutely miserable.
Walton,
I am sad for you. Hugs if you want em.
Hey Walton, are there any Hare Krishnas around there?
I remember they (used to) offer really cheap, rather good all-vegetarian meals at their centres (and not even any overt proselytising).
Just a thought.
Walton:
:(
I’ve only had to share a kitchen with friends and family, but I can imagine that I’d react pretty much the same way you do. Plus, I absolutely loathe cooking for myself and no one else– more effort than it’s worth, in my mind. (The last time Mr Darkheart was away for the weekend, I pretty much had to force myself to eat and when I did, it was canned soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.)
That grated Parmesan cheese will probably last a while, so you don’t have to worry about using it up right away. I use it on popcorn and fried eggs (and the usual noodly dishes).
Oh, don’t feel sorry for me… I was an idiot. There are plenty of good places to eat around here, many of which I’ve eaten at (a fellow Pharyngulite and I dined at a good vegan restaurant earlier this week). I just figured I’d save a little money by cooking for myself tonight, something which was not a good plan.
Audley: Yep. Having chosen to live in the cheapest available dorm*, I’m sharing a kitchen with about twenty other people, none of whom I know well. Admittedly, many of those people don’t cook, but it’s still crowded and awkward. I dislike communal kitchens in general. And I really, really hate cooking just for myself, especially when I have many more important things to do than cook.
(*Against my parents’ advice; they would have been happy to pay for me to live in one of the nicer dorms, but I’d have felt guilty about taking extra money from them.)
Posting from new Motorola Triumph. Incredible how many miskeys one can make in two short sentences.
Walton,
Well, I reckon this is a learning experience.
Perhaps compromise, and spend those couple of extra dollars for a more enjoyable (and perhaps healthier) meal.
(‘Twould likely make both you and your olds happier; win-win!)
Not to me. Is it a touch screen? I can hardly key anything correctly on one of those things.
I often wish eating could be more like, say, watching movies or drinking wine. That is, a recreational activity which is fun on occasion when one has company, but which one can live without, and which one can easily skip for as long as necessary when one has work or other important things to do.
Maybe someone should invent sci-fi-style instant nutrition pills. Given the choice, I’d live on those for most of the time, and go out for dinner maybe once or twice a week, or whenever I have company.
Yeah, I have to learn that the bit of my finger that touches the screen first isn’t the tip.
Walton:
Ugh. That sounds like a recipe for an unsanitary kitchen.
Sorry, at this point, I’m prolly just making things worse.
Walton,
Alas, your intestinal tract requires roughage for proper functioning (an often-overlooked advantage to vegetarian diets).
Got to say, there are times when I’ve really resented having to feed myself. Though I’m usually not too put out by having a dinner of peanut butter and jelly on toast.
I know… I was dwelling in the realm of space-opera fantasy there, not reality.
(Another alternative: can someone please invent the replicator from Star Trek? That would save the effort of cooking. And it would mean I wouldn’t have to be vegetarian any more, since one could eat roast beef assembled at the atomic level, without the involvement of any actual cows.)
“Tea. Earl Grey. Hot”
Could a replicator make that good?
Dhorvath, sure. They’re techno-magical, donchano?
Giliell #222,
Could you resupply the link? It didn’t work in that comment.
Food replicators, yes. And while we’re at it, uterine replicators. Also a pony. A flying pony.
ah, that explains a bit…. Firefox 7 is incompatible with Tor. Well, frick.
Aaaand, preview STILL doesn’t work for me, even with FTB and WordPress permitted. Hm.
Transferring phone number from old to new, neither currently work. I hope whomever wrote that on Virgin’s site appreciates the irony.
+phone
Happy birthday, The Sailor!
–
What is wrong with you?!? You want the nasty, Evil little bastards dive bombing people?
Pony, pony, in the sky,
Why you do that in my eye?
(With no apologies whatsoever to the late Henry Gibson.)
–
Well, DUH… seeing as how I’d be riding them and all. If you’re nice to me I’ll let you ride one. Otherwise, you’ll be among the unfortunate dive-bombees.
Somebody at work figured out that FtB is a blog. Now it’s blocked and I have to spend all of my time working and my internet was out at home all week and I’m totally thread-bankrupt.
/whine
If it makes you feel any better, Walton, I dislike cooking for 4 just as much as you dislike cooking for one.
I just managed to get a Diet Mountain Dew from the vending machine. That makes up for everything. (It’s even more sublime than Diet Coke.)
Walton,
Wow!
Your hand-eye coordination is no less impressive than your pecuniary advantage.
<awe>
Gotcha covered.
Fucking St Louis Cardinal!
Go Milwaukee Brewers.
Ha… it was a more laborious task than you’d think. I didn’t have any cash except $20 bills, which the machine won’t accept. So I had to figure out how to set up my university online cash account thingy (which is linked to my university ID card) so I could use that at the vending machine. When I finally managed to make the online account work, my first two trips to the vending machine were fruitless, causing increasing desperation on my part. Only on the third attempt did I realize I was swiping the card the wrong way round.
(And the prize for “Dullest and Most Aimless Anecdote of the Century” goes to Walton.)
Does anyone want to hear about how I shifted in my seat and got more comfortable?
I bought fancy icecream. While we’re sharing the day’s excitements.
I’m still testing the preview function. Whee.
okay, Preview apparently requires FTB and googleapis to be permitted by Noscript, but not WordPress.com. That’s new… until the last week or so, only FTB had to be permitted.
and FTB will permit login through Tor. Good to know.
(okay, done spamming my testing now)
This exchange conjured up a bizarre mental image of SallyStrange and Cicely* on their flying ponies, wearing Stetson hats and waving American flags, swooping down from the skies at a Republican presidential rally and emptying buckets of lukewarm custard all over an indignant Rick Perry and Rick Santorum. I don’t know why.
(*Or, at least, SallyStrange and Cicely as I imagine them, since I don’t know what either looks like.)
Thanks for the lentil recipes yester-thread, y’all. :-) I shall copy them out for future reference!
Just went to a surprisingly nice party. Usually I don’t enjoy this particular party so much but it was good. I think I am feeling at peace with the world today. Yeah!
Oh, that wasn’t the most exciting part of my day. The highlight, to which I alluded earlier, was buying two boxes of granola which were on sale for $1.99 each – that’s a saving of 70 cents per box from the usual retail price – with my Shaw’s reward card. And right now it’s Friday night, and I’m in my room telling the internet about granola.
(…Yeah, I guess I don’t live the stereotypical student life. On the plus side, I’m taking interesting classes, and I’m enrolled in an immigration/refugee clinical program which is very rewarding.)
Walton. Hole. Stop digging.
Here is fight between the owner of the Texas Rangers and the manager of the Chicago White Sox.
Hey all,
Thread Bankrupt after having traveled for most of the last two weeks. Just stoppin’ in to say how you durrin’! Will go read Thread now. After checking on sourdough naan.
Oh are we sharing our daily excitements?
I just saw 50/50. It was pretty damn good, even though I really fucking hate Seth Rogen.
I dunno, Janine, Walton made me giggle out loud twice and that’s something.
(With you, Walton, not at you.)
Walton:
Dude. You sound like my mom. Nobody in their right mind gets that excited about granola.
I don’t really have any food excitements to share, except for that Fuji apple I ate for lunch. Super juicy and super crisp. OM NOM NOM.
I can get excited about granola, if I made it from Nigella Lawson’s recipe and it’s got lots of roast almonds in it. And now I’m going to make goat rendang – the cheat’s way with a high quality curry paste.
Funeral Singers-Califone
Sundays-Lucinda Williams
You’re Still Standing There-Steve Earle & Lucinda Williams
Goodbye-Emmylou Harris
Happy Birthday to The Sailor.
…………………………..
Just checking on the sourdough maan. (Being Josh)
I have found you a trinket. Be warned, it is very strange and could only come from China. I won’t tell you what it is, that you will have to work out yourself. I will send before we move into the new pad.
Up The Neck-Pretenders
Hate My Way-Throwing Muses
Meet On The Ledge-Richard Thompson
I Wish I Was The Moon-Neko Case
@ Josh
In case you missed the pic I posted while you where away: Fish n Chips Speltdough Pizza.
theophontes, only from China, eh?
Lemme guess: a preserved panda-penis pendant.
@ John Morales
No,no,no, … nothing as commonplace as that. ;)
Again though…they pick the “lady issue” as their bargaining chip. It’s a very suspicious conclusion.
Wrong. A cop that serves not to actually do his job but because they like to bully people and hit people with clubs would be a monster with a badge. They could not be trusted to properly do their duty. Dexter doesn’t act for any sense of defense of others, it’s a personal “need”. Take for example up thread where it’s mentioned that he kills just some random person (more or less) because he’s really really really upset.
Auf Wiedersehen-Cheap Trick
Femme Fatale-Alex Chilton & Yo La Tengo
Bastards Of Young-Replacements
Gloria-Patty Smith
Theo:
Yay! I’m done traveling for several weeks, and now I’m really going to dry out some Phoenicia and mail her to you and to several other people who’ve graciously hosted me on my recent trips around the US. I’ll get you some Her in the mail within the next week.
Baby, that’s disgustin’.
Oh, and: OMG – FLEAS. Oh, how I hate you. It is so unfair you should infest my don’t-go-outside-cats, and would you stop biting my legs.
The venue for the wedding has been chosen and booked!
We found a place to match the steam punk/victorian theme we want and it’ll be in front of a mastodon
She’s Not There-Neko Case & Nick Cave
I have never watched True Blood and never heard this one until now.
Strange Affair-June Tabor with Martin Simpson
Freddie’s Dead-Fishbone
Neverland-Marti Jones
Sweet Transvestite-Anthony Head
aladegorrion, prompted by the recipes, I thought I’d make some lentils today.
So, I put the lentils to soak, then found out we had no onions, or much else. So I dug up some spring onions, used them instead. Used some hot salami, since that’s all I had.
Then, when I finally put the stock in, I discovered it was fish stock (frozen leftover from when my partner* made bouillabaisse) — I should have checked.
Ah well, it’s cooking now, I’ll see how it turns out. :|
—
* She’s horrified at the prospect.
The level of stupidity in today’s letters to the local paper is staggering.
The headlines:
* Candidates’ Failure To Speak Out During Debates Was Cowardice
* Expecting Miracles
* It’s Democrats Who Are Soft
* Get Education Right Early
* Democrats Created BoA Fee
If you’ve got an account at the Book that is Face, you can comment on those letters. And the idiots are already starting to pour in.
Happy birthday, The Sailor! Hope you have (had*) a great day :)
.
* time zones?!?!?
Not to my knowledge. Thiopentone has been rationed for a while, and lately iv Penicillin is short in supply. But not chemo drugs afaik.
I see Dexter’s atheism as one of the ways of making him less sympathetic to the far too large segment of the population that might approve of the mission of his vigilantism. What, after all, is the practical difference between a Dexter and a Rick Perry (other than that Dexter spends far more time making sure his victims really are guilty)? We atheists can consider him an antihero because so many of us are against killing, be it innocents or criminals. Those who would otherwise approve of murdering murderers can consider him an antihero because his atheism, in their eyes, makes him flawed. Nurse Jackie has a similar thing going on, only instead of being an atheist, Jackie’s vigilantism is offset by her adultery and drug addiction.
A. Noyd, meh.
(Fictional characters are fictional)
Just a lurker dropping in to say thanks to the Pharyngula community. I’ve watched many battles here and admired people’s strength and persistence when dealing with fuckwits of all stripes.
I’m dealing with a hyper-religious family member who is basically your typical tone troll (and is incapable of shutting up despite repeated attempts to block him online). There was a time when I would fall for that bullshit, but now I’ve got me an angry squid-shaped sword.
Thanks for the sniny-fanged role models. This ex-fundy needs it.
*Waves at Noemz*
Welcome to TET! (How do you spell ‘mum’ with no ems?)
Anyhow, while sharing pointlessness; I am all wrung out, emotionally, from tonight’s Dr. Who.
I think I’ve overdone it for the last couple of days. Muuuust sleeeeeppppp…
John Morales (#365)
I’m not really sure what that has to do with what I was saying. There are people to whom a certain sort of killer, fictional or otherwise, is admirable. Dexter’s atheism could be intended as a device to diminish, in their eyes, the righteousness of his killing.
Tigger_the_Wing @ 367
Thanks! And it says “no ems” so we can have *one*. So… mu?
Yeah the latest series of Dr Who is pretty intense. I haven’t watched tonight’s yet, so thanks for the heads-up; I might catch it tomorrow after some z’s.
It’s the one we’ve all been waiting for: the doctor dies! DUNDundun….
I don’t really get how distressed people seem to have been about it, we all know they’re not going to kill the series. But no spoilers!
It’s the newest in generation 3 and still supported, so it’s just fine and dandy if that’s what you like. I know I do, and am using exactly that. However, there are more modern versions available. (I’ll eventually try them, but seeing how shitty 4 or 5 were I’m in no hurry.)
Good morning
Still repairing the damage from yesterday…
Aratina
http://thesteamerstrunk.blogspot.com/2011/10/ffanother-way-to-love-glbt-culture-in.html
Not taking chances to mess up this time
Walton
How do you feel about buying a pan, a pot and 3 plastic bowls for yourself and storing them in your room?
That’s what I did in Ireland because my housemates were messy (and that means something, coming from me)
As for ready ravioli: How about heating them in a bit of butter, with garlic and some parsley?
Optional small tomatoes.
That’s actually one of my favourite pasta-recipies…
Dhorvath got me thinking of poutine (ha, my British spell checker didn’t know the word) and how I could try some. Fresh cheese curds aren’t easy to come by around here so I’ll probably have to make my own. But there’s a Finnish speciality that’s also sometimes called “squeaky cheese” due to it’s texture, leipäjuusto. It’s basically fresh cheese curds pressed into a thin disk and baked in an oven to form a dark speckled skin.
John M,
just between us, do you think the way you approached the obviously religiously afflicted and confused “david” is going to help him get better ? Personally, I struggle a bit with these, because clearly I have a responsibility to not make people like david fall for frauds like Miller, but I am not sure how to best achieve this. I’m just not sure your Spock approach is the right one for someone so obviously emotionally involved.
Rorschach, not really, but it can’t hurt, and may actually help.
I seriously considered pointing to SkepDic, but felt it would’ve been counter-productive. Who knows, I might have planted a seed that will germinate, in time.
In short, I did as best as I. I’m no therapist.
Anyway, I’m happy to err on the side of charity, and I don’t get a trollish vibe from that poster — like you, I see someone who needs help and is looking in all the wrong places.
Um. Obviously, best as I could.
—
(I’m getting dull, time for bed, I think)
Well. Just not sure my blog is the right place to turn this one around, he probably needs psychotherapy at least. But the fact of having individuals like him come to me for answers with regards to whether frauds like Waco wannabe AJ Miller are for real or not, opens a whole new can of worms.
Why can’t I just be getting wasted with AronRa and ZP in Houston right now ? Damn it ! I might even have met Aquaria !
Shiny, shiny mirror
http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/08/politics/perry-response-mormonism/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
So, after a mere half a day I’ve managed to undo the mess the machine left yesterday, so I proudly present my new hoodie. Detailed pics on my crafts blog.
A rissotto made with coloured rices (brown, red, white, wild, etc, whatever you can find), simmered in stock, and then, when almost cooked, decant to a baking dish and add some plums, pineapple, or other cookable fruit. Season with herbs to complement other dishes.
Oyster stuffing.
Supposed to be 75 degrees F and sunny today. So I’m going shopping for a new snow blower…*cue weird theme music*
I tried that for the first time evah last week. Really nyummy.
*drools*
I would sell myself for some more…
Grab your socks, everyone! The end of the world is yet again upon us!
I guess I didn’t realize that the really really real end of the world was going to happen in two weeks:
http://www.examiner.com/atheism-in-los-angeles/harold-camping-says-the-end-is-nigh-again
At least I still get to celebrate my birthday.
Pardon me for a moment… my comments over on the They’re always the bad guy thread aren’t going through (comments are closed?), so this is a test.
Telling the boss to fuck off isn’t any fun when you’re the boss.
Maybe not, but shouting “I’m not the boss of me!” is.
Camping had a stroke after his failed prediction? Weird.
mw:
Well, it seems like in his mind, the prediction wasn’t totally failed. October’s at the end of the five month period of tribulations* (which started in May), but instead of violent death, we’re all just gonna die quietly.
That’s not what Revelations says about the end of the world, but whatever.
Caine:
:(
At least you won’t fire yourself, eh?
*Or whateverthefuck.
myeck waters:
Except I am the boss of me. And the boss is tired, especially of working, so she’s going to go to bed.
Audley:
I suppose…I’m feeling so whiny right now I’d consider it. ;p
Caine:
Oh noes! Luckily you can re-hire yourself when you’re feeling less frustrated.
*toodles off to find some breakfast*
Therrin, I once went to a neighbor’s house BCP (before cell phones) and reported to the phone company that my landline was out. Her first question was “are you calling from home?”
+++++++++++++++++
First off, Happy Birthday Sailor, belated or not!
Second,
I’m convinced, will try. Just not today, the nearest grocery store closed about an hour ago and I have almost no milk.
But what would be a preferable way to produce the curd? For Indian style dishes I’ve used buttermilk and never really dabbled with the acids.
You’re not the boss of me now and you’re not so big.
Some times, you have to go with the obvious choice.
Janine
Thanks for the music links. Neko and Nick Cave is an unexpected combination. When did you become inane?
I found a great piece of fossiliferous limestone today on my walk. It contains several Strophomena brachiopods and a pelycypod which I tentatively have identified as Redonia.
Happy Birthday to Sailor!
… which, I just learned, is not the right way to make paneer. Damn the ex who taught me.
Speaking of being the boss of me, can anyone offer any useful suggestions on how I can get my lazy employee off my ass and start doing my chores?
Thanks to everyone who conga rats’d me on me birthday. It’s the only day that belongs to one. I’m surprisingly sensitive about it.
I’ve had some great ones. You folks made this one special too.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Thanks for the music links. Neko and Nick Cave is an unexpected combination.
It is not for me. Neko Case was the opening act for Nick Cave years ago in Chicago. I ran into Neko a few times when she lived in Chicago. She was excited to be opening for him. This was before she released Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
When did you become inane?
I was arguing with and insulting David Marshall. He decided to insult me back. But, alas, his insults were not based on what I said or who I am. He ended up tripping over his words.
It starts here when DM gives his analysis of a monologue by Charlie Chaplin from The Great Dictator.
I insult him. One person, who I think now knows better, tries to defend DM. I explain why I just insulted DM.
DM gives me my inspiration for my latest moniker.
Here is where I set my trap. What is funny is that I had no idea it was a trap. I thought that what I was doing was very obvious.
Sprong!
Three people pointed out to DM what just happened but, as far as I know, DM never acknowledged it. But what the fuck, he admitted that he loved watching we pigs wrestling at the trough.
I really hate arrogant blowholes like him, especially when what makes him so proud is so meager.
Janine, life is unfair. [/Malcom]
++++++++++++++++++++++
I think John Morales is right, fictional characters are fictional. Dan Quale was rightfully derided because he castigated a fictional character.
FFS, it’s fiction writ on large & small screens. Don’t like it? Don’t watch it.
My cat is the boss of me. :(
While looking up a song, I found a play list simply titled JanineSongs. It was compiled by an other Janine.
Janine,
I cannot get your links to work save for the first one.
Dhorvath, if it is about how David Marshall gave me my latest moniker, just scroll down from that first link. The thread is not very long. I just got carried away.
Janine,
Okay, then I read it. Links are fun, except when they aren’t.
Yay new nym goodness.
aladegorrion: “Thanks for the lentil recipes”
I read that as “thanks for the lethal recipes” …too many Dexter comments?
Janine
Thanks for the link. Much of that thread is way over my head, but David Marshalls arrogance comes through loud and clear.
I covet your proximity to Neko and just realized that I probably lost her last two albums with the unexpected death of my laptop last month. arghh!
I am also “the boss of me” and when I need motivation, I use a bribe — chocolate usually works
I find it amazing how chocolate as a bribe works more often than bacon. Hmm, I guess I’m not a dog.
Today is the saddest day of the year. After one final sail, the boat got hoisted out of the water. Sailing is over until it’s autumn in Oz.
‘Tis, I get it. I’ll be hauling my boat within the next 2 weeks.
It’s like possibilities are over for 5 months.
I got all showered, got dressed, came to campus, and promptly spilled a ton of coffee all over myself. :( So now I’m going to have gross spilled coffee on me all day.
—
I have some classics-major trash talk to impart to everybody: “It’s about to look like the ending of the Bacchae in here, and you[r posts?] are playing Pentheus.”
—
Nick Cave! She’s Not There! Eee! I don’t know who this Neko is, but I love love love Nick Cave and that song.
I despise Ron Paul, but I love this Ron Paul ad. I know, I know, but it really is good.
Anyone reading Sinfest?
I don’t know where he’s taking it, but Ishida’s usually one of the good guys.
Oh, and Stockholm was lovely.
Everything is upside-down, but lovely place nonetheless.
Quick note from the Flickr blog–maybe PZ could publicize this. Amit Gupta has acute leukemia (leukaemia) and doesn’t like the 1/20,000 odds of finding a matching bone-marrow donor in the current registry. He’s asking anyone of South Asian decent consider getting onto the registry — to sign up and get a cheek-swab kit by mail. Here’s Amit’s story. Just thought I’d mention it.
CC, OM: That’s why blue jeans rule. I once spilled an entire cup of coffee into my lap at the start of a lecture and was able to just sit there and let the blue jeans absorb and disguise it as they dried. Didn’t miss a thing except my morning coffee.
BTW, if you duck into the washroom, take off the offending article and wash it with soap, blow-dry if possible, it will be better than wearing it with untouched coffee all day. Wet is better than coffee-stained.
Does not follow. We are free to discus the implications and phylisophical meanings behind characters because art is a meme transference media. If you have a fiction promoting co-dependent domestic abuse (COUGH COUGH TWILIGHT COUGH COUGH) or Sociopathy and rape (COUGH COUGH COUGH RAND COUGH COUGH) it’s fair to call WTF on it.
Sailor, is it your birthday again!? Happy effing birthday!
‘Tis, condolences on the last day of sailing. Up here in the Frozen North, it’s about 72 (21) out with sun and a mild breeze. In October.
Sili, waiting with a bated breath. This one seems ugly, but I’ll withhold judgement until the storyline plays out.
I hope it wasn’t intended to be poking fun at feminists in a disagreeable way, because I actually smiled when she said “Look it up, dudebro.” That’s basically what I would have said. Well, I would have said it differently, but isn’t that fundamentally the attitude we (can and should) take toward such ignorant people? “Look it up, I have no patience for you.” And this bodes well, I think. Bated breath indeed.
Rev BDC: Yep, I finally figured out that when I try to teach someone a lesson I’m only teaching them that I’m a jerk (too). I now just take my foot off the gas and slow down until they get bored with tailgating and pass me.
I’m the man now, I’m sticking it to myself.
Janine, I loves you.
Crowepps, nah, no chocolate. It’s a deep “work: I don’t wanna” thing, pervasive and getting deeper by the moment. I’ve taken a few days off recently and all I’m doing is getting more behind schedule. I had planned to take Tuesday to go up to Elgin with Mister, spend the day picking apples, making cider and taking pics, buuuuut, I really can’t afford to do that.
I’m sidetracked by something else right now and getting that done, and every moment is time away from my art piece. And the art piece? I just found out that if I frame it the way I planned, it will be over the size limit and I won’t be able to show. This is seriously fucking with my head, I don’t know what in the hell to do about this. I’m not happy. There might be a way to deal with the framing, but I need canvases, frames, rawhide and other assorted crap to experiment, which is more time not working. Aaagh.
Nevermind, back to work.
/intense whining over nothing
I have no works at hand to prove my claim, but I’m absolutely sure I’ve seen ministers in the Disneyverse.
Yes.
As rhetorical questions go, that’s a pretty poor one.
Murder is legal in Texas and plenty of other states. Theft likewise, as evidenced on Wall Street.
I went to see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy in the cinemas last night.
Excellent film, well worth seeing. It does take some effort though. Not one to veg out watching. If you do not concentrate you will miss important stuff.
Oh, and take a gun to shoot the two people sitting in the same row who seemed more interested diving head first into a box of popcorn in order to make as much as possible.
Ing – “We are free to discus the implications and phylisophical meanings behind characters because art is a meme transference media.”
Of course. (And all hail Tpyos!)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tonight marks the end of an era. While I haven’t done it for 10 years, I did spend 20 years as a sound engineer. And tonight I’m selling my mic collection. I feel very fond of them, I even like the bar smell that wafts up when I open the road case.
I’m selling them to a young engineer for a minimal price. I almost would have given them away but I want him to appreciate them. I feel like I’m passing a torch along. I know that sounds silly, but they were the tools of my (former) trade.
@Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden
I am following up on the comment that you made about divorce/custody. My comment is here:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/09/29/haters-gotta-hate/comment-page-2/#comment-90589
@Caine, Fleur du Mal
I am still waiting for the thread link where the laws being biased towards men were discussed.
You will recall that I posted the links to the threads I participated in, and I went back and checked them. I suspect you are thinking of a different thread, so link please.
So many things to do, so little time.
“Oh, and take a gun to shoot the two people sitting in the same row who seemed more interested diving head first into a box of popcorn in order to make as much as possible.”
That noise you hear? Yeah, it was only in your head.
Neologism (accent on the ‘gism’): puff diving.
Thanks, I’ll be weak all here. Try your waiter and tip the veal.
Caine, sorry it’s getting bogged down. I hope you find a solution that you’re happy with.
I want to see that movie almost solely for Benedict. Was he fantastic?
‘Tis, she looks mighty yar. And but a sleep until you meet again in the spring.
He has a somewhat limited role, certainly not the lead. but he was good. I was also impressed by Tom Hardy the actor who plays Ricki Tarr. Mark Strong was excellent also.
In fact the acting was brilliant.
And for fans of Benedict Cumberbatch (what a name!) I believe a new series of Sherlock is being filmed.
Sailor:
Happy birthday (Didn’t you do this last year?)!
I have a dream that someday a Libertarian thread will achieve a “No-True-Libertarian” to comment ratio of less than 1 in 25. Seriously, the number of libertarians claiming that those who think x, y, or z are not real libertarians is nauseating.
And with that, I head off to bed.
Thanks Carlie.
So, Babylon 5 or Andromeda?
Andromeda was awful, so B5. Better question: Babylon 5 or Farscape? Best Question: Babylon 5 or Firefly?
I would not ride one over town,
I would not ride one upside down.
I would not ride one by the sea
(Not even if it’s offered free!)
I would not ride one through the air,
I would not ride one anywhere.
I will not ride your equine, Sal!
Please take it elsewhere! Be a pal!
As for the horse-shit-storm, I shall immediately acquire a specially reinforced umbrella.
–
I won’t be covered. Not me. I’ll be safe, sound, and dung-free, huddled under my umbrella.
–
A beguiling vision, and quite tempting, but no. Being bucked off the back of a vicious air-nag into a bucket of luckwarm Perry and Santorum (no link needed, I presume) doesn’t appeal. I can promise you that I would be very indignant.
–
I’ve seen Firefly already and mourned its early passing. Thanks for suggesting Farscape, I’ll look into it.
I’ve seen random Andromeda episodes years ago, they seemed ok, but I’m not sure how the series is at developing story arcs.
I’ve heard a lot of good things about B5 re story arcs, but the few episodes I’ve been checking out from the first season haven’t impressed me so far. The telepathy thing gets on my nerves, and the acting is subpar at times. Does it get better later on?
Caine,
Agreed — but only because most here are too young to remember Blake’s 7.
Pelamun:
Depends on you. Really. B5 is character driven and there’s a massive story arc taking place on several levels. The Psycorp business is crucial to the big story arc. Personally, I like the first season, but that’s because I liked Sinclair (O’Hare) better than Sheridan (Boxleitner). You don’t have to, but it helps if you watch B5 in order.
The first couple of seasons of Farscape were serious fun, but as it went on it got seriously bogged down in too much relationship drama and a serious obsession with very pregnant women (and a pregnant ship, which was okay, but obsession over the kid). Eh, whatever floats your boat, I guess.
Andromeda? I like Kevin Sorbo well enough, but it was Hercules in Space.
John, somehow I can no longer maintain my suspension of disbelief for SF series from before the 90s, the way technology is shown is just too “out of sync”… might be a shallow reason, but for me it’s part of the genre..
I’m currently watching Eureka on Hulu.
Its not Firefly, but its got its own charm.
John:
I’m not too young.
OK, Caine, sounds like I’ll be giving B5 a chance then. I think I might be watching the first season in the order aired, and not in the order intended. So I’ve mostly been through stand alone episodes, and not so much the story arc relevant ones. Also among two of the episodes that have been called the two worst episodes ever, Soul Hunter, and the one about the archeologists (that was especially bad).
I think I can suspend my disbelief enough to accept telepathy, and the Psi Corps guys are sinister enough. Maybe I just liked the resident telepath from the pilot better than the one in season 1. Though I hear the original one will be back..
It HAS its own charm.
Next thing you know I”ll forget my grammar completely and start using “gots” as proper English.
pelamun, later on, there’s more telepathy stuff (core concept there and plot device) and a whole shit-load of mysticism.
I found it a fun series; quite enjoyable, with due suspension of disbelief, and the plot holds together rather well.
(Shits over the Trek or Stargate* franchises, IMO)
As for Farscape, I’ll spare its fans my opinion (suffice it to say I only saw the first episode).
—
* The original movie was actually rather good, and didn’t have the slop or silliness the TV series** did. I gave up on that after the second season, it was just all too silly and the plots were all over the place (though, to give them credit, at least on those first couple of seasons, each episode tried to be that little bit different from the others).
** Everyone on every galaxy and continuum speaks modern English, except for when the plot requires otherwise. (Yeah, really!)
argh, there were some serious sentence construal hang-ups there….
also, addendum: exceptions to suspension of disbelief rule:
Star Trek, because of its pioneer role.
As for movies, they had better budgets, though many of the stuff from the 80s is fine too. (somewhat self-serving, to include Star Wars, but I also liked “the last Starfighter”)
pelamun:
Oh, you mean Lyta Alexander? Yeah, she comes back but it’s not for a very, very long time. I have the B5 boxed sets, which makes watching in order easy. In the meantime, give the character of Talia Winters a chance, she evolves a great deal throughout the show and her encounter with Lyta Alexander is…interesting.
I know it seems like most of the eps are (or can be) standalone, but they aren’t really, from the first to the last. Some of them, like Soul Hunter, yeah, bad. But there’s a relatively low ratio of stinkers.
Walter Koenig revels in the role of Bester the Psicop and he’s definitely worth watching.
pelamun,
Nature of the beast.
Forgive me, but TV Tropes has that covered: Twenty Minutes into the Future.
AndrewV69, I understand why you’re coming into TET to notify people of your responses, but in my opinion it would be in bad form to do that too often. I could be in the minority in thinking this, though.
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Well, I made a kind overture to one of my classmates. (He was rather peculiar and seemed quite shy, so I felt like we could be friends, and when he mentioned in class that he didn’t have a copy of our book yet and was using a non-annotated online version of the Latin text, I saw the opportunity to help him out by emailing him a few pages of the notes from the book (nothing excessive) for him to reference til he could get his own copy.) Here’s hoping it came off as friendly rather than weird and creepy.
I confess the techno-mages were my favourite conceit in B5.
(Oh, I wish)
I’m not sure what series you’re referring to but TV Tropes has some pages devoted to several tropes regarding the use of languages in SF. But like a physicist accepts that explosions occur in space with a lot of boom, linguists also have to accept that everybody speaks the same language unless the plot requires otherwise. But then, you get this even in the Romance of Three Kingdoms, where everyone speaks flawless Classical Chinese, even the barbarian tribes…
Sadly enough, the series that are exceptions to the rule, usually get the physics more right than the linguistics (Firefly is one of the better examples, but also has inconsistencies handling the linguistics part)…
Morales:
Religion was a large part of B5, no getting away from it. That’s introduced early, with Parliament of Dreams. Then you have the Technomages, of course and ships that sing.
I mean specifically using TET for notifications for other threads, not just coming into TET! *covers eyes* I’m not that hostile!
John:
Heh. Mine too. I also wish. Michael Ansara didn’t hurt, either. Just sayin’.
Caine
A male character just got smacked into line (metaphorically) after lipping off to a female character by being called…cupcake! :)
[many of the stuff → much of the stuff]
(Only because it’s you, Pelamun! ;) )
To me that would come off as friendly, never as creepy, and I would definitely try to return the favour if given the opportunity. Other factors would be dependent on interaction so far in class, and the contents of the email, so I won’t speak to that. Just my two cents.
Tethys:
Heh. I wonder who has been lurking. ;D
yeah John, this is why I need a compulsory preview window. I just keep rearranging my sentences too often…
so I did kinda look at Parliament of Dreams, but which were those techmages you were referrign to? Are you referring to the Minbari? I was kinda just listening to that episode while doing other things, maybe I should’ve looked the imagery more carefully…
The “interactions” part is kinda what I’m worried about. We haven’t really talked to each other very much/at all. He gave me a compliment out of nowhere, I tried to return it and was generally inept in the way that I so often am, we parted ways, and since then we’ve said “hi” to each other like… once. But I also don’t really talk to anybody, nor does he seem to, so maybe that won’t seem too out of place to him. The email was probably okay. I reread it approximately twelve times, and I don’t tend to do anything unintentionally socially horrifying in text as far as I know.
Pelamun:
The Technomages only appear once, at the beginning of Season 2. The ep is The Geometry of Shadows.
pelamun @456, I was referring to Stargate; the original movie made a huge point of it, that’s why Dr. Daniel Jackson (archaeologist and linguist) was included in the expedition. IIRC, the first few episodes of the TV series paid lip-service to that, but that was quickly abandoned.
Caine, I’m sorry, I misread a “then” as “there”. OK, so I didn’t miss it, and will look forward to seeing the technomages in action. Sounds cool.
Pelamun:
The thing about Parliament of Dreams is that it gives you an insight into the different religions practiced by various species. Sinclair is expected to demonstrate the religion of Earth, which presents him with a serious problem. His solution does point out the silliness of religious belief here on the blue marble. I was conflicted by the first representative being atheist.
Andromeda started off half okay then got really, really bad. My brother says he could pinpoint the episode this happened (apparently, the big change occurred because a producer left or something).
Very different shows IMO, despite both being space opera. Farscape was more fun and light. The use of animatronic puppet really made the aliens more alien. Scorpius was an awesome villain. They did however do too many… what’s the word… pyschedalic (?) episodes for my tastes.
Babylon 5 was far more serious, deals a lot with politics and is far more ambitious with its long story arc. The show was quite unique. There was, however, a problem at about the end of season 4. They thought they were getting cancelled so sped up the story and it showed. However, they got picked up and didn’t really seem to have anything for season 5. That also showed.
Still, both are good series (I’m complaining because I like to complain :) and either one is a good choice.
Firefly, no contest, but I’m a Whedonite.
Caine, ships that sing?
Brings Anne McCaffrey to mind; a great author.
Recommended.
OK, John. Yeah I actually liked the movie and how he did his linguist thing.
Regarding the prequel series Enterprise, at first I found the way the resident linguist learnt alien tongues ridiculous, but then I heard so many stories about Ken Hale, an Australian-born linguist at MIT, who passed away some years ago, that he had just a language sponge like ability of learning languages, that it makes it believable to me. Somebody like him could have been chosen for the mission, and learnt an alien tongue in two weeks, and then another one after that. The Universal Translator, not so much, but who knows, if we expand the computing capabilities to the billionth degree (or whatever is realistic).
I managed to enjoy B5 despite all the mysticism, conscious universe stuff, and psychics.
The psicore officer Bester is one of my favourite sci fi villains of all time:- calculating, manipulative, a little megalomanic and entirely in it for himself.
My favourite overall character, however, would probably have to go to the many layered and conflicted Londo Mollari.
Cicely,
what I mean is that I might misunderstand it as an overture of a different sort, but I think if the email is how you say it is then the risk would be low. But independent of that, as a shy person myself, I would always try not to come off as creepy while jumping at the opportunity to work together, because if you have a class together, I find working together much better than working alone.
Caine,
But they’re crucial in the wrap-up movie A Call to Arms, which was the segue to the follow-up series Crusade — which, alas, was cancelled.
Caine,
This! Yes. I felt the same way, what with the uniform and symbol and all that. But nice to have the atheist first, and lining up all these different religions made quite a point. (though each of the alien races having only one religion is also just the result of a TV trope, because realistically speaking an alien race would probably be as diverse internally as humans)
New libertarian thread that’s already at 300+ comments? Nooo thannnnk yooouuu.
I’ve never watched any sci-fi shows, I’m a failure as a nerd. I got Firefly in the Netflix queue waiting for when I feel like devoting the time to an whole new one-hour-per-episode series. Good thing they got cancelled after a season.
(note: frantic fanboying on this thread won’t make me any less lazy)
Classical Cipher, please excuse me confusing you with Cicely.
Oh wait, does Red Dwarf count? I’ve watched the first eight or nine of those, am fairly underwhelmed thus far.
That should be ‘psicorps officer’ in my last post.
Yup, I’m handing out the typo cooties tonight…
John:
Yes. Kosh’s ship, Season 2, Hunter, Prey.
Not trying to fanboy you here, but if you ever liked anything by Joss Whedon, give it a try. It’s more about Whedonesque story-telling than about sci-fi. And he does make a good job of wrapping everything up with the movie.
Rey:
That’s fine, just remember to tack Serenity onto the series.
Babylon 5 is the best sci-fi series I have ever seen. It’s at least five times as good as Star Trek when it comes to realism, long-term story arc development, political intrigue, and complex characters. (And I say this as a lifelong passionate Star Trek fan.)
(The modern version of Battlestar Galactica was also very good, but it was rather too gritty and depressing for me. B5 struck the right balance.)
Pelamun, pfft knows all: Technomage
(And so, I mis-hyphenated earlier :| )
So, thanks to everyone dissuading me from watching Andromeda and go on with B5! I do like scifi series that put a healthy dose of political intrigues, which is what I liked most about BSG too…
And I’ll resist the urge to comment on the libertarian thread. I’ve spent enough time in my life talking about libertarianism, and I already summarized my reasons for ceasing to be a libertarian in an overly-long and dull blog post, so I don’t think there’s anything more I can really say on the subject.
To me, it was rather uplifting. Finally a “realistic” sci-fi series. Felt the same way about Firefly. Also about the Star Wars Legacy series..
That always bugged me about sci-fi shows. Also, that most aliens were just human beings with some shit on their face.
I remember going to party in Long Beach to watch BSG. The first one. The one with Lorne Greene. We all got stoned and laughed throughout the whole mess.
First Approximation:
One of the things I liked best about Firefly, it was all humans, still fucking everything up, just not confined to one planet anymore.
[last post on this subject by me]
Caine, you’re making me think of renting the B5 DVDs. ;)
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Rey, yeah, Red Dwarf counts, if nothing else because it takes the piss out of so many tropes.
I’ve seen a couple of episodes from the original series on Hulu. Honestly, I can’t understand why some people get so worked up about the reimagining (Starbuck a woman, ZOMG Kobol is going to explode in a supernova!!!). To me, there is just no contest.
John:
I’ll take the blame. :)
One thing I liked about Farscape is it sometimes made fun of sci-fi tropes. Like one episode where the ship was under attack and electric explosions were going off on the ship (like they always do on such shows) and Crichton asks “Have you people never heard of fuses!?”.
*Checks shelf, still there.*
The day’s highlight….well, our replacement debit card arrived. Suck it, Anonymous Saudi Skuzzball!
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Which reminds me; does anyone here have experience with using Sevin dust on cats for flea genocide? Web searching lead only to frustration—-some claim that it is the best approach to the problem, while others claim that it’ll kill your cats with seizures. The point being that the Bathing of the Cats was only partially successful, we still can’t afford to pick up some Advantage, but we already own Sevin dust we bought something like three years ago for use on the lawn, and The Husband is keen to give it a try.
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Awesomeness! Take lotsa pics!
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Welcome to non-lurkerdom, Noemz. :)
(I visualise an attack with the Angry Squid-shaped Sword (I’m nicking that for future D&D use, BTW); *Lunge! Tentacles open! The target is enwrapped, and pulled toward the Angry Beak!*)
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pelamun, I think your 474 needs to be re-directed to Classical Cipher. My stuff up-thread concerned inadvisably-airborne ponies. :)
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cicely, I already apologised in 478. *hangs head in shame, goes back to watching Babylon 5*
True Art Is Angsty
I didn’t think BSG was bad, but it was overrated.
cicely, when our pooch got fleas, we used some product which just required a drop or so on the scruff of the neck.
It worked, didn’t seem to affect him (short-term, anyway).
I think the ending sucked. And some stuff about the Cylons just didn’t make sense to me, like the downloading to the mothership thing…