Laci Green always looks so cheerful.
(Episode CCCI: Is Breitbart drunk, or always this stupid?.)
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Laci Green always looks so cheerful.
(Episode CCCI: Is Breitbart drunk, or always this stupid?.)
Reposting.
The purpose driven rain of a LGBT rights conference in Uganda.
The scumbags Scott Lively and Rick Warren should be tied into this heinous action.
“Raid”, not “rain”.
Don’t feeling like joking about a typo this time.
Reposting:
Cicely:
Skin cancer treatments.
Erm, Lupercalia wouldn’t have been for me, I’m all about not promoting fertility.
I love Magda.
Ah. Ow!
–
If Christianity had not gotten in the way, we’d still have Lupercalia, Saturnalia, and all the other Roman Festivals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_festivals) – maybe, in some form or other. Without the Dark Ages, we’d have moon bases by now, terra-formed Mars, had colonies there!
Sorry, got carried away…
Well then.
Morgan the kitty is sick. Upper respiratory infection, no biggie says the vet.
Obeying directions, I crushed up a pill and mixed it in her food. She very carefully ate around the pill bits.
Dammit kitty! Take your meds!
In other news, I paid off my (fucking 15% interest) credit card! As soon as the paying-off clears, I’m going to formally cancel it. I’ve already chopped the card in half.
I also decided that I didn’t have a big enough time sink on my home computer. So, uh, I bought Sims 3. *hangs head*
Yes, “daydreamer”.
To give more examples:
– goreng “to fry”, as in Nasi goreng: peng-goreng, is a “fryer”. You can buy “mesin penggoreng” “frying machines”
– amuk “to run amuck”: peng-amuk “one who runs amuck”
The prefix changes its shape depending on what consonant the root begins with, but other than that, it’s all very regular, and easy once you know the rules!
What language is that, pelamun?
Esteleth, I always make sure to get rat & cat meds in liquid form. Since you have pills, you might want to try something that works with my rats – ice cream. See if Morgan is interested in ice cream first. If she is, powder the hell out of the pills and mix with ice cream. If she doesn’t want to take it herself from a spoon, put the mix in a syringe and shoot it down her throat.
But wild rabbits have no feelings when they’re being impaled with a stick. Or those feelings aren’t real. All about humans. Got it. An animal that isn’t beloved of a human is, so to speak, fair game. (Or maybe a human who isn’t beloved of a human…)
So, calling a specific woman who’s the daughter of a specific man a cunt is an asshole-move against that man.
SC (@previous):
At this point, it feels a bit like piling on (piling on John, I mean; not you!), but…
Yeah, but I think it’s possible to have the conversation about hunting rabbits with a modicum of respect for those who keep them as pets (and I think folks here were, for the most part, doing just that), but responding directly to a specific person’s comment about their specific pet with a cheery gloss on how easy it would be to gut and skin that pet is beyond the fucking pale.
I used to take John at his word that he was just socially clueless, and think folks here were occasionally a bit harsh with him, but no more. He has, as someone else said recently about Benjamin, gotten the benefit of my last doubt. I can’t find any way to construct what he said to Giliell as anything other than deliberately and knowingly cruel (and without a shred of remorse after the fact, to boot). I now see him as a conscious shit-stirrer and wounder-of-friends.
I’m way late to getting that clue, I know, but better late than never, eh?
***
TLC:
At the risk of prolonging the hunting conversation, would using an air rifle be legal/unregulated in your jurisdiction? Seems like enough “fire”power for your intended quarry, with little chance of doing serious unintended harm to Large Bipedal Mammals™. Just a thought….
***
pelamun:
So, a daydreamer, eh? Perhaps a daydream believer? Surely not a homecoming queen? ;^)
That sounds like it’s worth a shot, Caine.
I’ll give her a small amount of ice cream and see how it sits. Many cats are lactose intolerant, after all.
The only ice cream I have right now is Chunky Monkey. Googling ingredients now to make sure that it is cat-safe.
Failing that, I could use peanut butter. She seems to like it and it is cat-safe.
Esteleth,
Malay/Indonesian (sorry carry-over from the last thread)
I’ve acquired the aspic recipe, and am in the process of modifying it for modern kitchens (including metric measurements)
I think the ability to give pills to a cat is one of those genetic quirks, like detecting cyanide by odor–only a special few have it (scientists, please correct me if I’m misinformed about cyanide; I learned that factoid from TV).
I’ve pretty much always been able to give pills to cats. They hardly know they’ve swallowed anything.
My brother once sent me an email with a huge, long set of instructions for giving a cat a pill. Many of the directions were stuff like “retrieve pill from under the couch” and tips on dressing wounds.
…Chunky Monkey contains fudge. Chocolate is a no-no for cats. Peanut butter it is!
And kangaroos who are so unafraid of people that they come into yards to munch grass should not be killed because they’re too trusting. Interesting criterion. I wonder how hunters can determine how streetwise animals are, amongst other things.
Sorry folks, but I like Valentines Day. I just wish I still had a reason to celebrate it it.
http://vidiotspeak.blogspot.com/2008/02/dedicated-to-one-i-love.html
+++++++++++++++++++++
SC
Can I have that straw?
I want to feed it to the rabbits. Much better use than you bashing it.
Esteleth, peanut butter has the added benefit of being something you can smear on front paws, which *will* get cleaned off. :D
Rats are wild about peanut butter, too. I could sneak anything into it.
Bill Dauphin,
I wish, I wish…
I was talking about respect for rabbits.
“I think it’s possible to have the conversation about hunting black people with a modicum of respect for those who keep them as slaves.”
(Of course I’m not comparing pets to slaves, so please no one pull that nonsense.)
Do you have an argument?
Well, at least he didn’t impale her with a stick, for fun.
[meta]
Bill, as I’ve noted, I am aware that attempting to defend myself is a mug’s game.
(Thankfully, I do not see myself as (some) others see me.
I would not like to be depressed)
I don’t know, I’m still looking for yours so I can decide that.
So, if that’s not the point you’re trying to make, what’s that bullshit supposed to be about?
Unless of course, you claim that rabbits actually are people.
And, yes, talking on the internet about skinning them definetly isn’t an offense against our rabbits. They can’t read, you know.
While I think that John was impolitic in posting like he did, I’d like to point out that in some regions of Germany, there’s a tradition to keep rabbits as pets and then eat them for Easter. Had he known about this tradition, which I doubt, I could understand posting such a remark to Giliell, as some kind of bad joke.
There are even online questions about whether it’d be ethical to not to tell your kids that the Easter meal came from the rabbits they played with in the months before Easter.
Ahh, I see. You have a bone to pick with TLC and his hunting and you think that throwing me under the bus for getting your point across is fair game.
Really, you make great arguments at times, but I’m getting the idea that you actually only really care in an academic sense.
SC:
Well, isn’t it? Setting aside the fact that, unlike the daughter in your comparison, a pet rabbit is unlikely to be upset by anything a human says about it, can’t we just agree that…
Deliberately saying something gratuitously horrible to A about someone (or something) A loves is an asshole move against A?
The fact that in your scenario it’s also an asshole move (and a much bigger one) against the daughter does not imply it’s not an asshole move against the father.
John’s not being called out as an asshole because of his position on animal rights one way or the other; he’s being called out as an asshole because he deliberately said something gratuitously cruel. Full stop.
Regardless of your position on hunting, the others in the conversation were, it seems to me, reasonably mindful of others’ feelings; John, not so much.
You’ve evidently become illiterate.
They are worthy of moral consideration.
So that would be true of illiterate and poor people, I assume. Ability to read and access to the internet are the prerequisites for other not chatting about skinning and eating you.
w00t. Morgan cheerfully took her pill-nut butter.
I have discovered the secret to a more healthy kitty and will remember this for next time.
pelamun
Well, I know people who, at the slightest mentioning of rabbits start crying because that’s what fucking happened to them: They were “given” cute bunny pet rabbits, they played with them, they loved them and then their relatives took them, slaughtered them and cooked them.
I don’t have a problem with eating meat, responsible hunting and responsible farming.
I think that rabbit is tasty, I love the fur.
But generally the rules for preventing pain is that you draw a clear line whether an animal is for companionship or for food.
Why do people wonder which lie is the worse instead of telling their children the truth?
Or the Husband, Slave Owner, and so on.
Of course the idea that it’s a much bigger asshole move against rabbits was completely obliterated by the lack of objection to the entire prior conversation about the joys of killing and cooking them. Are you denying that it’s an asshole move against rabbits to do this? Are you going to take refuge in “they can’t read us chatting about it so it doesn’t hurt them”?
The father is fucking irrelevant in this scenario. Utterly fucking irrelevant. How do you not see this?
While John certainly comes across as insensitive, it’s not too far from the lived experience of people who raise their own food, like geese, lambs and such, and the resultant jokes. The problem is that John applied what to him is a normal joke, and didn’t back off when Giliell sent signals that the joke was off.
You’re a fucking idiot. The (nonhuman) animal does not know or care what it is to you. Its not being a pet does not prevent its pain. Jesus fuck.
Giliell,
Probably to spare them the trauma you described.
Lupercal! Lupercal!
…Wait. Not a Luna Wolf. Gregory Greenwood, play me out!
Well, you either care very much about rabbits or very little about people.
Otherwise you wouldn’t constantly conflate them.
Oh, and yes, a person who never reads or hears cruel things that are said about them is obviously not hurt by hearing those things.
That doesn’t mean there might not be other negative impacts, but really, you can shout at your door “Giliell is a fat asshole that can’t be made a barbecue because the lard would burn” as much as you want. You can write it 5000 times on your wall and my life will not be one tad less happy because of that.
SC has a point. Is no one at all going to spare a thought for all those rabbits on the internet who would be upset and traumatized reading that conversation about hunting th … oh, wait.
SC:
Right, I understand. But the people you were responding to were actually talking about having respect for each other. Or, in one notable case, not….
***
John:
What could possibly have led you to believe anybody wants you to defend yourself? As I said, I can’t imagine any motivation for you posting as you did other than to make Giliell feel bad, without any predicate or provocation, and I also can’t imagine you didn’t know in advance that would be the result. I have no interest in you defending that behavior.
***
pelamun:
Had he known about this tradition, there would still be no purpose to his comment other than to make Giliell imagine a beloved pet skinned. That strikes me as more than just a bad joke.
Look, I eat meat and intend to go on doing so, so it would be disingenuous of me to say talking about killing animals is always out of bounds. But this particular comment can have had no imaginable purpose other than to make someone who’d done John no proximate harm feel like shit for a time. As I said directly to him, I’m not really looking for a defense of that.
wait, the slave owners are the hunters and the slaves the rabbits? Is that right? And then so the daughter is a rabbit and the father is…a hunter? no. a slave owner?
gah too stoned for this scenario business.
SC, what I’m getting is that you find it morally indefensible to ever kill an animal. Y/N?
–
Dammit, self, refresh the thread before you shoot your smart mouth off with a point that nobody could possibly have already made.
http://www.wsaz.com/polls?pollID=139289153
WSAZ Charleston asks if gay people should marry. Hmm…
Well, at least I’m fucking.
Yep, the non-human animal doesn’t know. That’s why I was talking about the human animal in that scenario, you know. The one whose hurt and pain you seem to think irrelevant.
Especially given that we’re talking about a human child.
pelamun
Yeah, but with either lie that is going to happen:
Either you lie to them when you give them the rabbit and don’t make it clear that they are life-stock that will be eaten (seriously, kids are smart, they generally notice when there’s a sudden lack of rabbit), or they lie to them at the time of dinner (they still notice the sudden lack of rabbit. And one day they will find out)
wait wait now I see: the asshole is the hunter, the daughter is the…rabbit, yes, OK, and the father is…uh…somebody who keeps pet rabbits?
that can’t be right.
K: The father is a rabbit, or a rabbi, the daughter a slave, and/or a rabbit maybe and the asshole keeps pet hunters. Slave hunters. Slaves who hunt rabbits. And skin them. Then the rabbi eats ’em. On Easter?
am I getting warm?
Yes. And the definition of “each other” was the problem.
***
Right. Let’s chat about Jew-hunting or Tutsi-hunting. No effect on those Jews or Tutsis who can’t read or have no internet access. Those are the bases for moral consideration.
To me, Morales and ChasC seem to be assholes, but maybe it’s just their Aspie coming out and I just don’t know. But in ChasC’s case, he learned how to get along in the community and took steps to do so. John just seems to do it deliberately, and I can’t understand that.
I consider them both to be an important part of the community, but I really don’t get it sometimes.
I feel the same way about SC.
But that’s just me.
++++++++++++++++++
I wish Walton would come back.
IRT #50, I consider myself an asshole too. Here and IRL.
Bill Dauphin,
as I said, I could still see the attempt at a poor joke. It’s not one I would make. And after Giliell’s first reaction, he should have backed off.
Giliell,
sure, I know. Which is one of the reasons I’d never do this. It’s different from how to handle a “normal pet death” when the kids are very young.
Yeah, people here meant “each other as a kind of community on TET” and you get all upset because that excludes rabbits.
Chas:
I don’t know, but I think you have an interesting story premise there…
?
No, I think both the rabbit and the human experience relevant. Unless you think rabbits can’t enjoy life and don’t suffer unless they’re loved by humans, you agree with me.
So we can talk about hunting and killing all of those outside TET community? Good to know.
*tiptoes doorwards*
Night all.
*pokes head round door*
@SC, the debate might be helped by a statement of opinion, rather than combatative questions.
Omnivory is well-established in many of the other primates, after all. Peter Singer’s position is a position of choice, rather than nature.
*departs, to return in 19 hours: curse you, workplace FTB-block*
(lest anyone get upset I don’t reply)
dude, I was commenting here before there was a “community”.
nolo contendere on the “asshole” thing.
Didn’t I just say it? Old, depressed, and grumpy.
I try to think for myself. *shrug*
Bill:
The fact that I do indeed want to defend myself.
(It’s OK, my feelings are not that important)
Perhaps your imagination fails to encompass the reality.
I’ve stated the facts as I see them, I’ve alluded to my chain of thought, and I’m a little surprised that people somewhat familiar with me fail to note that I become more formal and detached where others might become emotional and shrill.
When I was 19, I forever lost a good friend who dared me to deliberately upset him, claiming this could not possibly happen. I shall never repeat that, and though the feeling might not be reciprocated, I like and respect those with whom I have interacted in this and the previous thread.
(Admittedly, I have done so to some whom I have perceived as doing so themselves, or being trolls or hatemongers, but I made no bones about it. My assertion that this is not the case here is disbelieved, alas)
—
I know, my denials are futile. :(
SC, you’re putting two arguments together. They’re related, but still distinct. The issue of whether it’s humane to kill animals at all and how the animal is dead whether it’s been loved or not is different from the issue of how one feels about their own pets. What John did was the equivalent of, if someone had expressed pain about say, their mother dying, had then said “but dead people make good worm food!” Technically true, technically something that will happen, technically something that can’t hurt the mother any more than the physical pain she’s in already does, but grossly insensitive to the person he was commenting to because of the juxtaposition.
The part I don’t get is where Buffy is the Slayer. She’s so little!
You know, as a passionate not-owner of rabbits, I most certainly think that they can suffer. I’m not that sure about the emotion of “joy”, but I’m willing to say that they can be pretty comfortable.
You actually never seemed interested in my position on animal wellfare, if that was what you’re getting at, but here it is:
Make sure they live without (much) suffering, make sure they die without (much) suffering.
But I won’t go out to pamper every rabbit in the field, and I won’t catch bullets with my body.
And until the first rabbit* actually voices its offense about mean things people say on the internet, I’m going to take such remarks as solely offensive towards me who cares for them.
Oh, and no, I don’t agree with you. False dichotomy.
And I’m off to bed now.
*Any rabbit. Not just literate, white-furred, floppy eared rabbits
SC: Shut the fuck up until you can make an argument that doesn’t try to equate animals with advanced cortex development with those without such cortical development. Lepus sylvaticus is just fucking not Homo sapiens. Got it? In the meantime, I will take your straw, and use it as bedding for my horse.
a rabbit is a pig is a dog is a boy?
I just don’t think so.
How and why exactly are humans morally prohibited from killing, skinning, and eating rabbits?
I’ll go back to rats. A couple of nights ago, I did the first forced socialization* session with Rubin. He about broke my heart, squealing and squeaking almost the whole time. He did brux at the end. It’s been to good effect, ever since, Rubin has become Adventure Rat instead of ultra-spooky rat. He has been having a blast getting into all manner of things he’s not supposed to and leading Esme on adventures, for a change.
*Nothing nasty, it’s simply keeping a rat in your hands for 20 minutes.
Honest question, SC: is it that you find it morally indefensible to ever kill an animal? If not, where is your line in the sand?
–
Jesus, SC, when did you join PETA? Why do you make nothing but human analogies in your complaints? Newsflash: rabbits are not people. A different ethic applies.
*yawn*
If you can’t keep “deliberately upsetting” and “hunting and killing” apart there’s really no remedy.
You know, words have power on humans. Not so much on non-human animals.
I’d have thought that after 8 months of rehashing gendered insults and triggers you would be one of the people to know that.
Caine: I’ve not much experience with rats, but my adviser keeps them, and he used the same technique to socialize, but without success. Are there any other methods you know of that are effective?
SC,
I don’t really understand your position here. Aren’t we talking about two things here:
a. the rabbit side. Of course it doesn’t matter to the rabbit if it is killed as a pet or as prey, it will be dead either way, and that’s not in the interest of the rabbit. If we accept that animals can be hunted and eaten by humans, then humans will put their interest above that of the rabbit (and one can discuss about the most ethical way of doing this etc). But it doesn’t mind being talked about, because it can’t read.
b. the human side. Depending on whether a human views a rabbit as prey, or pet, their emotion wrt the rabbit will probably be different. In the latter case, they will care more about it. So yes, killing a pet upsets humans more than killing prey. And talking about killing a beloved pet can upset humans.
I really don’t understand where all these examples about Jews and daughters and Tutsis come in here…
Fucking seriously?
Republican Valentine’s Day Cards, straight from the RNC. And they’re the ones who say that liberals have no decorum or sense of fair play.
Although, as someone who hates the idea of Valentine’s day cards, I rather liked the one of Franken, but not for the reasons they think.
*rolleyes* For what it’s worth, farmers (and other animal caretakers, *ahem*) can and DO become attached to animals that they’re going to kill or have killed. It’s something to be aware of, because becoming too attached means the person gets traumatized by the animal’s death or the act of killing it (so someone else has to do it, *ahem*) but not being attached ENOUGH to the animals means the caretaker will treat them carelessly, callously, and in some cases actually torment them. To some extent, degree of attachment can be taught, but it also depends on the individual. So I think it’s rather pointless to say how horrible one kind of person is, or how oversensitive another kind is – people just vary a lot.
tangential: Once in my life, I was privileged to eat a steak with a name – a friend’s family had recently slaughtered the family cow, which was cause for celebration and a really tough but flavorful home-cooked meal filled with reminiscing about her life and what a great cow she had been. I believe her name was Martha.
@Chas: would the rabbi eat the rabbit? Rabbits aren’t kosher! Clearly the slaves eat the rabbits, the pets eat the assholes, and the rabbi rabbit wraps the baby bunting in its skin. Or else it gets the hose again.
WTF. Animals suffer and die regardless of whether they’ve been loved by humans or not, as humans do. Love from humans makes zero difference. How could this even be a question?
Except that no. The analogy would’ve been if people were casually chatting about mothers as worm food and then someone had objected to a joke about his mother as worm food. That’s the difference. It’s not about mothers. It’s about him. Further, this is about actual suffering and not what happens after death.
(Addendum: Talking about hunting down animals and killing them can upset humans as well. If that is the case, then maybe people shouldn’t talk about hunting here, or put a trigger warning on top of their posts.)
carlie @71: Oh fun, now the Republicans are lying via Valentine card.
SC:
Wait, what? You’re assuming that the father-daughter relationship is invariably a patriarchal owner-chattel one? Did you miss the word love in my reframing? As a father myself, I can confidently assure you that I wouldn’t need to think I own my daughter (which I emphatically do not) in order to think someone who called her a cunt to my face was being an asshole. I really can’t figure out what you’re on about here.
I see quite clearly — how could anyone not? — that the father is irrelevant to what you want to talk about (which is odd, because the father is your own creation)… but the father, who in your scenario corresponds to Giliell, is most assuredly not irrelevant to the actual conversation that was going on before you jumped in. That conversation was about one person who’s here saying something gratuitously cruel to another person who’s also here about a third party who’s beloved of the second person but not privy to the conversation here. How could the second person (aka the father, in your version) not be relevant to that conversation?
I can’t believe this is what you intend — because it doesn’t make sense, and you almost always do — but you come off as sounding like you’re justifying John’s cruelty toward Giliell on the basis of TLC’s behavior toward rabbits. Really?
I get that you’re offended by the talk of hunting, and maybe somebody wants to have that argument with you (I, personally, am neither particularly offended by hunting nor especially predisposed to spend much energy defending it)… but that’s not the fight you hopped into the middle of.
A.R:
Uh, not really. Not all rats will socialize, every now and then you’ll get an anti-social one. Some rats are extremely shy and don’t care for much physical contact. I’ve had one like that, Nash.
A lot depends on your Advisor’s exact rat situation. Are we talking single rat or multiple rats? If multiple, are the rats social with each other, just not with people? How old are the rats, what was their prior situation and so on.
Also, forced socialization doesn’t always take the first time. Esme required 3 times. The contact has to be constant and it has to be 20 minutes, as that is as long as a rat can maintain continuous fear.
The only other things I can think of are to try and establish trust, provide treats and take little walks with the rat on your shoulder every day.
carlie,
where is the Franken one? It’s not among the 7 from the slideshow..
It’s not – I was saying that the issue of whether it matters from the point of view from the animal is a different issue than whether it matters from the point of view of the person.
Basically, yeah. The subject from her had changed from wild animal to pet, and then John chimed in about them being so easily skinnable. Same thing as if people were talking about decomposition, someone changed the subject to their sick and dying mother, and then someone joked about the decomposition of said mother. That would be one of those record-scratching everyone at the table stops and stares moments. I don’t see it as a problem that people are more emotionally involved with death when it’s personalized to losing someone they love.
Caine: He has three rats, and all but one are socialized, and they all socialize well with each other. I’ll tell him what you said if I see him in the lab tomorrow.
*gasp!*
You’re right!!!
That means…the… the rabbi owns slaves with…with daughters that hunt and kill and skin and eat the … the assholes…of their fathers’ rabbits???
that can’t be right.
I’ve noticed a lot of cultures in history have had rituals & things that they think “pay respect” to the animal they’re about to kill and eat. They “honor” the critter. In some, not using all parts of the animal is considered most disrespectful.
And I was told once that Buddhist monks have a special chant for when they’re tilling the soil, which of course ends up with a fair number of cut in half earthworms. (I have my own chant for that: “sorry…oh, sorry….sorry…)
Aha!!!
wait
pelamun – rats, I think I must have seen last year’s or something and then linked to a story about this year’s. It said “In my capacity as the Senator from Minnesota I object to this Valentine’s Card.”
Yes.
On what basis do we accept this, in 2012?
Is the argument that the more powerful will put their interests above those of the less powerful? Why do we support this? Especially when we don’t in other circumstances…
I ate a dinosaur today.
though I didn’t hunt, kill, skin, marinate, cook, or slice it…
Chas:
Chicken?
That they can be? Of course they can. Lots of people do it all the time.
That they should be? Or shouldn’t?
opinion.
cicely – From previous thread:
Thanks, dear. Flaying is probably too strong a word. Just treating Basal cell carcinomas.
Waves and howdys.
So let us think about this:
1. Animals and humans are not different (SC’s moral assertion)
2. Animals kill other animals (scientific fact)
3. Humans should not kill other animals (SC’s moral assertion)
Thus even though humans and animals no different, and animals kill other animals, humans should not kill other animals?
Of course, the answer is that Humans have a moral responsibility not to kill other animals. But why shouldn’t other animals (remember they’re no different from Humans) have a moral responsibility not to kill other animals?
So animals and humans are no different, and non-human animals are morally reprehensible for killing other animals, or animals and humans are different, and only humans are morally reprehensible for killing other animals?
The stupid, it burns.
*puzzled*
Can people besides SC see my posts?
Repeating: SC, is it your position that it is morally indefensible (for a human; guess I’d better specify) to ever kill an animal? Honest inquiry, here.
–
Ah, catching up and saw Caine did it for me. I know I should at least skim before posting.
Thanks, dear Caine.
Because most humans are speciesists? Your analogy with more powerful humans putting their interest above that of less powerful humans is misleading. Otherwise, where does it end? How can you make sure that you don’t kill any bugs, or even bacteria? Should plasmodium or even the flu virus be protected?
In most legal traditions, that’s fully accepted, provided ethical standards of how to treat animals are met.
yes.
A Buffalo Club hero: Buffalo-marinated chicken, pepper jack cheese, bacon, L, T, and some kind of jalapeno sauce on a nice Italian roll.
I don’t feel bad about it at all. *burp*
cicely: Yeah, I can see your posts.
I certainly accept that animals can be hunted, killed and eaten by humans in 2012. In fact, I do the eating part of it quite routinely. Kangaroo is yummy and heart healthy.
In the absence of top predators, populations of grazers boom and bust in cycles according to the availability of food. I don’t see it as being notably worse for a deer or a kangaroo to die of a clean gunshot than to starve to death in a drought. In Australia, only kangaroos that are killed by a single head shot are allowed to be sold as meat. There have been instances of cheating, but the rule is a good one.
Eating kangaroos rather than cows is better for the environment. Eating invasive pest species like rabbits (or NZ possum) is better still. Killing kangaroos rather than allowing them to die of starvation is kinder to the animal. Animals that live in the wild have a happier life than factory farmed animals.
There you go. Several kinds of ethical bases. You might disagree, but it’s hardly mind-boggling stuff that you might be shocked, shocked to learn about.
John:
That’s just the thing: You seem to have a very clear, analytical understanding of your modes of discourse, and of how they affect others. IOW, you clearly do understand why and how the things you say hurt others’ feelings, and make them think you’re an asshole.
And yet you keep saying them.
In exactly the same way.
For years.
As I said above, I’ve given you a pass for a long time, but eventually (tonight, as it turned out) I could no longer pretend that you didn’t understand what you’ve been so careful to point out you do understand. I can no longer convince myself that you “don’t get it”; instead, I can only conclude that you do “get it,” and either don’t care about the hurt or are deliberately seeking it.
I don’t doubt that you care about what others think of you (few among us do not); I’m sorry I don’t have better news for you about my own opinion.
***
SC:
I’m sorry; I really think you’re (uncharacteristically, IMHO) kind of off the rails tonight, and I don’t want to fight with you. Let’s talk about something else, some other time, okay?
And people say we always agree with each other.
Chas:
That sounds delicious.
+1
*shrug* I don’t think most animals have a compelling interest in avoiding their own death per se. They barely understand what it is, much less fear it or anticipate it. However, animals DO have compelling interests in avoiding their own fear, pain, or suffering, and many of them respond to suffering in other animals. So I think that arguing about not killing animals generally is secondary to ensuring they don’t suffer when killed.
It just so happens that what scares an animal tends to be closely correlated with what kills it. Funny thing, evolution.
*OK – time out for cat kneading me*
My point is that for these animals there’s zero difference between these two. “Wild animal” and “pet” are distinctions made by humans about humans. An animal doesn’t suffer any less for being hurt for being wild than a street kid does for being that.
A.R., thank you. I was beginning to wonder.
–
SC: Are you alright? You aren’t yourself tonight.
I have a rat whose a little over a year old. He recently took to puffing himself up, then latching onto my arm with his teeth and claws. I think it’s humping behavior. He lives with his two litter mates, one of who used to do this, but got over it months ago. What can I do with him?
Racists? Sexists?
SC:
Hell, that’s not true. Wild animals are wary of humans and avoid them; pet animals are accustomed to humans, usually socialized to them, and for social animals, emotionally dependent on them. A pet animal will pine for its owner if they’re separated; a wild animal will be glad the human’s out of its face. Come on now.
I’d even guess that a pet will be more upset if it’s startled or yelled at by a human it trusts than a wild animal would be.
Yes. Evidently I’m also not myself when I make similar arguemts about psychotropic drugs and industrial agriculture.
Hey, Thomas Paine.
Cicely, you’re coming in loud and clear. So to speak.
And the difference in wanting to go on living and suffering is what?
A nonhuman animal that isn’t emotionally dependent on humans can be made to suffer and be killed with impunity?
Again, this is about human:human, different from human:animal.
So, should we stop killing mosquitoes and bacteria? We should outlaw cars because they lead to the death of millions of bugs every year, and we need to stop using antibiotics, too…
Everyone, I think I’m pregnant.
Now, I haven’t had sexual contact with a man in *pauses, mentally counts* 6 years.
But I just sat down to the most amazing dinner I’ve had in a long time – ice cream and pickles.
What is the Sky Daddy up to these days? Any word on if he’s pronging random ladies still?
Please explain.
SC: Woah there, are you trying to connect Thomas Paine and animal rights? According to the Pfft, there is no connection, and my google-fu reveals that the only connection is with the blog “Negotiation is Over,” a blog advising the perpetration of acts of near terrorism against animal researchers.
Esteleth: Well, unless you’re the first known case of human parthenogenesis, you may just like ice cream and pickles.
I like Penang-galan.
SC:
Is this a typo?
I’m not going to apologize to you for what I do. I can apologize for talking about it, since it obviously upsets you, but I’m not going to apologize for being an omnivore with heavily carnivorous leanings.
This is how the human species fucking evolved. You act like there’s no fundamental difference between humans and animals. So do I. Omnivorous animals sometimes prey on other animals. So do I.
And guess what? The mere fact that I care enough about an animal’s welfare to ensure I do it as quickly and cleanly as possible and try to minimize suffering wherever I can already puts me miles ahead of most other predators on the ol’ empathy-o-meter.
I’ve explained before how I find the idea of breeding animals in filth under incandescent lightbulbs amidst swarms of flies and making them grow as fast as possible and treating them like a factory product far more repulsive and reprehensible than the idea of eating something that actually had a life for a while (since everything dies eventually anyways), but you know what? Fuck it. I don’t need to justify myself to you.
Esteleth, perhaps it’s Zeus. Been in any remarkably bright golden cascades of light recently? Petting swans or bulls?
Right, and the discussion was the effect of conflating the two while discussing then among humans. The animals’ point of view was simply not part of the argument.
Let me close that door. We should avoid backdraft with open flames around.
A.R., I do like me some pickles.
I guess I’m just kinda disconcerted about the fact that I opened a pint jar of pickles 3 hours ago and the jar is now empty. :/
On the plus side, I guess I only ate 270 calories? I’ve had more calorie-laden meals.
And since the banging about downstairs has kept me awake, apparently Texas can only execute 6.75 more people.
In some sad way, this may be progress.
Search engines should totally determine our morality.
***
THAT IS THE PROBLEM.
TLC,
Funny you should mention penanggalan (no hyphen)
tanggal means “to remove, fall out”
peM- -an is a circumfix which creates a action noun from a verb: “the act of VERB-ing”, here “the act of removing”
Because the penanggalan is a vampire-like monster that appears in the form of a woman and can remove its head, which flies away to look for victims.
Another name is
hantu penanggal , which is the same peM- prefix as discussed before
ghost + remover
“a ghost that removes (its head)”
changeable: hmmm, how do you execute .75 of a person? Do you just cockup the entire thing for an excuse to shoot the person?
@A.R.
They are praying that a little person commits a felony
SC: Avoiding the argument and making a stupid comment should totally define our morality.
cm:
Whaddaya bet they keep right on going, right up to the last 0.75?
A.R., don’t put it past the state of Texas to see if .75 of a lethal dose is actually enough.
*shudder*
Why the hell is that a problem? If I want to talk about my pets, I don’t need you telling me that I should be talking about something else, and the fact that I’m not is a PROBLEM!!!elebenty!!
Thank you for not referring to it as ‘immaculate conception’; for some reason the misapplication of that particular term irritates me no end – and I hear it all the damn time.
Exactly! But your description doesn’t do it justice! In many versions, it’s not just her head flying around. It’s her head and detachable stomach and intestines, which expand outside of the gut cavity and must be soaked in vinegar to shrink them back down to size in order to fit back in there.
Apparently there’s a malaysian movie out with one in it, but I couldn’t find a decent quality version.
My comment was about how past liberation struggles don’t necessarily narrow current ones. Feel free to say something useful.
Esteleth: Too true. Then again, they just might pass a law allowing the gas chamber or some other method.
SC: nonhuman animals =/= American colonies
Bullshit. I already said I think animals have a compelling interest in not suffering, and that holds true whether the animal’s got anything to do with humans or not. But I don’t conflate suffering with death. Animals can suffer without dying, and they can die without suffering, too.
Simple. Animals go on living because life is its own reward. They’re happy to the extent that they’re free of stress while being able to behave as their capabilities dictate they should; and because they’re animals, they take pleasure in performing behaviors that enhance their survival. Rats like exploring dark crevices, horses like roaming open spaces, pigs like having lots of interesting toys to snuffle and chew on. All of them enjoy eating when they’re hungry, drinking when thirsty, and sleeping when tired. Animals live because that’s what they’re built for, and they enjoy living because that’s how survival works.
But I don’t think most animals* have a concept of wanting to go on living. They just live. If they didn’t want to do things that helped ensure their own survival, there wouldn’t BE any of them. It’s a circular argument.
So I don’t think killing an animal, in and of itself, has anything to do with suffering. There’s a saying from somewhere, “take only life that won’t notice you taking it”.
*I make an exception for animals such as elephants and great apes who show a grasp of the future. I’m willing to believe they may well have a concept of the ends of their lives, and fear it.
Sigh.
I just don’t think assigning non human animals the same moral weight, desires or consciousness makes any sense in the least.
Trying to make analogies of this even as a rhetorical tool is dishonest, myopic and frankly cheap argument that exposes a real intent to make them equal.
My opinion.
Skin ’em. Skin ’em ALL.
Stupidity.
Hyperbole, one of the cardinal signs of an argument CTD.
If we assign non human animals the same moral weight as humans, doesn’t that mean it’s also an atrocity to let any of them die from preventable causes? Because if we stood by while any group of humans died of diseases or treatable injuries, it would be unspeakably evil. It would even be evil to let humans suffer nonfatal disease and pain without treatment, if the means for treating them existed. And quite advanced veterinary medicine exists.
SC- but if the topic is simply whether A hurt B’s feelings, then what’s going on in C’s mind really isn’t relevant to that point even if A were using something about C to hurt B.
Not running off, but laptop battery dying and charger at work.
pelamun:
I think TLC and Alethea have already expressed my basic views on the ethics of hunting vs. other ways of getting meat. There’s nothing worse about hunting than getting meat from the supermarket, and in many ways it’s probably a lot better.
My position has always been that if you’re vegetarian or vegan, you may object to me hunting, and I will respect that. If you eat meat and think hunting is wrong, I fail to understand your logic.
I’m happy to put a trigger warning if I wish to discuss details of a hunt I’ve been on. But unless all meat-eaters are going to put trigger warnings at the top their posts describing last night’s dinner, I’m not going to put warnings for a brief mention of my hobby.
So I’m psyched about stabbing and stewing your dogs, and chatting about it here. Can we set up a canned hunt?
To say nothing of standing by while they cold-bloodedly murder and devour each other in the forests, in the air, and under the sea.
Have an “of”, it goes somewhere up there.
SC: Go away. You’re acting like an MRA now.
TLC,
linguistically speaking, the name doesn’t specify the body parts the monster can remove, so if the stomach and stuff are detachable too, that’s fine…
There should be some Indonesian/Malay movies about penanggalan.
here’s a trailer for one
http://www.liyanaa.com/2011/03/penanggal-trailer-astro-ria-lakonan-amy-mastura-zizan-nin.html
TLC: your hunting trips are henceforth converted to Non-Human Aid Sweeps, in which you diligently search for bunnies with sprained toes and make pain relief available to them.
Oh yeah. You’re the bigger person here.
Maybe you should take a break from human animals on the net for a minute
That’s assuming that A and B are the important persons here. They aren’t. C is.
C is.
*looks at thread*
Not worth it.
*goes to do something else for a while*
SC, I tried to stay out of this because yeah nothing good gonna come of it but you’re behavior is now unacceptable IMHO.
Yes yes I’m sure you’re going to dismiss us just like the Santorum’s who are SOOOOOOO offended at gay rights being mean to them, but whatever.
If you’d want to keep on friendly terms I’d suggest tilting at windmills else where.
Yeah well D says C is being a P
fuck you. I just explained my hunting ethics. Nowhere do canned hunts or anything similar fit in there. I know you have reading comprehension, so I can only assume you deliberately ignored the part that didn’t allow you to paint me as some psycho who just wants to kill shit because killing is fun or something.
I’m so not fucking sorry for anything right now. Fuck you.
Classy.
But really you can talk about fucking my dogs with a skinned marmot and then serving them to Newt Gingrich with a side of truffled mac and cheese and really, I don’t care.
It doesn’t change my opinion on where humans and non human animals stand on the moral scale.
I don’t care about friendly terms with any dominant group.
Yes but does it change where ARA’s stand?
A. R
Awesome!
Disgusting, but awesome. :)
(Metric? Nooooooo!)
SC: Just go the fuck away. I’ve killfiled.
OK, but then how does it help C for A to Say B should care less about C because C will die anyway? That’s basically what happened, and it seems you’re defending that somehow.
It’s Valentine’s Day.
Here’s a love song to cheer everyone up!
I am stretched on your grave
And will lie there forever
With your hands held in mine
I’d be sure we’d not sever
My apple tree my brightness
‘Tis time we were together
For I smell of the earth
And am stained by the weather
When my family thinks
That I’m safe in my bed
From night until morning
I am stretched at your head
Calling out to the air
With tears both hot and wild
Oh I grieve for the girl
That I loved as a child
The priests and the friars
Behold me in dread
Because I still love you
My love and you’re dead
I would still be your shelter
From rain and from storm
And with you in your cold grave
I cannot sleep warm
That is most fortunate.
Exactly. Some nonhuman animals – the ones you love – stand high, and some have no standing.
C to A…but B…C….wha…A to…*spiral eyes*
Do they have any minorities still considered 3/5 of a person? They could execute one and a quarter of them with that .75.
Esteleth: Have you stood on your front porch during the Civil War recently?
(Yes, I know it’s a myth.)
Jeez, I hate to wade into the eating animals discussion…suffice it to say, I think human beings evolved to eat what they could get. Food was hard to come by for most people for most of history. So we evolved to eat everything from leaves to flesh, from berries to eyeballs. So, it’s human nature.
Of course it’s also human nature, I think, to form into groups, apply arbitrary restrictions to what you can eat, and then try to kill or enslave other groups. Morality changes over time, but human nature remains, and it is often incumbent upon us as individuals to resist “nature” in order to be moral.
Maybe the accepted morality regarding eating animals will change, possibly driven by environmental change in the world, and 200 years from now eating animal flesh, from an actual animal, will be regarded on a par with racial slavery. I don’t know.
I live in a town with a bunch of vegans–for all I know, they may be equivalent to abolitionists of 1800 or something. I’ll let history sort that out. I regard them as somewhat kooky, but then again when I gave up red meat and fowl in 1976, I was widely regarded as a kook where I lived.
It’s hard to see eating meat as a moral question, given most of human history, not to mention the existence of other carnivorous animals. But breeding and raising animals under shitty conditions, with no life other than preparing for slaughter? Hungrier societies than the one I live in have had problems with that sort of idea, given the reverence that many have given to their food animals.
Anyway…I think I need to watch Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice now.
Audely: I’ve left the imperial measurements as well. I’m probably going to substitute gelatin for the homemade aspic gel in the recipe though. Still trying to find some modern equivalents for some of the tools though.
Please, we have open flames and back drafts it is dangerous to scatter around straw!
Is this the opinion of commenters here?
If it is, I will go away. I want to know. I’ll write elsewhere.
@Esteleth:
Forgive me if someone already mentioned this (I skimmed the thread quickly, but may have missed things), but an excellent way to pill cats (and dogs) is with a product called Pill Pockets. My cats think they are getting The Best Treat In The World when I have to give them medicine.
Many vets carry them, as do the big box pet stores. When my cats needed a long bout of meds, I ordered them from Amazon at a very good price.
Caine’s suggestions are also good, and I’m glad the peanut butter worked well for you. :)
feralboy:
So you know, you’re Fluttershy. >_>
You call that a love song, owlmirror?!
Here’s one, a tender ballad:
I hold you hand in mine, dear,
I press it to my lips.
I take a healthy bite, dear,
Of your dainty fingertips.
My joy would be complete, dear,
If you were only here.
But still I keep your hand, dear,
As a precious souvenir.
The night you died, I cut it off
I really don’t know why –
For now each time I kiss it
I get bloodstains on my tie.
I’m sorry now I killed you,
For our love was something fine.
So until they come to get me,
I shall hold your hand in mine!
Yes, I’m listening to Tom Lehrer. Why do you ask?
Having self-medicated with ethanol, my dysphoria has more-or-less successfully been transmuted into maudlinness; I very much wish I could transmit my current feelings to those who imagine I seek to hurt innocent people, so that they could be informed.
(This is the downside to being a member of a social species)
while we’re on the subject, any clear picture yet whether a vegan diet is harmful for young children (as well as the embryonal development?)
The Swiss government advises against it for “most people, especially children, pregnant women and seniors” because the risk of deficiencies of certain nutrients and proteins.
It’s actually not this commenter’s opinion. I’ve seen you be reasonable at other times, we’ve even gotten along and shared a joke or two (or at least tried…teehee).
I can’t remember too many specific instances right now… make no mistake, you’ve got my backhair up and I won’t apologize for being incredibly pissed off with you right now, but I do not want you to go away.
I’m willing to venture also that the one who told you to go away actually meant ‘go away, calm down for a while, and come back later.’
Neither of us are going to back down. So what are we going to be? Are we to be Pharyngula-enemies or is there some other way?
Sorry Ing- C= bunny. SC, I’m trying to understand because your reasoning is always solid but I can’t see where you made the jump from one rude interaction and its personal effects to animal rights in general.
And? Still doesn’t put them on the same level as humans.
Pelamun, so far as I know it is possible to raise a healthy kid on a vegan died, but very difficult.
A child’s nutritional needs are not those of an adult. In addition to lots of protein, kids also need lots of calcium for their bones. The most readily available sources for the above are meat and dairy (or just dairy in the form of eggs).
SC: Not sure that anyone (including myself) wants you to go away permanently. Just leave and cool down for awhile. I’m planning on dekillfiling tomorrow anyway.
Oh. Bite me.
Esteleth,
OK, so if you’re very disciplined you can do it. Thanks.
I have these friends in Canada, and they’re vegans, and want kids, and I was concerned about it, but they’re really really disciplined people, they should probably be able to pull it off…
But what does that mean, in practial terms?
Pffft, I can find a better love song than those, E and Owlmirror:
So… cephalopod porn. Sorta appropriate for a day devoted to romance.
When PZ put up his post about it, I completely forgot about “Plushie Does Fire Island.” Plushie Schwartz is a dude in a bear mascot suit who has sex with cute young men. In the “Fire Island” vid, which is broken up into 11 clips, he has a trippy fling on the beach with a purple octopus. Imagine Sid and Marty Krofft porn. Bonus: Very nice surf guitar in the background.
Note: The first 3 clips are NSFW.
Clip 5: Start at 00:31 for drug-trip context. Beach scene starts at 1:56 and continues to the end.
Clip 6: Watch the whole thing.
Clip 7: Watch from the beginning until 1:40.
Clip 11: From 1:26 to 2:02, a happy (and SFW reunion), and then the credits roll.
Enjoy.
pelamun: As I understand, it is very difficult to pull off, especially with the vitamin d requirements. I should think it is possible though.
OK, had to risk coming back to share.
Today was full of sugar, hyper kids, and a few high points. I told the third-graders the legend of Persephone and why we have winter for part of the year, but made a hash of it. For one thing, I think I might’ve confused a more traditional telling of the story for a retelling from modern times (was Cupid ever involved with Hades falling madly in love with Persephone?). For another, I can’t remember if one of the Olympians had to go fetch her back or if it was one of the Greek heroes who was called in.
I really need to brush up on mythology before I go off on a supposedly-related tangent in class…*sigh*
————————————–
Hunting: I tend to find TLC’s posts interesting to read. Sometimes I wish I had the wherewithal to give it a try, but that would likely go over like a lead balloon, plus my patience level may not be high enough. Maybe I would if that was the only way I’d get to eat?
—————————————-
I’m leaning towards meeting the guy I’ve been chatting with in person, maybe this summer. He’s up for meeting as well. If all goes well, I’ll be faced with the challenge of juggling two people at the same time. Hopefully I can keep the polyamory part quiet until I find a new job, or move out, whichever comes first.
SC:
This commenter emphatically does not want you to go away. I do think it might not be a horrible idea to go have a grapefruit margarita and give yourself the rest of the night off.
St Valentine’s day was yesterday, here in Oz, but Owlmirror has gotten me to muse.
My selfish inclination is to wish that I perish before my wife, so that I need not endure, forlorn — but my theory of mind and familiarity indicates that the converse is probably true.
This next doesn’t apply to me, but I do wonder if that’s not of relevance in some cases of murder-suicide.
Eggs are dairy?
OH, and Tom Lehrer rocks. The party’s not complete without the Masochism Tango!
Also, the two shirts I ordered should arrive on Thursday. Something to look forward to, and something to wear on my trip this weekend.
That’s a non-answer, Bill.
DO NOT condescend to me.
(Reposting with one fewer URL in case PZ has gone offline for the night and because I’m doing the same shortly.)
So… cephalopod porn. Sorta appropriate for a day devoted to romance.
When PZ put up his post about it, I completely forgot about “Plushie Does Fire Island.” Plushie Schwartz is a dude in a bear mascot suit who has sex with cute young men. In the “Fire Island” vid, which is broken up into 11 clips, he has a trippy fling on the beach with a purple octopus. Imagine Sid and Marty Krofft producing porn. Bonus: Very nice surf guitar in the background.
Note: The first 3 clips are NSFW.
Clip 5: Start at 00:31 for drug-trip context. Beach scene starts at 1:56 and continues to the end.
Clip 6: Watch the whole thing.
Clip 7: Watch from the beginning until 1:40.
Clip 11: From 1:26 to 2:02, a happy (and SFW reunion), and then the credits roll.
Enjoy.
Ariaflame, eggs are usually lumped with milk products as dairy.
At least, they are here. My guess is that the reason is historical?
E and Ariaflame:
Uh, no. “Dairy” is cow squeezins. (Or goat or yak or whatever mammal you choose to milk.)
I’ve heard the eggs/dairy confusion before, but I just don’t get it. Maybe ‘cos eggs are sold in the “dairy section” of the supermarket?
Not really, but in Dah US they are usually found in the dairy (refrigerated) section of the grocery store.
PTI:
Your heart is hard as stone,
Or mahogany;
That’s why I’m
In such exquisite ahhhgony! ;^)
Also… Lead balloon!
Finally saw a doctor today. Yes, I also have high BP. Got a script for three different pills, each once a day. Does the medical people here have any opinion on whether to take them all at once, say in the morning or before bed, or is it better to space them out, say one every eight hours?
Eggs are not dairy! Seriously, guys, “dairy” refers to milk products. Don’t make me pull out the Pffffft! Of All Knowlege!
I wouldn’t want to try to milk a chicken.
SC, I was pondering whether to ask that very question, but feared the outcome (and I’m weak).
(I hope you’ll stay)
Nerd, they are all for high BP? Depending on the course of action, it could be dangerous to take them all at once. Low BP is bad for you.
So that depends on specifically what they are.
Nerd: That depends on what they are.
Second
Audley:
… but you could get eggs from a cow.
(Disclaimer: I do not mean to offend anyone by this fairly weak attempted bon-mot)
SC:
No, it’s a very serious answer, to precisely the question you asked: I think you’re a very valuable member of this community, and, to the extent it can be said about Strangers on teh Intertoobz™, I consider you a friend; I’d be devastated if you left. I also think you’re not on your usual game tonight, and not doing yourself any favors by continuing. It’s not that I disagree with your argument (I think I do disagree, but that’s not the issue); it’s that I don’t think you’re arguing very coherently or persuasively, and you’re pissing people off.
That’s not like you; I’m confident it’ll be better some other time.
Note that you got essentially the same advice from others… also offered, it seems to me, from a place of friendship.
I’m really not; I’m sorry if you see it otherwise.
Fine, Audley.
Eggs are not dairy. They are, however, found in the dairy case at the supermarket.
Io Lupercalia, amici et amicae!
Owlmirror: That whole album is mah-velous.
E,
Woo hoo!
:p
*reading a MD’s handwriting*
raucipicil
Nefedphine
Metoprolol
It’s a horizon.
Of course.
Danzig does duet. It’s almost romantic:
Father’s Grave
Nerd: Wow, an ACE inhibitor, a Ca+ channel blocker and a beta blocker. Quite the shotgun approach. Let me check my PDR.
Nerd: Don’t take metoprolol and nifedipine together, as they both increase anti-hypertensive channel blocking.
Nerd, I have no advice. I am, however, really happy you found out about this and are going to be taking meds to keep it under control.
Good.
OK, to talk about something else, for KG, the latest update about the NPD, the only remaining Nazi party in Germany of note:
– over the last four years, membership has fallen from 7,200 to 5,900 (subtract 200-300 members that are in arrears with their fees)
– 10% of their members are unemployed, the highest rate for any German party
– analysts estimate the hard core activist scene to number 3,000.
The party is present in two state parliaments, Saxony, and Mecklenburg-Lower Pomerania, and almost made it in two more. These are four out five states in Eastern Germany, so there is a potential, but even in parliament, the NPD has been ostracised. They have at times been openly provocative and have been disciplined as per the house rules more than any other party there.
– 1998-2009 they received 10m EUR from the state, as any party that gets more than 1% of the votes at a state election, receives 70c per vote. Also membership contributions and donations are matched by the state 38c per every euro.
– budget for the two state delegations: 1.2m p.a. in Saxony, 600k p.a. in MLP. However due to a donation scandal, the Bundestag administration is asking for 2.5m to be returned, so right now they are in a financial crisis. Right now they’re 1m in the red.
3,000 out of 80m. Even if the financial crisis leads to the worst scenario possible, this party won’t cut it. The conservative party has swallowed up all voter segments on the right. Angela Merkel has pushed the conservatives quite vehemently towards the centre, nonetheless.
The NPD is not the only party to appear on the far right. There have been other ones that are now gone, and there are also more populist ones, trying to avoid the yucky Nazi impression and emulate the success of the FPÖ, but they have failed to get any traction.
Nerd, seconding what A.R. has said.
Secondly, be VERY careful with Metoprolol. Don’t stop taking it suddenly, but wean yourself off of it (your doctor can help you with this). Suddenly stopping it can make your heart very unhappy.
I’m sad because it’s Valentine’s day and StrangeBoyfriend is… well, not StrangeBoyfriend. More like StrangeBestfriendwithbenefits. Who thinks maybe someday possibly but doesn’t want a romantic relationship with me right now. I know you guys are often telling me to get over him but I’m just not there yet. I suppose I could be, if he would give me a definitive signal that there’s NO chance, but he’s not doing that either. It’s six years since we met. Five years of that has been us exploring our relationship. Now, this year, he’s hundreds of miles away and, when I spoke to him on the phone last night, telling him that I’ve been thinking about him often, asking, “As a friend I hope?” and I kinda lost patience and told him, “Look, stop being so paranoid. Let me feel what I want to feel about you. Whatever happens between us, I’m going to make the best of it–I don’t really have much of a choice, do I? But in the meantime, please stop worrying that I’m too attached to you and am going to lose myself if you take the fantasy away. I realize you don’t share my desires. You don’t have to keep constantly reminding me.”
The thing is, I don’t feel as if I’m ready for a serious relationship right now. I say this because of how frequently I lie to him. I lie about small things, like which exact day I submitted my unemployment claim, or whether I’ve been studying for the GREs, and about larger things, which I prefer not to talk about because my sense of shame is too pronounced. I do this because I am afraid that telling the truth will cost me the relationship. I have that fear because he has such high and sometimes arbitrary standards about what he’s looking for in a relationship. I am realizing that as long as I continue this pattern, I’m never going to be able to have a relationship, because you need to have honesty. Now he’s been honest with me always. I don’t have any complaints on that front. What he has been is unfair and even cruel sometimes. He knows that I lie about stuff sometimes. But he doesn’t know the full extent of it. Maybe he guesses, I don’t know. I don’t want to be in a relationship where I had to give up my integrity to convince the other person that I’m worthy. I’m finally starting to come to terms with this–meaning all of it, the fact that he really doesn’t want me that way and the fact that there’s something inside me telling me that I have to be in a relationship so bad that it’s worth lying about and risking really, really hurting someone I care deeply about.
My assholish but perceptive friend back in VT says that we make a good team, we just need some time apart. For aging, like wine in casks, he says. I don’t know if this is true or not. I hope so. But I wonder if I wouldn’t be better served by acting as if it’s not. The point is kind of moot in some ways–it’s not like I’d be ready to date anyone else, or want to, right now. I guess I’ll just have to take it easy and try to figure out ways to be more honest with myself and with him. To respect him and our friendship better than I have been. To have a partner who is with you for life, that’s something I really want. And I think I could be a really good partner, if I could just let go of my insecurities and stop looking to a relationship to fix my life, start fixing my life myself, and get on with it.
Thanks for letting me vent. Seriously, my internet peeps are keeping me sane these days. I’m gonna go light one up and get real stoned. I don’t want to lie to my best friend ever again. It makes me feel like a horrible human being.
Did someone call me?
The doctor didn’t say what BP he read, but the only position that he only failed to take my BP in was while I was standing on my head. Thorough.
OK, I can spread them out. This is why I asked experts I trust. I’ve seen some data where when in the day one takes meds can effect the outcome. Still waiting for raw materials at work, so I think I’ll be spending a lot of time on-line tomorrow doing basic research on this concept.
Sally,
That sounds very difficult. I have little advice to offer, but a ready shoulder and ears to listen should you need more venting time. Take care and enjoy the high.
My internet sucks.
I started a download (a big one, 5 GB) around 6:30. It is now 10:30, and the download stands at 668 MB downloaded.
This fucking sucks.
@Antiochus: Do you mean Dead Can Dance, or Esteleth’s Tom Lehrer?
@Esteleth:
I see your Tom Lehrer, and I raise you a Neil Gaiman.
======
Tea And Corpses
(c) 1993 Neil Gaiman
Adam Stemple: mandolin and lap steel
Drew Miller: bass
You told me you would love me dear, forever
You said that you would always stay with me
And we would always be as one together
So why’d you put that poison in my tea?
I told you you would always be my man, dear
I told you I would never ever stray
And you know that I’m just yous biggest fan, dear
So why’d you have to spoil a good Earl Grey?
Chorus:
And it’s ooh, ah, ooh, I’m dying
And it’s ooh, ah, ooh, I’m nearly dead
I wonder what could make a love like ours turn sour
I guess it must be something that I said
Darling, you may think that we are parted and you’re free
But I know that we’ll meet again in hell
You think you got the last word in by poisoning my tea
But the joke’s on you, ’cause I poisoned yours as well (Chorus)
======
And the music:
http://www.archive.org/details/FlashGirlsTeaandCorpses
SC – “Skin ‘em. Skin ‘em ALL.”
How is SC different than John Morales? They both deliberately replied to a pet post with a consciously mean post.
Watching the plushie porn kinda cheered me up. I don’t quite understand why, but it did.
Thanks Dhorvath.
Hang in there, Sally. *offers hugs*
Lord have mercy, I’ve become one of the people who uses a photo of their cat as their profile pic on FourSquare.
And with that, I’m off to bed. Hopefully my download will finish by morning.
Okay, everyone, please go read this (it’s talking specifically about FTB):
http://timetolisten.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/skepticisms-ableism-problem.html
And think about it a bit before coming back.
Now, dou you think we could have a moratorium on the ‘Xie is an asshole, therefore xie must be Aspie/autist’ comment? Just imagine, for a moment, how that comment feels when a) you are autie, and b) you spend 95% of your waking hours trying not to upset people?
Hey Esteleth, wanna see a show in Syracuse on May 9? It’s a Wednesday. Are Wednesdays bad for you?
Maybe Sally. Who’s playing?
Wednesdays are fine for me.
The Sailor:
Either you’re guessing, or you’re lying — I did no such thing.
I Want My Baby Back-Jimmy Cross
Tapeworm Of Love-Brute Force
This Is Not A Love Song-Public Image Limited
St Valentine’s Day-Mekons
We are?
Well, they always tell me to be happy with myself, but I’ve done that for quite a long time now, it gets a little old. Hell if I know.
PS I’ll tell you some ways in which SC differs from me: she’s smarter, she’s more educated, she’s female, she’s of a different nationality. And I suspect she’s tougher.
Beats Antique is playing. You can listen to their new album streaming at the link. I like ’em. Very danceable. Creative, not obnoxious at all. And how appropriate (since we’re in upstate NY) that the first track is called “Cat Skillz.”
And since this was on the same album as the previous:
======
Postmortem on Our Love
(c)1993 Neil Gaiman and Lorraine Garland
Robin Adnan Anders: darabouka
I’ve been dissecting all the letters that you sent me
Slicing through them looking for the real you
Cutting through the fat and gristle of each tortuous epistle
Trying to work out what to do
I’ve laid the presents that you gave me out upon the floor
A book with pages missing, and a bottle, and a glove
Now outside it’s chilly autumn, I’m conducting a postmortem
On our love
Chorus:
I’m conducting a postmortem on our love
An autopsy to find out what went wrong
I know it died
I just don’t know how, or why
Maybe its heart stopped
Maybe its heart stopped
There’s an eyeball in a bottle staring sadly at the morgue
There’s a white line on the sidewalk silhouetting where it fell
In the dark I am inspecting all the angles of trajectory
Of hell
Was it suicide or murder or an accident, or what?
Though I cut and slice and saw and hack, it won’t come back to life
And I’m severing the label of each organ on the table
With a knife
With a knife (Chorus)
======
Music:
http://www.archive.org/details/FlashGirlsPostmortemonOurLove
Nerd – you can take beta blockers and nifedipihne together, but they can cause issues and your doc has to be someone who knows what they’re doing.
Not sure what the first one is – could it be ramipril?
And – forgive me – are you starting all of these for the first time, or switching from other stuff?
John Morales, I’m willing to accept that you really don’t conciously mean to come off as completely lacking empathy. Human primates have a vast spectrum of emotions and ways of feeling and expressing them.
But come on. You have to know that lots of this shit you say just plain upsets people. I’m running with your premise that you don’t mean to upset, and as such I let it roll off my own back, but many people can’t do that and furthermore, shouldn’t necessarily be expected to.
Well my 223 was written in a timely manner but didn’t show up then. well fuck me & fuck dial-up.
++++++++++++++++++++++
I hope we’re still discussing love gone wrong songs, because I have a traditional one:
I know that I definitely want a partner. I want to be okay living by myself, but that’s not the way I want to live forever.
I dunno about you, Rey, but several people have told me, when I’ve angsted all over the Thread in the past, that I might be better off letting go of my attachment to a relationship with this particular person. I can’t really say I blame them.
I’ll look them up, Sally, and get back to you.
Sleepy Esteleth is sleepy.
SC:
Depends on whether you actually care about communicating and/or persuading, I guess.
If you were pissing people off because you were hitting them with uncomfortable truths, that might, indeed, be “good”; tonight, I fear, you are instead just pissing people off because your arguments seem querulous and unaccountably combative. AFAICT, that’s not usually your goal.
***
SallyStrange:
Hugs… and chocolate… and booze… (if you want any of that).
The business about telling little lies about things like deadlines is, I fear, a bit of a red flag to me: I used to lie to my father about the same kind of small things (e.g., the difference between an A- and a B+, or a single missed homework assignment) when I was a teenager living at home… and it was because of how I knew he would react if I didn’t lie. My relationship with my father wasn’t terribly abusive compared to many of the stories folks ’round here tell of their parents, but it was the most abusive relationship I’ve ever had. I don’t presume to know you, and please forgive me if this is too intrusive, but please be honest with yourself about whether you’re telling these little lies to avoid abusive interactions. I worry about you.
Sally:
Well, that’s the thing. A good relationship and being a good partner most likely won’t happen until you stop thinking a relationship will fix everything.
You know what’s wrong and are looking to fix it, which is good. In that context, I don’t think the current relationship with StrangeBoyfriend is at all helpful. It’s keeping you in destructive habits.
Logically… yeah, you should probably let it go. This doesn’t sound like it’s making you happy.
Emotionally… I know what it is to love someone and want to make things work even when you logically know that it probably can’t.
It feels hollow saying this only because I’ve only barely begun to grasp it about myself, but you are a complete and worthy person, SallyStrange. You do not NEED another… wanting though, is a whole ‘nother matter.
And if you want to become more responsible, more proactive about your own life, great, I wholeheartedly support and endorse your efforts. But, you should (IMO) be doing it for YOU, to make YOUrself happy. You should be doing it because you want to improve your own happiness and comfort in some way, not because another person makes it a prerequisite for a relationship.
I’m nervous about dispensing any kind of advice, honestly. I often fail at following my own advice, and I think this kind of disqualifies me in some way, so I hope I’m not coming off like I’m talking down to you or telling you shit you already know.
Starting, not switching. Actually, low dose, one pill per day according to the doctor. See him next week for a progress report, so to speak. Meanwhile, I has a wrist BP device, will use to follow any progress.
FTB seems to be blocking me from posting anything with a link. Which is really annoying me right now, because after reading the ‘John and Chas must be Aspie because they’re assholes’ comment above, I want to point everyone in the direction of Radical Neurodivergence Speaking, in which she writes on that exact issue, the overt ableism on FTB, in particular toards those on the autistic spectrum.
People do it a lot, both here and on the rest of the site, and it’s just as unwelcoming as gendered insults, or any of the other shit that gets smacked down.
Auties can undeniably be assholes, but it isn’t diagnostic, and most of us go out of our way to be anything but.
Thank you. Now back to your regular programming.
I was listening to that last night!
—
Sally, from the kinds of things you say about him above, it might be worthwhile to consider that perhaps you don’t have a problem with honesty, you have a problem with honesty with someone who can be cruel and unfair and with whom you feel a lot of shame to talk about things. :/ I understand, though, it’s bad to be in a place where you aren’t ready to let go of someone and they’re not treating you well. *hugs* And hey, about wanting a partner, I dunno, but I think it’s probably best to take this kind of thing one step at a time. You don’t have to worry right now about how you will be living for the rest of your life, and I think part of what’s important about the learning to be okay living without a partner thing is that you don’t rush into/stick with things that are bad because you’re too worried that alone now means alone forever. (I’m sure this is all already stuff you know though.)
I don’t remember anyone saying that. I can’t imagine anyone around here advising anyone to let anyone go unless things had gone seriously toxic or something. But you’d probably know better.
And I’m certainly not a good judge of when to let something go or not.
I hope I’m a little better at it now though.
“‘John and Chas must be Aspie because they’re assholes’”
No one said that.
I’ll just leave this here: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/02/an_animal_rights_zealot_faces_her_comeup.php
Laci Green? What a coincidence! I was just talking about her. Did you know she is an ex-Mormon?
The Sailor:
In comment #50, you said:
So yes, you said that. You say a lot of shit when talking about other regulars. Tielserrath was right to call you out, what you said was unnecessary and over the fucking line.
I don’t know, maybe it’s different on the rest of FTB, but only from my experience here I feel like talking about the “he must be autistic” posts as being a sign of FTB’s ableism is kinda like saying that FTB is misogynistic because of the assholes who keep posting sexist insults? I feel like that shit gets called out most of the time around here. And I didn’t think that “John and Chas must be Aspie because they’re assholes” was actually what was going on in that post – I know there are a lot of spectrum folks around here, and I seem to remember that John at least was among us. (Mea culpa if I’m misremembering that.) I just figured I had forgotten Chas was too.
TLC:
Fuck.
Yeah, after the fact it’s plenty obvious to me.
—
Two things I take exceedingly seriously (and personally) are broken promises and false accusations. This is a case of the latter.
I have written maybe tens of thousands of comments here since 2005, when I began commenting; many were the opposite of upsetting.
When I can, I support, encourage and sympathise with people. I have tried to console people who have lost pets or loved ones, who have personal problems, who feel down. I have always been truthful, I have many, many times held back from pushing when someone is down, I have apologised, I have begged, I have bitten my tongue. I have welcomed promising commenters, and I have dissed trolls. I have gone to the trouble of researching old posts so as to defend people I thought unjustly accused, I have provided advice and information to those who asked for such when I could do so.
But, apparently, the consensus is that’s a cunning plan so that I could hurt commenters for yuks: I am a despicable, clever sociopath who intentionally builds people up so as to make the pain of my malevolent digs hurt more.
—
Once, in happier times, I thought Pharyngula was a place where I could be myself, but I’m now realising it was a foolish conceit.
—
Sigh. Sorry for blubbering, I’m sure I shall be very embarassed tomorrow. Not that people will believe me, this will be seen as yet another ploy in my insidious quest to hurt people, by pretending to be drunk and emotional.
(Sometimes, I am pathetic)
Aletha: Good to see.
Interesting. Current recommendation is to take one medication to medium dosage, if still not controlling hypertension then add in a second, and so on.
Depends, of course, what you’re taking them for, and if it’s not isolated hypertension, I apologiose for confusing the situation.
CC:
As Caine has pointed out, it’s not the trolls making these sorts of statements, it’s some of those who could be considered regulars, on the whole.
I’m perfectly aware that there’s no point in calling out the crap the trolls spew.
And again, as I’m not able to post links, may I point you towards a site called Autism and Empathy? I had a post there myself a couple of weeks back; it’s the one with the Punch and Judy pic.
Like CC (@254), I thought John, at least, and maybe Chas as well (though I’m notoriously bad at keeping track of everyone’s stuff) had self identified as “Aspies.” With that context, it seemed to me that Sailor’s comment was not so much calling them assholes because they were Aspies, but considering that their self-described place(s) on the spectrum might mitigate their assholishness.
I don’t read broadly on FtB other than Pharyngula (really, not other than TET), but my perception is that there are vanishingly few instances of people using others’ place on the spectrum to insult them. Maybe I miss things because I’m not (AFAIK) on the spectrum myself, but to me this seems like a pretty safe, supportive space for those who are.
John, I think part of it is that after someone is obviously upset you don’t seem to care much. People never take it well when something you say upsets them and then you follow it up by explaining to them why they shouldn’t be upset, even if it sounds perfectly logical to you.
Caine:
““‘John and Chas must be Aspie because they’re assholes’””
is completely different from
“To me, Morales and ChasC seem to be assholes, but maybe it’s just their Aspie coming out and I just don’t know.”
As I recall, they both have said they were on the spectrum. Part of that spectrum includes people who don’t understand how other people perceive them. Sometimes people come across as assholes because they don’t get that things they say or do are hurtful to other people.
Me, I’m just an asshole.
I was looking for a good way to tell you this, John.
Thanks, Kristinc!
For what it’s worth, John, your frustration is and has been evident to me, even though I snap at you quite frequently about being an asshole. (These have actually been among the posts here I have actively regretted. I think that when I’m in a bad mood and you’re more callous than usual, we just mix badly.) I don’t think you’re a sociopath. I do think that the immediate (apparently defensive) doubling-down/”just asking questions” behavior is the reason that people are taking your slights as intentional. When you’ve just upset someone, that is a really bad time to take the interrogating approach.
—
tielserrath, I remember Autism and Empathy! You linked us there a long time ago – I found a couple of my favorite blogposts ever through it, if I recall correctly. Awesome that you’ve got a post up there. I’ll remember to check it out.
A blast from my (distant) past occurred to me, apropos of some of the discussion here:
When I was in college, I had a professor (one of my favorite teachers, actually) who had a wooden leg. That is, I think it was a literally wooden prosthesis (this being the 70s, before IEDs forced us to get really good at prosthetics, really fast). I have a congenital defect of my ankle, which causes me intermittent chronic pain, and sometimes makes me limp (often without realizing I’m doing so).
About halfway through a summer class with this professor, I happened to mention my ankle problem to a classmate, who instantly looked relieved, and who confessed to me that he thought I had been faking the limp (I suppose because I looked otherwise young and healthy, and had no obvious reason to limp) by way of mocking our professor’s wooden leg. He thought I’d just been being an asshole (I can’t recall now what I could’ve done to make that a plausible supposition), but now he had a different, non-blameworthy cause to which to attribute the behavior in question.
That’s what I thought Sailor was getting at.
“Sometimes I lie awake at night, and ask, ‘Where have I gone wrong?’ Then a voice says to me, ‘This is going to take more than one night.’” – Charles Schultz
P.S. tielserrath, I trust you. I assume what’s happening is that I’m failing to see it or reading it into invisibility. So hopefully now I’ll be more vigilant.
No, Bill, I have never identified as suffering from Asperger’s, nor have I been ever tested for such. Only since reading this blog have I considered perhaps it’s a possibility, but I categorically deny that is any excuse or mitigation.
I’m just fucking clueless, sometimes.
—
FWIW, my mum and my aunt tell me I had a very difficult childhood.
[TMI] I was a bed-wetter until I was 15 or so. I was expelled from numerous schools (including 3 Catholic boarding-schools one of which I set fire to); I was fostered (I have vague memories of that — a dog I thought smelled like chicken). I only met my mum and sisters when I immigrated to Australia when I was 12.
I’m told my grandmother (who was a nurse) used to feed me half a valium tablet twice a day, when I lived with her, because I was a handful. I have no recollection of this (I do recall she had a thing for suppositories).
Maybe it warped me, I honestly don’t know.
—
I always cop to what I’ve done (sometimes needlesly so) because pretending really doesn’t work over the long haul (hard lesson to learn), but false accusations really, really get to me.
—-
And I’ve just refreshed, and I’ve decided to post this anyway.
The Sailor: Maybe (I am not sure) I have in the past opined I might have a touch of Asperger’s, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never claimed I in fact do so.
Kristinc, TLC: It’s rare that I show affect. Like I said, my inclination is to become detached on emotive topics.
CC: I hope I remember your explanation in future.
—
Again, sorry for the blubbering. I can see I’ve been whining and seeking consolation, and I appreciate everyone’s honesty.
Perhaps the thing to remember is that when you put a diagnosis and a negative personality trait in the same sentence, and use one to justify, excuse or excoriate, you are genetrally on very shaky ground.
I have found that intead of thinking ‘xie is aspie, therefore xie doesn’t know xie is coming across as an asshole’, perhaps just ask the person to expand on their thought processes, after pointing out that what they have said might be ofensive to some?
Once you have their response, I think you’ll find that you can then make a more considered decision on the decent person/asshole divide, and autism won’t need to come in to it.
Yah, me, too. John, I know I’ve been harsh tonight, but I’ve consciously avoided calling you “mean,” and I certainly don’t believe you’re scheming to set people up for emotional pain.
Maybe this will sound like a “distinction without a difference,” but I don’t think it really is: I don’t think you deliberately cause hurt, it’s just that sometimes I think you deliberately don’t avoid it.
Tonight I reached the end of one particular rope, but FSM knows, I don’t want to put myself in the position of calling anyone else a bad person. For whatever the hell that’s worth.
TheSailor #265:
It’s interesting you mention Schulz. From what I understand, virtually everyone around him thought he was entirely too hard on himself most of the time and wasn’t nearly as screwed up as he thought he was. (Sort of like me.) In fact, he took it out on Charlie Brown sometimes a little too much — there were occasions where Charlie got abuse from people (including, in one of the specials, Peppermint Patty, which is so weird as to be completely out of character for her) that just made no sense at all. (See also, “I got a rock.”)
John:
Sorry, then: As I said, I’m crap at keeping track of who’s told TET what stuff about themselves. In any case, I didn’t/wouldn’t have thought ill of you for that.
John, I helped an autistic colleague with this.
You have to accept, and take into account in almost every interaction, that people get upset about facts. It doesn’t matter how many reasons you throw at them to try and make them see it from a logical point of view, it simply isn’t going to happen.
It’s one of the commonest frictions auties have with neurotypicals (and I include those in the grey area of no diagnosis here).
You’re not required to feel the emotional response someone else has had to what you said, but you are required to acknowledge it, and understand that what you said/did provoked it. People do not have to justify their emotional response to another person.
Think of an emotional response as another sort of fact. It’s there, and it can’t be reasoned away.
{previous v.TET}
@ Ing #601
This could be “sick building” syndrome. Quite common in large (especially “modernist”) buildings where the inhabitants are unable to control their environment. This can cause a lot of (psychological) stress and lead to illness in itself. You could also look to the HVAC system, can spread cold, flu etc amongst the inhabitants (The air generally gets reused to save on heating/cooling of the makeup air. Ends up circulating, bugs-n-all, to the tune of about 80% of the air you are breathing (obviously less for hospitals etc)). I would need to know more about your building to tell you more than this.
……………………….
@ pelamun
Beep beep, spoiler alert… *
I am really enjoying the Myers (not PZ) book on North Korea. I can summarise the entire thing in one quote:
Also: Juche is purely window dressing, initiated to compensate for a feeling of inferiority to Mao Zhedong. It’s complete vacuity keeps the west thinking that there must be something deeper. There is not.
* (Not really, this is a quote from the prologue.)
Giliell, I honestly tell you I thought I was just talking about rabbits (!) and it’s clear to me now I was stupid to quote your comment when trying to be jocular. I did not think for more than half a second, IIRC I wrote that just after another jokey comment riffing of KG. I didn’t consider the context, I took the quote in isolation.
And I’m sorry for not taking you seriously enough when you complained, for thinking I was clear enough. I can see now how it seemed dismissive, how you couldn’t have guessed my thinking.
I’m sorry I caused unintended offence, I’m sorry I “doubled-down” as CC put it. It totally surprised me that you thought I was trying to hurt you, and I didn’t respond well.
—
And (again) I’ve just refreshed and read tielserrath’s comment to me.
tielserrath: I can’t dispute you, and I kinda know that intellectually. Maybe this little episode will help it sink in.
I’ll shut up now.
Cheers, John. I think you’ll get it, but I don’t underestimate how hard it is when you don’t do it instinctively.
It’s a major reason why I don’t try to have IRL friendships any more. I hurt other people too much. I stick to making the world a better place in a purely professional capacity, where I know what the rules are.
End of the day downunder – off home, a 40 minute drive on a warm (23C), sunny afternoon.
theophontes:
Aw, you’re spoiling my image of “Juche study groups” as deep philosophical debating societies. You mean they’re just mindless circle jerks for people too dumb for LaRouche and NATLFED? /sarcasm
Only eastern downunder, some of us still have nearly 3 hours to go.
Did ANYONE goddamn comment on Laci Green? All I see is endless inanity about rabbits.
Not clear on the concept, razzlefrog? This is an open thread. You can tell because the thread title begins Episode [Roman Number]:… (and the category label is, oddly enough, “Open Thread”). The video is just an anchor/thread starter; it’s not the subject of the thread.
razzlefrog:
Yes, someone did, which you’d know if you read the comments. TET (The Endless Thread) is not a topic thread, it’s a continual open thread. It’s our lounge and social thread, everything is on topic here, even asinine arguments about rabbits.
We watched the video, and it wasn’t about rabbits. So there wasn’t anything to comment on.
feralboy12:
:snortle: +1
@ Brian X
In a word: “Dutch-rudder”. (NSFW!)
That Juche is like a donut – completely empty in the middle – does not mean that it is not useful. It is a very good red herring to keep analysts of North Korea forever backfooted. The regime also has no real intellectual pretenses, so that a “guiding philosophy” like you might find in the former communist block or the “West” is irrelevant in practice. The North Koreans are (purportedly) inherently virtuous and spontaneously give expression to this – without being constrained by such devices as “philosophy” or “guiding principles”.
@ pelamun
Oy Vey! …frankboyd… Rather you than me. I would become incoherent if I had to argue against that carbuncle. To my mind, the “tribalism” of which he speaks is more likely to be undermined by multilingualism. Is he the earthly representative of the fucking (Anglophone) Borg?
Although South Africa has eleven official languages, the de-facto language is English. Although Afrikaans was rejected as a language of instruction, this was more a rejection of the oppression inherent in the regulations than an attack on the language. Afrikaans is thriving in post-apartheid South Africa and is often raided for words (“Kwaito”) and expressions (“kse”) by other languages (even into Zimbabwe).
He seems to buzz around English like a fly around a turd and then expect multi-linguists will buzz around one of their languages in a (pseudo-) tribal way. Nothing could be further from the truth. We love and nurture each and every language that we speak. (I think ‘Merkins would benefit immensely from bilingualism.(As many already do.))
@ Caine
{fixed}
snortlesnorFle(Eish! Standards are slipping on TET. Think of the children!!!)
Theophontes, sorry, nope. It’s snortle. Some people prefer snorfle, I’m not one of them.
John Morales.
You got expelled from 3 Catholic boarding schools, one of which you set fire to?
You could piss on my fish and chips – you’ll always be a hero to me.
Good morning
Sally
HUgs and chocolate coming out of your USB
Those little lies? I know them very well and I know how painfull it was to finally own up. But strangely it was more about me than about him. It was a bit like if I tell him those lies, things are different with me.
Nerd
Ugh. Not good that your blood-pressure is too high, good that it is taken care of.
John
Thanks, I really appreciate it.
pelamun
I didn’t want go into this last night, but when it comes to kids and death, I prefer going for the blank and honest approach without any sugar coating, mostly because they don’t understand sugar-coating. My grandfather died a year ago and #1 was old enough to remember him. I’ve asked family members not to tell stuff like “he’s in a better place (funny thing, they’re all atheists)” or “now he can walk again without a cane” or “he’s gardening in a really beautiful garden”.
That’s stupid. They take that shit serious. It doesn’t take away the pain of missing him. It adds because, well, doesn’t love us anymore so he doesn’t come back? And if that’s so much a better place, why doesn’t he take us there? And if grandpa has just gone doing something he likes, and hasn’t showed up ever since, what does that say about dad who goes to work every Sunday evening and doesn’t come back until Friday?
People really, really, really don’t seem to understand that children have no sense of sarcasm, irony, metaphor or euphemism.
Poll to work on: http://www.budgettravel.com/contest/nominate-15-places-kids-should-see-before-15,10/
The Creation Museum is high on the list. It would be good to get it out of the top 15. It was first, but is in 2nd place as of now. You can officially vote for one entry per day. I’d heard rumors that they are doing some amount of IP address tracking in attempt to prevent duplicate votes.
h/t http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/02/14/keep-the-children-out-of-here
I’ll post the top ~20 entries, and their current vote counts, as soon as write the javascript code to extract it. If someone wants to send PZ an email alerting him to this, that’d be nice.
To Sailor @223: Seems to me the only difference is that SC clearly intended to be offensive as some kind of shock tactic, while John Morales (arguably) didn’t intend offense.
Here are the top 25 entries on the Budget Travel poll, mentioned above, as of now:
868: U.S. Space and Rocket Center, AL
696: Creation Museum, KY
479: Smithsonian Museum of American History, DC
382: Alabama Space and Rocket Center, AL
363: Yellowstone Nationsl Park, WY
307: USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park, AL
277: Grand Canyon, NV
249: The Statue of Liberty, NY
242: Kennedy Space Center, FL
202: Yosemite National Park, CA
190: Mount Rushmore, SD
183: Boston (Freedom Trail, Harbor, Navy Shipyard, Commons, Beacon Hill, etc.), MA
175: The Mall and monuments in DC, DC
169: Niagra falls, NY
145: Gettysburg Civil War Battlefield, PA <- *** This is NUMBER 15 ***
130: White house, DC
124: Great Smokey Mountains National Park, TN
120: Kentucky Horse Park, KY
102: Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, IL
101: George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate, VA
101: Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, DC
95: Disneyland, CA
93: Carlsbad Caverns National Park, NM
90: Mammoth Caves National Park, KY
88: Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, HI
It'll take quite a lot of votes to get the Creation Museum out of the list, but I think we can do it. Go here to vote: http://www.budgettravel.com/contest/nominate-15-places-kids-should-see-before-15,10/
I generated this list with the following javascript code:
function getN(a) {return a.getElementsByTagName("em")[0].innerHTML;}; function getName(a) {var b=a.getElementsByTagName("a");for(var x=0;x<b.length;x++) {if (b[x].href) {return b[x].textContent}}}; function sortF(a,b) {return (getN(b)-getN(a));}; var a=document.getElementById("cst-nominees-list").getElementsByTagName("li");var z=[];for(x=0;x<a.length;x++) {z.push(a[x])}; z.sort(sortF); for (x=0;x<25;x++) { print(getN(z[x])+": "+getName(z[x])+(x===14 ? " <- This is NUMBER 15! ***" : "" )) }
More help needed on Sandra. Here’s her initial email before she posted a fuller one:
Then she sent a second, starting with re: the discriminatory nature of Prop 8:
Re me calling her out on her diversionary tactics:
Re: the history and tradition of marriage and how traditional would be defined possibly as “Forty years”
Re: relying on tradition and cultural institutions.
Re: what having marriages back in California would do for challenging DOMA.
Re: how Prop 8 has already been overturned and the nature of denying gay marriages the “marriage” label.
Re: separate but equal.
Re: the “sacredness” of marriage.
Re: the brief mention I made of polygamy and calling her out on her dishonest motives for equating that with gay marriage.
Re: how Christian groups can believe what they wish but have no entitlement to force their beliefs about marriage into law.
All help would be appreciated :)
James
Colour me confused, but why exactly is the Laci Green video posted here?
Am I missing something?
What has she got to do with this site, or anything discussed on it?
@Stublore
Well, I don’t know why you apparently take offense with it, but for the reason: This is TET, The Eternal Thread, community space and hive of the Horde (or something like that).
Each incarnation is headed by a video that PZ thinks funny, interesting, awesome, awefull, whatever.
You don’t have to watch it, comment on it, discuss it.
James, have you tried just turning it around on her? If she thinks prop 8 was so inconsequential, why does it even exist? What’s the point?
John, it may be a good experiment to try changing the script for these interactions. You know it’s quite possible for you to say something that ends up upsetting someone. When it happens, instead of trying to explain what you meant and why it made sense, pull a red-cord full stop on that conversation with something like “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” End of conversation. Then look at it, figure out what happened (or have someone outside the conversation explain what happened) and file it away as a general rule to follow (e.g. “when pets are involved, avoid talk of prepping food”). See how that works a few times.
Pelamun:
“theophontes, on http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2012/02/13/that-white-supremacist-panel-at-cpac/ there is an idiot (claiming that nations with two or more official languages are culturally backward)”…
.
Norway has Nynorsk and Bokmål. Since Norway is the richest bloody industrialised country in the world per capita, and has a physical and health-care infrastructure second to none (and has produced authors and composers well-known across the world) I would hardly call it culturally backward)
Finland has both Swedish and Finn languages as official languages. Ireland has the old Celtic language as nominally equal, although few speaks it. Culturally backward? Apart from the influence of a certain church, they have their share of authors. Sweden is recognising Sami, a form of Finn spoken at Torneå River, Rom and possibly Jiddish (or is it Hebrew?). And I don’t think Canada is the retardedest of nations…
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Pelamun: “I though maybe due to the long Danish rule over Scania, or something, Denmark would always be part of Scandinavia in Sweden, but that you seem to say that some follow the “strictly geographic definition”, surprises me.
.
Depends…if you read a textbook of forestry, they refer to the boreal forest region of the Nordic countries as being in ”fennoscandia” but that is maybe nitpicking.
Most Swedes I know make little distinction between Scandinavia and Norden nowadays.
— —- —– —– —–
“…and there are also more populist ones, trying to avoid the yucky Nazi impression and emulate the success of the FPÖ, but they have failed to get any traction.”
-They should emulate Jörg Haider and drive cars while drunk !!!
I think waaaay too much on these kinds of things.
Post about ley lines on my non-nym blog as a primer for the next post on why my stories take place on one continent rather than the others. (Of course that question is kind of like asking why you would write a story based in Australia when you could write a story based in America.)
@Giliell, not to be confused with The Borg
What makes you think it offended me?
It just seemed out of place, and as an infrequent visitor to the site, thought it might have some relevance of which I was unaware, hence my question.
I admit it was awful however, or perhaps trite, an internet version of one of those awful teenage/glamour magazine articles.
SC, OM,
I have a lot of respect for you, you’ve been a highly valued commenter here for longer than almost anyone, and I certainly don’t want you to stop posting – unless you’re going to carry on as you did last night. You were acting like a complete shit, as well as making bizarre, disconnected remarks in which no-one but you could see any coherence or rationality. I can only hope it was an aberration, and that you’ll think better of it when you cool down.
Owlmirror from last night: I was talking about Sinead O’Connor’s I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got…I didn’t realize that she didn’t write that song, nor did I realize that the song had been recorded many times. If I get time today, I’ll listen to them all.
Except I probably won’t get time today.
Morales: These occasional dust-ups notwithstanding, I value your contributions, which are trenchant more often than not.
No, I’m doing the former. Unless you think it would be more acceptable to kill and cook – or chat casually about techniques for killing and cooking – “my” cat when he was living out of a dumpster behind a strip mall. Or that he would have suffered less from being shot through with a stick at that time than he would now.
And just as the discussion has gone quiet, a relevant song by a Dutch comedian about what happens to a boys rabbit, Flappie, on Christmas day. Includes nice twist ending.
Youp van ‘t Hek – “Flappie” ((bad) English translation shown in the video).
Bill, above:
No. That conversation was about killing and cooking rabbits. And then people were all outraged because someone joked about doing the same thing to someone’s pet rabbit that people had moments before seriously talked about doing to rabbits that aren’t people’s pets. If the prior conversation had been joking about calling women cunts and then people had been offended by someone’s calling John’s wife a cunt on the basis that it was mean to him, I would be making the same argument.
And for people asking me to elaborate on my position with regard to hunting: It is only relevant insofar as it involves the ethics of hunting animals beloved of people vs. those that aren’t. I don’t make a moral distinction about hunting on this basis, because it would mean that animals (and people) that are not beloved of people are less morally deserving, which I do not believe.
My views are very similar to Peter Singer’s on the subject of nonhuman animals, so if you want elaboration you could read him.
Some animals are more equal than others.
It’s true for you, too, SC. I don’t know where you draw your line of moral standing (I’m going to guess ‘mammals’ but it might be ‘tetrapods’ and it might be ‘vertebrates’), but you have one.
Nobody grants moral standing to nematodes.
Granting equal moral standing to all animals is always going to involve drawing a line somewhere, and the brightest line to most people is right under humans. Many other opinions are possible, and people will argue for theirs, but it’s arbitrary.
There’s also a separate issue here of moral standing vs. personal feelings. I can grant all humans equal moral standing but I’m going to feel a lot worse if somebody I know and care about dies than if I read about somebody I never heard of before having died. Same with animals. If all cats have equal moral standing I’m still going to feel worse about my kid’s cat than about yours, and I’m going to feel worse about yours than about some feral tom in the alley. There’s nothing contradictory or amoral about that.
Tiny lizards found in Madagascar – small is beautiful.
Now I want a pet rabbi.
Somehow I don’t think the video was posted because PZ foound it awful…
Again, my views are similar to Singer’s. My point in this specific conversation, though, is that an animal’s (or human’s) moral standing should not be based on humans’ specific feelings towards them.
The conversation in which I was intervening was not one in which Gilliel had said that her rabbit died and someone had responded “Millions of rabbits die every day. What are you upset about?” It was one in which people were casually (but seriously) talking about killing and eating rabbits and then took offense at the suggestion that the same thing could be done to her pet.
Well, you all can take that up with Richard Fucking Dawkins.
No. It’s not.
SC,
Even if you’re a vegan (which as far as I recall you’ve never said), you can’t in practice survive without depending on practices which involve animal death and suffering: crops have to be protected, in fact any form of agricultural or industrial activity, anywhere, will deprive some animals of their lives, homes or livelihood.
Do you feed your cat meat? If so, you are in practice making a distinction between an animal you care about as an individual and have direct responsibilities to, and those you don’t. If not, what do you feed it?
Stay sane, doctor. Stay sane.
No. To easy to find pron on Google.
Watch the wound for pus, discoloration, smell, anything that doesn’t look or feel right — these could be signs of infection. And if you start running a fever, see a doctor fast. And I know that you know this, but it is still worth writing.
Rick Santorum’s dream.
And I have acquired the 20 pea recipes.
(This is called deterance.)
Dontcha just love the GOP double-standard? Picture the week-long outrage if the Democratic Party had done something similar (well, the Dems would have made them funny, reasonably true and pointed, but that’s another subject).
If the Holy Spirit shows up, be sure to inform him (her? it?) about current laws concerning child support. Of course, god et al are GOP, so you’ll never see a cent (which is okay, because god et al are Republicans).
If you meet up with a girl scout who is similarly inclined,
Don’t be bashful, don’t be flustered, don’t be scared!
Be Prepared!
Be safe. Take your meds. Did you ask your doctor if it might be temporary due to unusual and prolonged stress?
Insert sound of a record needle skittering across an LP of Wagner.
======
My favourite love song (of the morbid variety):
Frankie and Johnny were lovers
Oh lordy, how they could love
Swore to be true to each other
Just as true as the stars above
He was her man, but he done her wrong
Well, Frankie went down to the corner
To get a bucket of beer
She said to the fat bartender
“Has my lovin’ Johnny been here?
He was my man, I think he’s doing me wrong”
“Well, I don’t want to cause you no trouble
And I don’t want to tell you no lies
But I seen your man about an hour ago
With that high-browed Nellie Bly
He was your man, I think he’s doing you wrong”
She took a cab at the corner
And said “Driver step on this can
For you’re looking at a desperate gal
Been two-timed by her man
He was my man, but he done me wrong”
Then Frankie went home in a hurry
She didn’t go there for fun
Frankie went home to get a-hold
Of Johnny’s shooting gun
He was her man, but he done her wrong
Frankie peeked over the transom
And there to her surprise
She saw her lovin-man Johnny
With that high-browed Nellie Bly
He was her man, and he was doing her wrong
Then Frankie pulled back her kimono
And she pulled out a small .44
And root-e-toot-toot three times she shot
Right through that hardwood door
He was her man, but he done her wrong
“Well roll me over on my left side
Roll me over so slow,
Roll me over on my left hand side, Frankie,
Them bullets hurt me so,
I was your man, but I done you wrong”
Now, bring round your ruber-tired buggy
And bring round your rubber-tired hack
I’m taking my man to the graveyward
I ain’t gonna bring him back
He was my man, but he done me wrong
Well this story has no moral
And this story has got no end
Well the story just goes to show you women
That there ain’t no good in men
He was her man, but he done her wrong
Which is amusing as I know a couple named Frankie and Johnny. Well, Francesca and Jon, but close enough. They’ve been married for 61 years. And, to my knowledge, neither drinks beer. They prefer vodka. Which doesn’t come in buckets.
My life!
At work, so I will not goggle that. I think I have heard the term before but I have no idea where I heard it. Or why. Or, most important, what it is.
I remember Mom waxing the kitchen floor when we lived in Death Valley. The next day, almost every kid in the neighborhood was over there, wearing socks, and sliding the length of the kitchen. It ended with a broken wrist, a broken arm, and a broken ankle (three different kids). So yeah, I too worry about the children slipping. Or sliding.
Nah. Get something that’s easier to take care of. The dietary restrictions for pet rabbis are tough.
@Og:
FIFY
This is far from the point of this discussion. People were not talking ruefully about killing that is unavoidably necessary for survival. They were talking about killing for personal enjoyment.
I don’t buy the cats’ food. I could be wrong, but I don’t think cats can be vegetarian. It’s an important point to think about, though. However, the animals killed for food for the cats don’t have less moral standing in my eyes than others of their species that are kept as pets.
I left it deliberately open. After all, there are many, many, many types of pron which would interest narrow minded bigots and moralists.
No need to. It has been climbing for a while according to my yearly miniphysicals. But it did jump up from the last results, no doubt stress related. Now to go get my meds *checks for prescription card*.
And this is where I call bullshit and where you’re permanently strawmanning.
The argument was never about whether it was more or less suffering on the animal side. The argument was about additional suffering on the human side.
If you wanted to start the argument “is killing animals ethical”, that’s fine, maybe people would be interested.
Again, you’re conflating the two issues.
It doesn’t matter from the POV of a cat.
That’s the animal rights/wellfare/stuff them debate.
It matters from the POV of the human. That was the argument that was going on.
And yes, you constantly trying to frame the issue of a dead animal, even a pet, as similar to that of the dead/rape/slavery of human beings stinks.
Obviously you see most of us on the same level as the slave owners/misogynists/rapists, but think we’re usefull idiots in those areas where we agree with you.
Which leaves us the question whether ARA’s will extend their grace to human animals when the day comes or whether you’d like to put us against the wall.
Apparently, you missed the part where they talked about eating everything they killed.
Its not just trophy hunting they were discussing.
At this point I think you’re purposely conflating and twisting this.
You are painting like they are sociopaths torturing and killing animals for their enjoyment.
SC, OM,
What does that matter from the POV of the animal? Isn’t that the core of your argument, such as it is?
But cats have higher moral standing than cows, sheep and pigs? Or what? You’re just not making any sense.
My point was that there was no argument at all about animal suffering. There was no discussion of rabbits suffering. People were chatting about spearing and cooking rabbits for personal pleasure. There was no evidence of caring remotely about those rabbits. The only “suffering” people got angry about was the suffering of a human on the basis of a person making a joke about cooking their pet. That was my original point.
i.e. food.
Yes, people were talking about hunting.
TLC talks about hunting often, it has been an issue.
Most people, including me, are OK with it, TLC does not come off as deliberately cruel towards animals.
You can, of course, disagree.
But if that was your point, you made it badly.
Your point was to dismiss the human suffering which was subject of the discussion completely and to valiantly fight a lot of windmills made of straw using emotionally charged “comparisons” (I’m using the word in the widest possible meaning)
It matters in making moral decisions whether causing suffering or death is necessary or not. Causing suffering can sometimes be morally justified in terms of other moral considerations if it’s the only plausible option. That was not the conversation people were having, including about “pests.”
What? No. I’m saying that I base my moral relationship with members of a species on qualities of that species, and it holds for all members of that species. I never suggested that all species have equal moral standing. I think their food is fish, but as I said it’s something to think about…
Food they obviously don’t need to survive.
Right, you’re OK with the gratuitous killing of rabbits with sticks and the casual discussion of the enjoyment of it, and feel no need to raise the issue of their real suffering and death, but infuriated by someone merely joking about your pet rabbit being killed.
Correct.
Bullshit. TLC’s said repeatedly he only goes for clean kills and makes sure the rabbit suffers as little as possible. Others, including myself, have also repeatedly raised concerns about animals suffering, not just in hunting, but in confinement farming, lab research, and pet euthanasia. All YOU are saying is that nobody got outraged enough about those rabbits to suit YOU. And that means you ARE arguing about whether it’s acceptable to hunt or kill animals in the first place, and not some conflation of food animals with people’s attachment to their pets – which I also addressed, I might add.
He spears them with sticks.
Uhm, I don’t know if it’s any use to the discussion, but it’s entirely possible to spear a rabbit with a spear made from a stick and make a clean, quick kill. Saying he ‘spears them with sticks’ doesn’t necessarily imply ‘deliberate cruelty’ to animals.
It doesn’t matter from the POV of the animal whether it’s suffering or death is necessary or not. My point is, you don’t get to first assert that the POV of the animal is all that matters – which you were, just reread the exchanges if you dispute that – then turn round and say the opposite when it suits your argument.
But clearly, you haven’t bothered to find out up to now.
It would suffer as little as possible if he did not spear it in the first place.
There was none of that in the conversation we’re talking about.
No one got outraged about those rabbits at all. People did get outraged about John’s joke. Yes, I have a problem with the priorities of outrage.
@ james re Sandra: she’s a first-class bullshitter and obfuscator, and now she’s definitely gaslighting you by saying “you can’t prove me wrong, nyah nyah” when you called her out on obfuscation. It’s going to take somebody with more legal knowledge than me to actually cut apart her interpretations of all the decisions, but she’s already contradicting herself:
followed by:
She just said it herself – if religious groups don’t recognize same-sex marriages, and don’t provide adoption services or spousal benefits thereby, that IS discrimination. It might be legalized discrimination (if I’m reading her correctly) but it’s still discrimination.
She doesn’t give a shit about human rights. It’s all a big game of one-upmanship to her. See also:
and
…I mean, what? Slavery and disenfranchisement were always wrong REGARDLESS of being legal. But she only cares about laws and courts as some sort of fascinating playground for rules-mongering, not about actual people being hurt.
So this:
is disingenous. I’d say it’s a flat-out lie, but I can’t quite tell.
No, I wasn’t. I did not assert that. My point was that it matters, not that it’s all that matters.
Right. And I’m at fault for that. It was wrong, and thank you for bringing it to my attention. If I had casually talked and joked about the animals killed to make their food, it would have been even worse. If I had then become outraged at a joke about killing a member of one of those species that I or someone else here kept as a pet, it would have been even worse. But I have been wrong not to think about it.
SC:
So, again, if you’re not after TLC specifically, then you’re claiming it’s wrong to hunt or kill animals in general. Or you’re claiming even that small degree of suffering is unacceptable or unjustified. You could have just HAD that conversation, which I for one have been TRYING to have, instead of flaming out with racism and rape scenarios and bogus human comparisons.
Maybe some of us have covered that ground in previous conversations and see no need to re-hash it every single time.
@james again re Sandra: If you’re actually going into depth on the legal definitions (which I really, really would not recommend in this case) this might be useful:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2012/02/14/ssm-and-gender-discrimination/
SC, hunting for food (as opposed to trophy hunting) cannot be looked at in isolation.
If someone hunts for food, with a focus on clean kills and minimizing the suffering of the animal, the appropriate comparison is not against the same animal that was not hunted. I’d argue, instead, that it is appropriate to compare the hunted (lived in the wild, killed cleanly with minimal suffering) animal to an animal (say, one that produced an equivalent amount of meat) that lived on a farm.
If TLC stopped hunting tomorrow and started buying all his meat at the supermarket, who wins? Not the farmed animals living in their own filth and abused. And – ultimately – not the wild animal. An increased demand for farmed meat leads the farms to expand in size, further encroaching on the habitat of the wild animal. Also, larger farms leads to greater demands that area predators to be controlled, leading to decreased predation on their wild prey. Since these are rabbits we are speaking of, with decreased predation – whether from an apex predator like a wolf or from an intermediary one – comes an explosion in population, which will lead to mass starvation of the rabbits due to overfeeding on their plant foods.
Basically, from a perspective of reducing overall suffering, hunting is better than farming.
Then, of course, is the issue of humans stepping in to replace a killed off apex predator, which very frequently happens. Once the predators are removed, it is more cruel to not hunt/trap/poison the prey animals. Starvation is a nasty, slow, and painful way to go.
Finally, I’d argue that hunting serves an important function in and of itself. By hunting, TLC has a greater appreciation of where his food comes from. A chicken is not “shrink-wrapped package,” but “bird that bled and squawked.” It is very easy to be desensitized, to not think about where our food comes from. Hunting helps undo that, by forcing the awareness.
I didn’t see anyone joking about killing them, though. I saw a discussion that was centered on the techniques of it, and that was heavy on how to do so to avoid suffering, at that.
Going back up to what Chas said, that was one of the points I was trying less skillfully to make: yes, I do feel more badly about the death of an animal I’m familiar with than one I’m not, so it does make sense for a person to get more upset when the topic changes from hunting in general to their own pet. It’s part of how humans just operate. So I can easily go to a cadaver lab and be fascinated and intrigued and poke around innards for the intellectual interest of it, and yet get sickened by seeing my dead grandparent laid out at a funeral home. That doesn’t mean I hold the cadaver’s personhood at a lower moral level than my grandparent, it’s that I only had a personal connection with one of them and I’m reacting to that personal connection.
Which goes to Gilliel’s comment: “The argument was never about whether it was more or less suffering on the animal side. The argument was about additional suffering on the human side.” I’m not sure why discussion about the latter is somehow erasing the fact of the former, but I think that’s what you’re arguing.
If I’m so intelligently design, why the FUCK have I bitten the inside of my lip to the point of bleeding and removal of tissue 5 times in the last 3 days.
fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
SC, OM
Whether you explicitly asserted it or not is not the point, as I think you know very well.
Exactly. This is my last comment on the subject, but I suggest you look back over the whole interaction and think about whether you’re really satisfied with the way you behaved.
Yes, I think it’s wrong to hunt animals for pleasure or food that isn’t necessary for survival. I also think it’s wrong to talk and joke casually about the enjoyment of killing and cooking them. But that isn’t what my comments were about.
I didn’t and don’t want to have that conversation. I wanted to have the conversation about the bizarre priorities that people would abide and participate in a discussion of the (enjoyment of) killing and cooking rabbits with little or no mention of the real suffering and death of the animals and then become outraged by a joke about doing the exact same thing to someone’s pet. That to me suggests that the animals themselves have no moral standing to people; it’s entirely about humans. I have a problem with that.
That’s fine, and it was why I didn’t say anything at the time. But then it doesn’t make moral sense to get all group-outragey about John’s joke in that context. That was what my point and analogies were about.
Og: If you post those pea recipes, I have a lung and brain pie recipe waiting.
–Potential Trigger–
SC: You make quite a point about TLC stabbing animals with sticks, and the potential suffering involved. I hunt with a shotgun, which almost assures instantaneous death. Do you see a difference?
There was no (or remarkably little) discussion of the former to be erased, in the sense of this suffering and death being unnecessary. Further, the previous discussion was about the real spearing and cooking of real rabbits – real suffering – while John’s comment was not. The idea that people would be outraged about someone joking about cooking a person’s pet rabbit after joining in and tolerating a long discussion about actually killing and eating them for enjoyment because of the suffering of and cruelty towards the pet owner suggests to me that rabbits themselves are of little or no moral importance to them.
@Rev BDC:
Oh I hate when that happens. Worst is with the tongue, cause with a tiny bump caused by a bite, you can’t avoid a re-bite.
Okay… fair enough. Unfortunately, seeing people’s priorities as “bizarre” in this situation pre-supposes the moral condemnation you’re making… which I don’t share. I didn’t raise objections about rabbit suffering out of failure to prioritize; I didn’t raise them because my concerns have been addressed to my satisfaction in other conversations. So, without getting into the underlying moral issues, I don’t really have anything to add here. At any rate, thank you for clarifying.
I have more than 20 recipes.
Og, for the purposes of avoiding a Cold War style disgusting recipe buildup, and the possible mutually assured destruction, lets both agree not to post our recipes.
A.R.:
Then what do I do with all these $*#%&*@*$! pea recipes?
It’s of course true that methods of hunting differ in the suffering they cause prior to death. But my responses about spearing them with a stick were to the suggestion that TLC isn’t deliberately cruel to animals. It’s cruel to spear them with sticks unnecessarily. It’s also cruel to fire bullets into them, because however minimal the suffering caused by the method, it’s gratuitous. (Again – in the case of TLC; I’m not saying every instance of killing an animal throughout time is gratuitous.) It’s more suffering than a person would cause if that person were not hunting them at all, which is an available option. And it’s of course deliberately harmful to them to cause their deaths.
Send them to me, Oggie. I’ll make all of them.
SC: But what about the alternative? Some people are, for many reasons, incapable of vegetarianism. So where does the meat come from? The answer is of course farms, where animals are sure to endure more suffering than if they were hunted. I personally try to avoid eating farmed meat unless I’ve personally visited the farm to assure the highest ethical standards.
Og: Well, we can keep our recipes to threaten other people who want to post disgusting stuff.
A.R:
I was joking about posting the pea recipes. Please do post your ‘orange meat in collagen’ recipes. I really am curious.
Og, Ok, I’ve got to go to a meeting, but I’ll post a little later.
And, (all hail Tpyos, may the Lrod Leiv Foreevr!), that was ‘organ’, not ‘orange.’
SC, I thought you did NOT want to have this conversation? If you want to drop it, I’ll drop it.
—
Otherwise:
(emphases all mine)
Again, I don’t agree that hunting is only justified by sheer need for survival, or that survival is the only factor that can outweigh brief, minimal suffering of the hunted animal.
I disagree with this statement, to the extent that “harmful” in this sentence denotes suffering. Like I said, I don’t think the mere fact of an animal’s death is inherently wrong, much less that it entails suffering.
I’m not sure what you don’t share. If you think rabbits have some moral standing that’s important to take into account, I don’t think we disagree.
Hm. This is different from your earlier suggestion about not wanting to rehash it, but OK. It still seems to me very similar to a situation in which people had been, for some time, calling women cunts with no real objection, and then people became outraged about a commenter calling another commenter’s relative a cunt. It would suggest to me that the moral consideration isn’t about women at all. Of course I understand that the suffering or death of an animal that someone loves causes additional suffering to that person, so I probably shouldn’t have said that the father was “irrelevant” in the analogy I was using. But what I was trying to get across was that people and animals suffer just as much if no one loves them, and that the suffering of those that no one loves shouldn’t be ignored or minimized, especially if people can work up outrage about the additional hypothetical suffering of the people who lose those they care about.
@ James
Looks to me like Sandra is a bigot. An articulate and well read bigot, I might grant, but one nevertheless. She has obviously gone to great lengths to defend her position. She says she is all au fait with homosexuality, but this is clearly not the case.
She is bombing you with technicalities right now. You will find the same thing with most goddists. They bring it all back to the babble (here she has just gone with the law) and you end up going in circles within a hermetically closed discourse. The thing takes a life of its own.
You need to take a step back. This essentially comes down to basic human rights. Gay people have as much rights as anyone else. These rights are not what she thinks they are as is clear from her writings:
This is ridiculously wrong, and says a lot about her. We are talking about basic human rights. Woman have always had these rights. They where just not recognised previously. Women where born with these basic rights (on reaching maturity wrt marriage or voting). The rights where not “created” by voting, only acknowledged (finally!) within jurisprudence. The juridic tail should not be wagging the dog, for FSM sakes.
(And I bet you she is a hypocrite. She will tell you that our sense of moral judgment arises from the bible and from there gives rise to our laws. That is the standard stock-in-trade for the religious.)
Carlie gives some good advice above. Don’t get too carried away with SIWOTI, take a step back from time to time. You are learning to think and argue for yourself. That may take a while and a lot of practice. Also, unlike her, you are trying to keep it honest and argue against a very entrenched position.
She is a gristly chew toy. You will sharpen your fangs, but might not chew her to pieces.
She seems to ignore our moral prerogatives and duties entirely. Her argument is “true” for every crackpot dictator that has ever existed. She appears to be very much a Right Wing Authoritarian (link). (Perhaps do some reading on teh interwebs to see what you are up against. There are no quick fixes.)
@James re Sandra again:
Someone on Ed’s blog commented about segregation of Asian and Mexican persons under laws mostly designed for segregating blacks from whites. So, I’ve been reading about racial segregation, Plessy vs. Ferguson and “separate but equal” on the pfft, and the arguments sound a lot like Sandra’s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendez_v._Westminster
On Plessy vs Ferguson:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v._Ferguson
Given Sandra’s fetishization of strict legal definitions, and her comment “Human rights are handed down by the state”, when she says:
I get the feeling that what she’s saying is, she’s in favor of SSM if and only if gay people fight repeated appeals and cases and precedents all the way up to the Supreme Court as many times as it takes for the sacred Law to change. Before that happens, she doesn’t give a fuck.
My meeting got cancelled, so here’s the recipe:
To make the aspic jelly:
Ingredients
2 ½-2 2/3 cups cold veal stock
3 tablespoons dry white wine
3 tablespoons dry sherry
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
40 g gelatin (a modern addition, the original simply says to boil bones to yield gelatin)
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 egg whites
Shells from the eggs, washed
Put all the ingredients into a large, clean saucepan and whisk over low heat (original suggests the back of the coal-fired stove) until the mixture forms a thick froth on the top and starts to come to the boil. Stop whisking immediately and let the mixture rise to the top of the saucepan, taking care not to let it boil over. As soon as it reaches the top, remove the saucepan from the heat and wait for the mixture to subside. Return the pan to the heat and allow the mixture to rise and subside once more in the same way. Repeat the process once more, then set aside for 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, scald a large bowl, a sieve and a large piece of muslin or a clean tea towel (tea towel was used in the original) with boiling water. Drain both bowl and sieve well and wring out the muslin or tea towel. Line the sieve with the piece of muslin, folded double, or the tea towel, and place it over the bowl. Taking care not to break up the froth, pour the aspic jelly carefully into the sieve and leave undisturbed to strain into the bowl. Do not press or squeeze. Cool the aspic and use immediately. Alternatively, it can be refrigerated for up to 24 hours (Not, of course original, but useful for some people)
To Prepare the Meats:
Liver:
Slice 1-2 lbs of veal liver thinly (about ¼”) and marinate in red wine overnight. Apply salt, black pepper, and sage to taste. Fry in lard (butter also acceptable) until cooked through. Cool thoroughly.
Kidneys:
Wash 1-2 lbs of veal kidneys thoroughly in cold salt water. Slice kidneys, removing fat. Parboil in salted water. Drain. Wash thoroughly.
Cover kidneys with just enough water to cover, adding salt, pepper, 2 bay leaves and 2 tablespoons vinegar. Cook 1 1/2 hours covered at very low boil. Drain. Lightly fry sliced kidneys in lard (or butter) for about one minute per side. Thoroughly cool.
To Assemble the Aspic:
Lard (or butter) a mold, and pour a thin layer of aspic jelly into mold. Chill to harden. (You can refrigerate, the recipe suggests placing it outside in winter, or placing it on ice) When firm, arrange meats, along with boiled carrot slices and sautéed onion slices in the mold. Place sage leaves on top, and lightly salt and pepper. Fill the remaining space in the mold with aspic jelly and use one of the methods above to chill overnight.
To Serve:
Lightly warm the aspic in water, then turn out onto a bed of salad greens, and fill the center (if using a ring mold) with mayonnaise. Serve immediately.
No metric, since the conversions would have been weird.
@ Brogg 310
I am not at work, so will post you a linky: Dutch Rudder. (NSFW, so you will not be able to watch it though.)
@ feralboy
Cyanide smells like almonds. I image that anyone who can smell almond could smell cyanide.
I suggest against doing it, however. In central Ohio there is a millipede about the size and shape as the last phalanges of the thumb that is mostly black with yellow spots. If you pick it up with long tweezers and then shake it, it’ll get very upset (rightly so) and release a small cloud of cyanide gas. It smells like almonds. It won’t kill you but it will give you a nasty headache and maybe a dizzy spell for ~ an hour.
SIWOTI?
This is exactly the conversation I don’t want to have (again). There can be in certain circumstances justifications for killing and eating animals. Enjoyment is not one. And it shows very small moral consideration of animals to casually discuss hunting and eating them,* especially but not exclusively when it pertains to doing so for pleasure.
It doesn’t. That’s why I started with “And.” Harmful denotes harmful. I don’t think anyone can argue that killing something doesn’t harm it.
Gah. I’m starting to feel like Elizabeth Costello in The Lives of Animals.
OK, I have to go for a while.
*Which I did here in the past (well, eating them), to my regret.
Thank you, A.R..
I will now go and (attempt to) eat lunch.
Could be worse, though. I have been subjected to Olive Loaf on at least one way too memorable occasion.
Still won’t help. My computer (now, keep in mind that I am the one in my office who handles the official website and does about 80% of the computer graphics, publications, and theater programmes) will not play any videos. Ever.
I wonder if my comment was the one that set SC off originally. I said something like, “LOL! I love that TET is having a conversation about hunting squirrels and pigeons right now.” The LOL was not at the idea of killing pigeons and squirrels, but at the idea of Josh OSG taking up a stick and attempting (and most likely failing) to kill them. Since that is what was happening at that point–TLC giving Josh advice about hunting and Josh considering whether he might try it sometimes.
If so, SC, I apologize.
Thanks for the good advice, especially Caine, and everyone else. I’m feeling somewhat better today.
Damn, I completely borked that one.
Someone Is Wrong On The Internet
@SC:
Well, what I mean by “not rehashing it” is that I see no need for me to bring up issues that have already been addressed to my satisfaction.
I don’t even disagree with you here. I also think that whether the animal’s loved or not has nothing to do with gauging its suffering when hunted as described – but unlike you, I think that degree of suffering is acceptable under the circumstances. If you’re saying I ONLY think it’s acceptable because nobody loves those particular animals as pets, you are badly misreading me.
Know what I miss reading about? Royalty.
—————————————————
that sounds plausible. There’s next to no control over the environment as it appears to find the thermastat an amusing sugestion.
John’s wife is on the same level as a pet. Gotcha.
I’ve explained to you time and time again how supporting the factory farming industry is morally worse to me than hunting wild meat, or eating animals that were raised with concern as to their welfare, but that’s not good enough for ARA fascists, is it? Unless I’m eating twigs and bark, you aren’t going to be satisfied, are you?
I’ve explained about clean kills. I’ve even explained to you that WILD PREY ANIMALS AREN’T FUCKING DEFENSELESS. Watch the first five goddamn minutes of Watership Down, it explains it perfectly. Only you might want to close your eyes for the ‘scary’ parts.
I suppose there’s no reason for me to continue justifying myself to you. Because guess what, SC? You can’t stop me from hunting and eating meat. Not unless you want to get yourself a high-powered rifle. (I recommend a scope as well, I have excellent long-distance vision).
It doesn’t matter what I say anyways. You’ll just ignore anything that doesn’t allow you to paint me up as your favorite flavor of psychopath.
You haven’t demonstrated to me that you actually understand much about animals, but you have demonstrated to me that you’re perfectly willing to compare John’s wife to a ‘pet’ to make your stupid point.
Had to sign back in the respond to this:
Thanks. Yeah, it kind of was that comment, and just the fact that the discussion seemed happily to go on and on and on, until the sudden anger at John’s remark. I don’t know why I got so angry last night, because I didn’t start out that way. My initial comment was more “Here’s something to consider,” and I didn’t expect it to turn into a thing. So I apologize for those of my responses that were disproportionate.
Damn. I’m going to be late for lunch.
side note: Anyone else think topics like animal rights are exactly the sort of perfect counter point to The Moral Landscape?
*shrug* Okay then.
semirandom re segregation: Brown vs Board of Education was in 1954, and drew on the “doll test” findings of internalized racial preferences from 1940, and we’re STILL having to argue over female and minority representation in toys, media, education and public spheres? … ARRRRGH
heh
Are we going to talk about the merits and morality of hunting royalty now? Or is it just about keeping them as pets?
The jokes are just too easy here.
Palin Will “Fight to the Death” To Stop Birth Control Coverage
For some reason that headline made me imagine a Thunderdome type situation for resolving political differences. Bust a deal, face the wheel.
Just a quick note about rights, jamesmichaels1; rights are not given, they are taken. Do not fall for the bullshit about rights being up for a vote. The act of voting on a right, if anything, is the result of thousands of people agitating for it. The bourgeoisie did not get a say in society because the aristocracy gave way, the bourgeoisie overpowered the aristocracy. Women did not get the right to vote and birth control because they asked nicely, many groups of women from every walk of life forced the issues. Blacks had to fight just to not be considered second class citizens.
When a person suggests that a right is up to a vote, that person is trying to whitewash history. Make that person face the facts, do not play their words games, they are trying to pretend that their games does not effect real lives.
So she will kill to be pro-life?
Walton, if you’re out there, please come back and regale us with royalty, it’s better that what we’re going through now!
I am now flashing back to when Walton was defending the british aristocracy’s right to have fox hunts.
janine: I’m actually not strongly opposed to no-kill fox hunting. It’s what is practiced in the U.S.
A. R, this is not an either/or proposition. This thread can go on with out either topic.
janine: True, though I’m a Monarchist, so I’m less opposed to more royalty than more of this. But yeah, let’s get back to disgusting recipes.
A. R, you missed my point about Walton’s defense of aristocratic fox hunting.
And I am one who thinks that monarchies are best left in the dust bin of history.
janine: Oh, yeah, of course. The idea of limiting a sport to one class is ridiculous, especially when it is the British “kill” type of fox hunting.
Foxes hunt aristocrats? Now that would be a sport.
Randy Andy in Aspic?
Fox Hunting: On the one hand, I hate any hunting tradition where dogs are allowed to slowly rip something apart.
On the other… hunting is a far more humane way to control predator populations than poisoning and trapping.
Hmm, I’m looking for some more disgusting offal recipes. Will post when found.
I hear Ogvorbis has a pee soup recipe.
I prefer the Isle Royale method.
A.R.: What a co-inky-dink, about the offal.
I was given half a frozen moose liver last night.
Anyone have any suggestions for what I should do with it?
I just watched the episode of Life where a gang of komodo dragons hunted down a water buffalo. Very slow and very brutal.
TLC: ASPIC! But more seriously, you could try the classic liver and onions.
Og: Not sure what you mean by “the Isle Royal Method”.
I was flipping through my mom’s copy of Joy of Cooking when I was at her place in December. This is a mid-70’s edition (it was a wedding present). It has a recipe for squirrel. My (five-year-old) copy does not have this recipe. I shall try to find it.
Seems like it could be hella disgusting.
No, I said ‘Pea Soup.’ Girl heard ‘pea soup.’ And she was surprised that it wasn’t yellow. I really should have used yellow split peas just to freak her out more.
It did not scar her for life, though. One of her favourite vegan meals is tofu chicken, peas, sweet peppers, all done in the microwave, and then doused with Frank’s Red Hot. I have tried to introduce her to real hot sauces, but she likes Franks.
Esteleth, I am sure that there are survivalist cookbooks with a hundred and one. But I tend to avoid these people.
Ogvorbis, but I read it as pee and it has stuck. I smile every time someone mentions pea soup as a result of your story.
The nastiest thing I remember eating was when I went over to someone’s place for dinner. I come in to see the host shucking sweet corn. I was pretty stoked, as I love sweet corn on the cob.
Come to find out, the host cooked the corn, cut the kernels off, creamed it, mixed them with chopped ham, and served it with rice.
All the aforementioned were soggy and too salty. I was very sad.
I find the idea of eating a squirrel that lived and died in the trees far less revolting than the idea of eating a pig that’s been marinating in its own feces since the day it was born.
Seriously, what about squirrel makes it more potentially disgusting than anything else we eat? The fact that it’s a rodent, and if you shaved its tail it’d look kinda like a rat?
if you want to discuss monarchy, why don’t you discuss how the Prince of Liechtenstein AGAIN is blackmailing his people.
The EU should kick it out of EFTA, I mean they also don’t allow Belarus and Russia in, eh?
Am I the only one who flashed to Jules and Vincent in the diner?
@Esteleth, argh! I’ve just recently learned to like brussel sprouts, once I realized you can get them GREEN and FRESH and steam them like an actual food, instead of boiled into disgusting sludge. A while back I scored a big bag of brussel sprouts on sale, and my family “helpfully” …boiled them all in advance for me. *headdesk*
—
(more animal violence)
IIRC, that was the first widely publicized mention of Komodo dragons’ envenoming their prey via multiple open wounds. I rather like *shudder* the thought of 500-pound galloping cobras.
I got terrified way back when by a Lions vs Hyenas episode of something or other… they hate each other so much that they’ll go out of their way to harass and kill as many of the other critter as they can, and specifically NOT as food or in the way that they’d kill a prey animal. They mangle the carcasses and leave them. Prey, they hunt and eat, but don’t hate.
That was my first realization that animals and humans really are fundamentally the same. I had assumed that animals mostly made sense.
TLC, I’ve eaten squirrel. It’s not bad. Very gamy. I’ve also eaten dormouse.
I have never eaten seagull, but I found a recipe for it:
1. Pluck loon, cut open and remove innards.
2. Rub with mixture of salt, oregano, and pepper.
3. Place fist-sized clean stone inside bird.
4. Place in cook pot, fill with water.
5. Bring water to boil, cook until there is a thick layer of oil floating on top.
6. Dump out water, refill. Return to boil and keep cooking.
7. Repeat steps 5-6 until stone is soft.
8. Throw away bird carcass and eat stone.
Esteleth,
That sounds foul.
I see nettleingenting has seen fit to post four more comments today on the jabberwocky/gyre thread…I guess everybody needs a hobby.
Foul and fowl, Dvorath.
I alternate spellings, they mean the same in Dhorvath speak.
pelamun: Again? Is it teh same situation?
All hail Typos, for I have made the most sacred sacrifice.
Indeed.
The corn, ham, and rice thing could have been good. I’ve made similar myself. But, it was (1) soggy and (2) way over salted. It was disgusting.
Pteryxx, I hear you about sprouts. For the longest time, I thought bell peppers were these slimy things that tasted like ass. Then I had fresh ones. o_O
Esteleth: How was the dormouse? I’ve heard about people in ancient times keeping them in captivity and fattening them up, but I always figured that was a LOT of work to go to just for what appears to be one bite of meat.
Pteryxx: I almost always root for the hyenas. Hyenas are like me: They have long hippie-manes. They’re gross. They like meat. They sometimes smile and laugh to show fear or aggression. Most average people don’t like them and act like there’s something morally wrong with how they live. But hyenas don’t care because they can crush bones with their jaws as if they were carrot sticks.
TLC:
I get the feeling most people are socialized to think of “wild” animals and their meat as filthy and disease-ridden. I’m not sure if that comes from thinking meat comes in neat little plastic packages instead of from furry critters that poop, or from assuming any non-manicured outdoor space is full of endemic diseases. I’ve got friends who won’t swim in a lake or ocean because “things live in there!” though. *rolleyes*
TLC, dormouse is rather meh.
It was only a few bites, and it was a bit over seasoned. But not bad.
Now, mountain oysters are fuckin’ delicious, especially sliced thin, deep fried, and served on flatbread with sauerkraut.
Esteleth: Are we going to get in to mountain oysters now? They’re quite good with a side of flaming quantum tomatoes.
I tried frying up deer-oysters before, Esteleth. I was really gonna eat them too, except I could actually SMELL the jizz. And then they popped and I could actually see it all congealed in there. It smelled faintly of urinal.
Are you not supposed to eat testicles during the animal’s breeding season or something? Or is that a feature, and not a bug?
It goes without saying that I’m deeply ashamed of ‘wussing out’ and not eating the deer balls.
Also, hyenas are female-dominant, appear masculinized, and everybody hunts, everybody eats, more or less. Male lions by and large are jerks. >_>
Who said you only eat one? It’s easy to raise a whole colony of small rodents, or even rabbits or cavies.
Re mountain oysters: I knew a professor who served them every year around Thanksgiving. It was an occasion to lightly haze the new grad students.
…Are we going into topics folks don’t want again?
Oh great, TLC, now I’m hungry. >_>
YES!
Unfortunately, I’ve pretty much given up my dream of someday dating a girl who hunts just like I do. Tis never gonna happen, ever, as long as I live and beyond. :(
A.R. mountain oysters are a real thing. Nothing “quantum” about them.
A food I had all the damn time growing up is a thing called a “horseshoe.” AFAIK, it is eaten only in a 150 mile area centered around Springfield, IL.
People in other areas are not even aware that it is a thing.
Here is how to make a horseshoe:
Take a slice of thick-cut bread, cover it with chopped meat (of your choice), then put chopped fried potatoes (some use fries, I like using home fries) on top. Add cheese sauce and (to taste) hot sauce and/or Worcestershire sauce.
Serve open faced. Fuckin’ amazing.
‘Course, the public-school version consisted of balloon bread, torn-up cold cuts, fries, and nacho cheese. Nasty.
Esteleth: I know mountain oysters are real, the quantum tomato thing was a reference to a troll who was on here once talking about mountain oysters and quantum tomatoes.
For whatever it may be worth, I don’t agree with this “consensus”. I do think that you are the (probably inadvertent) master of the ill-timed, tactless probe. You have a talent for “bruising” people, and then poking the “bruise” to try to find out why it hurt, thereby causing more hurt, lather/rinse/repeat; coupled with a disbelief that what you said could have caused it in the first place. Then you don’t understand why the injured party punches you in the nose.
The only thing I can think of is to keep a mental list of “Things That Never Go Over Well”, and use caution in future approaches.
–
lol.
Or peas.
–
*nodding vigorously*
**extremely vigorously**
–
I’d be for aristocratic fox hunting. ‘Cept how can I tell which ones are aristocrats*?
Re horrifying animal videos: there was this timelapse** thing I saw once of a starfish hunting down some gastropod…
… I got to wondering: I wonder what the gastropod’s view of that is like? Do they experience time anything like we do? Or is that all relative/slo-mo, too…
… and got to really hoping it was. Otherwise, it struck me: the gastropod would be experiencing this inexorable chase that must have lasted hours or days, as the predator just keeps closing, minute by minute…
… sorta like that steamroller (Nooooooooo!!!!) death scene in Austin Powers. Only more mollusc-y.
(**/ Looked a bit like this one, but of course with that chase: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG17TsgV_qI )
(*/Yes, this is a free straight line I can’t seem to use myself. Please feel free.)
TLC, I know it’s not much help, but you could train up someone who’s suitably active and outdoorsy. Hunting by hand is rare rare rare no matter what, but maybe someone who hails from slow-food, family or urban farming, or gathering such as urban fruit trees and mushroom hunters? Those movements share most of your stated beliefs, and they have communities and internet presence. Heck, some of them would welcome your stories and experience… you could even mentor students.
—
*swoons*
385 comments in 17 hours! I’m supposed to work!
Yes.
You didn’t confuse those, you only wrote “toxic”; then somebody else understood that as “poisonous”.
Oh for fuck’s sake.
Somebody has not been paying attention. At all.
I don’t want to follow that link. :-S
Snow is the bird of Europe?!?
Speaking of snow, it’s melting. :-(
Perhaps not, because Roman culture lacked Superman’s outstretched fist.
Also, Mars is too small to hold a thick atmosphere for geological times. Asteroid impacts erode its atmosphere.
Io triumphe!!!
Ah, so you failed to think through all the ramifications of your little joke?
I actually believe that, because I’m prone to that myself. Just, please, try – instead of trying to defend the indefensible afterwards. See comment 60.
Which one is that?
Yes. Hasn’t she killfiled you because you never post original treatises?
The question answered by “the Pfft” wasn’t an “ought” claim, it was the “is” claim that there was a connection between Thomas Paine and animal rights; and the Pffft! of All Knowledge isn’t Google, it’s Wikipedia.
Yes, and it’s not a matter of discipline, it’s a matter of math.
Sustaining a healthy adult on a strictly vegan diet without artificial supplements is difficult enough when it comes to certain vitamins and maybe certain amino acids.
“There shouldn’t be a party to the right of our party.”
– Franz Josef Strauß, long-time ruler of Bavaria and its special version of the conservative party. His strategy was to expand his party all the way to the right fringe so that the extremists would simply drown in a mass of conservatives.
~:-| How could those small things cost you a relationship? Please explain (if it’s not TMI On The Internet).
A relationship with someone who’d help her fix her problems could fix a lot of things, from what little I gather (Sally hasn’t described her problems in detail). But, apparently, StrangeBoyfriend isn’t that kind of person. (Most people probably aren’t.)
Warning to Sally: I have no experience in such things. Do not accept anything from me other than hugs and chocolate.
What? Being on the autism spectrum can make people “seem to be assholes” quite easily when they had no evil intents whatsoever – when they’re not assholes but only “seem to be” so. It happens to me all the time. The Sailor pointed that out – there’s no insult in that.
To answer the question “how will people react when I say that?” requires a conscious effort of me. Sometimes I fail. It looks like John fails even more often.
I’m somewhat scared of failing, however. I’m frankly not sure if John is. Judging from comments 255 and 267, however, he is.
Subthread won.
You forgot the link. :-) (As always with xkcd, read the alt-text of the picture!)
The perfect counter is that science can tell you how to reach any particular goal and what will happen if you try to reach it – but it can’t choose the goal for you. That you have to do on your own, based (most likely) on what science tells you about the required resources, the effects and the side-effects.
+ 1
I haven’t watched it, but I assure you that’s nothing. Komodo dragons have serious cutting teeth, and they’re venomous, with a venom that is nothing to sneeze at (though plenty painful). I’ve watched a documentary that showed short sections of a pack of wolves needing 2 hours to kill a bison. Canine teeth are round in cross-section, you know. The wolves chased the bison for most of that time, gradually ripping its skin apart where it’s thinnest (around the anus), till it finally dropped from exhaustion, and that hardly made killing or eating it any easier.
Most mammalian predators are fucking pathetic (and therefore need to be incredibly cruel). And those that aren’t are mostly extinct.
Oh, factory-farmed pigs don’t marinate in their shit at all. They live on concrete floors that have so many clefts that the shit falls through. *nodnod* I don’t know if concrete floors that have clefts all over are still allowed; those are quite cruel to pigs’ feet.
First, the fact that it’s small. Westerners don’t normally eat animals smaller than our heads (several fish species are an interesting exception); even eating pigeons, which were a staple food for centuries, has fallen out of fashion. (I’m told it’s a lot of work to get their meat off their bones and onto a table, precisely because they’re small.)
Second, yes, the fact that it’s a rodent. Lots of people consider rats inherently disgusting, and squirrels are too close for many or all of them. (To my amazement, some people even consider pigeons inherently disgusting.)
…Finally, for those few people who even know about it, there might be another factor. Look at this. The three occasions on which I’ve eaten rabbit because the alternative would have been to stay hungry for most of a day are the closest I’ve come to cannibalism, and I don’t feel good about that. Eating squirrels would be equally close. Probably the last common ancestor of humans with rabbits & squirrels lived after the mass extinction at the Cretaceous/Paleogene boundary.
(Incidentally, the Wikipedia article I just cited, and the one on Eutheria, are outdated in a few important respects. And now I need to go home instead of fixing them. *howl*)
Whoops, forgot link! (It’s just a photograph.)
Speciata – Requiem for a Clam
I’ve been lucky enough to have never eaten anything particularly revolting, but my best friend (my brother-in-arms during my private school days) and I occasionally reminisce about the blandest food we’ve ever had.
Being in a small class (12 people in our entire grade), we didn’t have much choice in who we hung out with at school. There was one kid who came from the WASP-iest family, and he was just an asshole to everyone. His dad was richer than everyone else’s and he would make sure you knew it by talking about their pool or their boat or the LEGO space monorail set that he had, and we would go along with it because we were kids and he had this cool stuff.
Anyway, his mom was a terrible cook. I don’t know if she just didn’t know how to season things, or if there was some weird asceticism thing going on in their kitchen, but if we got invited to spend the night over there we would do everything we could to make sure we didn’t have to eat dinner at their house. If they were having roast beef and squash, they meant exactly that: a side of beef that had sat alone in a crock pot all day, and some squash that had been baked with nothing added. As a result I spent 10 years of my life thinking I hated squash, when I really just hated their squash.
1: Teachers aren’t supposed to date their students
2: There are plenty of women who hunt here, but they’re all the wealthy sort with big pickup trucks, expensive guns, and enough gas money to go all over this province. What do they need me for?
3: Isn’t there something kind of weird and creepy about ‘training up’ some girl to be my ideal dating/hunting partner?
4: I suppose if I ever find one of those internet communities, I’ll certainly join in, but unless someone lives within walking distance of me, they’re pretty much not a viable option as far as ‘dating’ goes.
Like I said, it will always be an impossible dream for me. The experience of forming a hunting coalition with a mating partner will forever be completely out of my reach.
I’m intentionally making a sweeping blanket statement because I desperately want to be wrong. I desperately want to be forced to eat my words.
A. R,
it’s again about the princely veto power, the prince can veto any law, any referendum.
Last year, they had a referendum about legalising same sex civil unions and abortion. Prior to the vote, the prince had declared that he would veto the abortion part if it passed. The civil union part passed, but the abortion one failed with a very small margin.
Some Liechtensteiners got quite pissed at that and are now organising a grassroots movement to amend the constitution getting rid of the veto. His Stupid Highness threw a fit, angry that the initiators of the new referendum (the same citizen group behind the abortion amendment) hadn’t contacted the Palace, and said the only way to get rid of the princely veto would be through Art. 113, which allows the abolition of the monarchy according to a complicated procedure (and is the only initiative that can’t be vetoed by the Prince).
So like his father, he is again blackmailing his subjects by threatening to leave. If they only left! Go back to Vienna! (until 1938, no Prince of Liechtenstein had ever taken up permanent residence in Liechtenstein)
@DavidM:
Um, the Komodo dragons follow the buffalo, darting in and biting it to leave envenomed open wounds on its legs, for DAYS until it collapses from blood loss, infection, and exhaustion secondary to stress and sleep deprivation. Predator kill efficiency’s more reserved for those with a big size differential – cats or snakes vs mice, bats vs insects – or those with highly evolved weaponry such as mantises and spiders.
TLC,
Depends on the exchange of power, dunnit? I mean, adults in a casual learning situation are hardly suffering from the same hunger for approval that a university student has when dealing with their program head in a teacher student relationship.
TLC: I think that maybe what Pteryx meant was that you could start dating a localvore/slowfood/whatever first, then if she’s interested, train her in primitive hunting. (I had to cut the word “up” out of that sentence, can’t make it not creepy)
David Marjanović, two hours to bring down the water buffalo would have been very fast. Yes, the Komodo dragons have sharp teeth but that is not what was used to bring down the water buffalo. The bites delivered the venom and it took days for the venom to make the water buffalo go down. A bunch of Komodo dragons just followed the buffalo around, every so often walked up to the prey in order to flick their tongue in it’s face. (I am assuming that they could tell how far along the buffalo was.) They waited until the buffalo was too weak to kick at them before they feasted.
David,
I found my dictionary which has rare surnames that are not in the Hundred Family Names, and this is the only character in question:
歇 xie1
I once came very close to a sleeping Komodo dragon, within inches or so.
I soooooo wanted to touch it, but of course didn’t… But got great pictures from up close…
Isle Royale Nationa Park, back in the 40s and 50s, suffered severely from an overpopulation of moose. The environment was degraded due to overgrazing (much like most of the Eastern continental US due Eastern White Tails). One winter, Lake Superior froze over, allowing a couple of packs of wolves to recolonize the island. The biologists were just about evenly split as to whether this was a good thing or a bad thing. It turned out to be a very good thing. The wolf population grew and the moose population shrunk. Then the opposite happened. It has now settled into a very neat and tidy (biologically tidy, anyway — for the individual animals it can be rather harsh) predator – prey relationship. If there are too many wolves, the moose population drops until there are not quite enough wolves, whereupon the moose population increases until there are enough moose to support a large wolf population and, when the wolf population gets too large, etc.
Most predator control in the United States is predicated on increasing the supply of game animals for hunters. Foxes eating too many rabbits? Reduce the fox population until there are enough rabbits for the hunters. Not enough White Tail Deer? Eliminate the wolves and decimate the bobcat and mountain lion population and, voila, plenty of deer for hunters.
In Idaho, as the wolf population began to rebound in the 1990s, the hunters began complaining to the state that the wolves were eating all of the elk, leaving none for the hunters. What was actually happening was an alteration of the elk behaviour because of the threat presented by a climax predator. The actual elk population (according to both the state and the USFS) is about the same size but is healthier — smaller herds and more secure water sources help immensely. But the elk have become harder to find — they no longer spend all day hanging out on the edges of creeks (destroying the riparian habitat) which means the hunters actually have to hunt.
Across the lower 48 states, the lack of climax predators has allowed overbrowsing of forest habitats (which, among other things, has almost eliminated the foods eaten by box turtles), endangering both plants and animals. Yet, here in Pennsylvania, the hunting lobby is begging the governor (GOP, of course) to spend money feeding the deer so there will be even more for hunters. Coyotes, bobcats and mountain lions are finding plenty of prey but they are still so few and far between (plus, the deer have learned to congregate in places that scare the predators — such as alongside highways) that they cannot keep the prey species under control.
So I severely disagree with the idea of controlling predators. Predators should be encouraged and protected as it will help bring the ecosystem closer to balance. Whether one looks at tide pools, killer whales, wolves, or grizzly bears, artificially fucking around with the predator and prey ratios is a good way to create severe ecological problems.
Sorry for the rant. This is something I feel very strongly about.
Do tell! I haven’t got the news.
But I’ve got the news of Assad. He wants a referendum on a proposal for a constitution that a committee instituted by him (duh) has recently finished. The proposal would at the same time prohibit political activities based on religious or tribal affiliation on the one hand while stating that “Islamic jurisprudence is the main source of legislation” and stating that only a Muslim can be president on the other hand. German news feature.
They do do that with each other’s youngsters. In general, all African savanna predators are known to eat each other when the occasion arises.
Loons are probably more closely related to penguins than to gulls.
I once helped a student translate a recipe for them.
I don’t see why.
I’ve always been proud of being a confessing coward!
How lazy they are, if that’s what you mean, depends on the culture. In some areas, they hunt all the large, dangerous prey, leaving the gazelles & antelopes to the ladies. And I once saw a documentary about the Okavango delta where the ladies chased gazelles toward the patriarch who lay hidden behind a step in the landscape, jumped up and plucked a gazelle out of the air.
I still don’t understand your fascination with hunting… but is there anything left of the traditional lifestyle of the Agta in the Philippines?
Apparently it is. IIRC, someone did an experiment and found out that snails perceive events that happen within a quarter of a minute as simultaneous. But I won’t try to look that up.
Agreed, that would make a reasonable comparison.
Hmmm… Agreed, to some extent. It should be noted that not all farms are monstrous factory farms where animals are abused and are living in horrible conditions. There are more animal friendly and sustainable alternatives available. For example, I get my cheese from a local, small scale farm. the sheep of this farm graze in a number of small nature reserves as a means of managing semi-natural grasslands, thus helping local flora and invertebrate fauna. Just saying.
Here we have to be careful. If the hunters are being completely honest and abide by the rules, no problem. However, where I live (Belgium), the situation is such that hunters are using the excuse of potential overpopulation to shoot large amounts of animals. At the same time however, it is these hunters which are responsible for (often illegally) killing predators (specifically foxes and various birds of prey)and releasing preferred game animals (including non-native species) into the wild.
It’s also a remarkable that the commercially uninteresting animals or animals that don’t make nice trophies don’t ever seem to be in danger of reaching overpopulation.
Yikes, TLC. *smiles and plays teeny violin i.e. cricket legs, which are also edible*
Naw, you don’t go looking *for partner material* directly. Join communities of like-minded people, and among them will be potential friends, who could possibly develop into potential partners over time and with repeated interactions. I’m not suggesting go teach students so you can end up dating one of them (though with adult students engaging in a hobby, it’d be far from unethical if it happened that way). You could teach lots of people, and through them or their acquaintances meet someone; or you could meet someone who’s already similar to you and then teach them. You could teach me, for instance, except that I’m already not wilds-wise enough and I’m too powerful and clumsy to pounce on anything small and quick that’s further away than a lab bench. (The heck with fancy-gun-pickup-truck hunting – that’s less to do with hunting and more with expensive toys, like golf.) Besides, you might not always live where you are, or be stuck there, or you might make contact with someone mobile enough to reach you. I regularly have caravanned to various conventions with friends who don’t have their own cars – some folks travel all over just via their network of friends.
Few rough starting pages I just found:
How to become an Urban Food Forager
Wiki – Wild foraging and urban gardens
Wiki – Guerrilla gardening
There’s also sustainable small farming, folks who keep a few goats or chickens for their own use… Oh, I know who you need to start reading!
Casaubon’s Book
Aaand I’m getting incoherent so it’s break time.
Aww, Sally. I’m glad I could help, although I’m amused at how I helped.
Esteleth, I see your horseshoe and raise you a fried cow brain sammich.
…Oh.
How is that a threat? :-)
That’s what all sources say, but once when I mentioned that on a mailing list I got told it was all legend. *shrug*
Perfect!
No idea if the character fits.
A tone troll has shown up over the post about mormons, and whether or not it is bigotry to expose or to question their doctrines.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/02/14/poll-on-the-bigotry-of-revealing-mormon-theology/comment-page-1/#comment-267804
Nerd, Raven, and others are taking the tone troll to task, but the objections to PZ’s style and to the commenting style of Pharyngula regulars, continue to fly thick and fast.
Ogvorbis, no sorry. I hoarded your post, and if you expanded it into a blog essay with references I’d eagerly read and hoard all those, too.
You should know by now, you cannot trust what “they” say.
Well David,
a Chinese or Japanese name is NEVER complete without its characters.
Sample comment from tone troll on the mormon thread:
Actually, that holds true for Koran names too, as the Korean switched all their proper names to Chinese some centuries ago, with the major exception being Seoul. But since they don’t use hanja that much anymore, any time Chinese-language media report on some less-known Korean person, they “guess” the characters.
As a postscript, the crew that filmed the Komodo dragons hunting the water buffalo did not capture the kill on film, it happened when they were back at their camp. They filmed what looked like ten Komodo Dragons ripping apart the carcass.
This was a very slow hunt.
*blink*
I suppose that’s possible. If so, no one ever told me.
Wait. I’m supposed to be original???
So what’s the minimum requirement? I know that blf had the pea gig before me, but I honestly thought that the Horse bit was all mine.
–
Aquaria recently mentioned bad behavior at movie theatres. Today I just spotted this marvelous rant, which has one of the best turns of phrase, ever:
Pentatomid, I largely agree with you.
As I see it, hunting for meat (as explicitly contrasted with trophy hunting) is about tied with small farms and urban homesteading. Basically, if considerable attention is paid to making sure the animal has a pleasant life with plenty of food, socialization, freedom of movement, good living conditions, etc., then a quick, clean, near-painless death, I’m happy.
I live in the city, so hunting is not practical for me, so I buy my meat at the local farmer’s market from farmers that I’ve heard are good. My way of supporting this.
Big factory farms (especially CAFOs) are appalling.
What you say about dishonest hunters is very true. I’d argue that most of those hunters are trophy hunting (even if they’re eating some of the meat). That kind of thing happens in the US, too.
Where I grew up, overgrown deer populations were a huge problem. This is because the local predators (coyote and bobcats) were hunted to near-extinction because they were breaking into farms and killing pigs. Also, people were scared of the ZOMG COYOTES. It seemed that every few years, someone would explicitly tie the deer problem (hunters don’t like bagging 3-year-old bucks the size of yearlings due to malnutrition, the forest service was pissed about the lack of underbrush, etc.) to the lack of predators and suggest that maybe the coyotes and bobcats should be reintroduced and allowed to flourish. Each time, the local farmers (which, like I said, mainly raise pigs and cattle – not that cattle are terribly vulnerable to coyotes) kicked up a fuss, and since they have influence and money, nothing came of it. Not even when the starving deer were getting into fields and eating the crops.
How was the dormouse? I’ve heard about people in ancient times keeping them in captivity and fattening them up, but I always figured that was a LOT of work to go to just for what appears to be one bite of meat.
Exactly the point. Dinner parties among elite Romans were a competitive sport, complete with celebrity chefs. Anyway, dormice got nothin’ on flamingo tongues, another favorite.
Then the people on that mailing list were clueless, because that is exactly what comodo dragons do: they leave a number of open wounds which is infected by a host of microorganisms living in the lizard’s mouth. The infection and the comodo dragon’s venom then very slowly kills the prey. It typically takes a couple of days for the buffalo to die.
I never fit in among my fellow human primates. At some point I decided it was because I was ‘less human’ than the rest of them. Indicative of a lack of self esteem maybe?
Hunting is also a way of getting food that, while it requires hard work, DOESN’T require licking some “Job Creator’s” taint in just the right way. These are the people who tormented me all my childhood, and now I’m supposed to be OK with licking their feet in order to feed myself?
None of that really explains it. You can’t explain ‘hunting instinct’ just like you can’t really explain any other instinctive urge to anyone.
I apologize that I can sometimes go a bit overboard, maybe be a tiny bit insensitive when I talk about what I do. However, I will not apologize for who I am or what I do.
As for dating… you might have something there. I would gladly exclusively date hunter-gatherers from here on out, except there appear to be none left in BC.
Pteryxx: Internet communities are all well and good, obviously I love this one enough to hang around in, but I can’t teach anyone anything about hunting except the very basics through emails or blog posts.
And look, I’m just not interested in teaching primitive hunting classes, at least not at the skill level I’m currently at. I’m nowhere near good enough for anyone to be learning from yet. Give it 10 years and maybe I’ll be interested in teaching this stuff, and if I do it will be strictly for the joy of teaching skills to people.
I have a feeling that if I run across any group in this town who do anything remotely like what I do, they’ll be a bunch of privileged people who own their own farms and drive bigass pickup trucks and treat it all like some kind of fun hobby. And they’ll probably all be middle aged.
Like I said, forever out of my reach. People in my age group in this town appear to be either churchies, or their lives are devoted to partying it up on the weekends. “Outdoors” to them appears to mean getting drunk at the Fraser River instead of getting drunk at a house party.
I’m sorry if it appears that I’m just shooting down every useful suggestion thrown my way. It’s just that I’ve gone over all this stuff in my head a million times. My hunting is always going to be a liability when it comes to dating, and not an asset. At best I’ll find someone who tolerates it.
If anyone wants me to drop it, I will. I probably should. I’m sorry I mentioned it, even. I shouldn’t have brought it up.
Pteryxx:
An excellent book on the subject of apex predators as the key log of any ecosystem is Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators by
William Stolzenburg (on Amazon for a little over $5.00. Another one that looks good (just spotted it and put it on my wish list) is Trophic Cascades: Predators, Prey, and the Changing Dynamics of Nature edited by John Terborgh and Dr. James A Estes (also at Amazon but running up around $40.00).
At some point I’ll have to tell you about the Great Mule Deer Drive at Grand Canyon.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/15/chinese-deer-and-ram-celebrate-valentines-wedding/
I blame gay marriage.
pentatomid,
I never do this usually, but the people of Komodo island would be happy if you spelt it with “k”, because “comodo” would be pronounced “chomodo”.
theophontes & birger,
yeah he kept changing his story, from “historical achievement” to “the pain linguistic tribalism has brought to this world”. But he only threw in the Soweto uprising, never explained how it fit his warped world view.
It’s sometimes said that the official bilingualism causes some resentment in Finland, but I don’t think it’s that severe (and boy was I glad about the bilingual signs in Helsinki. My Finnish stops at “Suomi on Nokian maa”). Back in the day of the League of Nations, Åland was a relatively big problem, but I think that’s passed now too.
Giliell,
While I don’t necessarily disagree with you, I think that depends how you handle it. My mother put up a small altar to remember my grandfather (I was ten when he died) by and said things like “he’s watching us from above now”. But I never took it literally, I think it was just a different way of dealing with death. The concept of heaven was always treated metaphorically, never as a real place, more like as a place of memory for your deceased loved ones. YMMV
Lynna, the tone troll is a special and specious piece of work. The troll likes to use some of the memes of the blog without knowing the customs here. The troll is also no where near as logical as the troll thinks, the troll does not know that the dismissal of Aquaria because of her insult is both an ad hominem and a misunderstanding of the porcupine insult.
Well, where I live it’s mostly pheasants their hunting and most of the animals get sold to restaurants, I think. For the hunters in question, however, it’s just about the ‘sport’. The meat really isn’t a factor. Most often they claim to be ‘controlling the population’ but that’s been shown to be complete bullshit (mainly by them illegally introducing pheasants into the wild themselves, which is a weird way of combating overpopulation, I’d say). In reality it’s mostly a combination of trophy hunting and sport.
Re: ad hominem.
I swear half the people on line who use it have absolutely no clue what the logical fallacy is. If they are insulted, they immediately claim ad hom, thinking it makes them invulnerable to further insults and makes them seem smarter. What it actually does, though, is expose their ignorance. For all to see. Forever.
heh, heh, heh,
Totally thread bankrupt. {hugs} to all who can use some.
AJ Milne #423
Wasn’t that Benny Hill’s forte?
Most disgusting thing I thought I was going to eat: pekingese dogs.
When I was in high school in Wisconsin, one of my best friends was a hillbilly from Arkansas, living in the least-desirable neighborhood in town (between an Oscar Meyer plant, a sewage treatment works, and the airport) with his mom, older brother, angry stepfather and two pekes that everyone hated so they were locked in the basement all day, pissing and crapping on the stairs. I came over after school one day and his brother said “gonna stay fer supper?” and lifted the lid, revealing two little corpses simmering in shallow liquid. I gulped. “Ever had squirrel before?” Man, I was so relieved to be eating squirrel.
Most disgusting thing I actually ate: Natto hand roll.
It’s possible the natto had passed from being fermented to actually rotting though. Haven’t had the guts to try that again.
Oops, sorry. Don’t know how I managed to get that wrong.
FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK!
Virginia is two steps away from approving the first actual personhood bill in the USA.
Congratulations, Virginia. You are now officially the most backwards state in the entire fucking country.
Pelamun: And that’s why Monarchies with real (and frequently used) political power are bad.
Og: Oh, ok. Makes sense, though in populated areas, it is important to ensure that predator numbers are not such that they endanger the population.
So it is here. They hunt because they are Manly Men Who Shoot Things™ – who gives a shit if they don’t need it, or if they’re overhunting, or if an out-of-control population can be better controlled! They are Manly Men Who Shoot Things™!
Do corporations become people at the moment of conception, or when they make their first campaign contribution?
Well, at least you admit it. Makes me wonder how serious you are all the times you do talk about human suffering and attack people for not doing so enough.
Bullshit.
You know, Bugs Bunny isn’t a documentary. IIRC the percentage of wild rabbits that make it to a second summer is below 10%. So most rabbits meet an untimely dead and there are ways that cause much more suffering than a clean kill by a hunter. As others have mentioned, rabbit population is mostly limited by resources.
See above. See what other have said about the actual suufering that is caused with or without human intervention.
Seems like you’re not that much interested in preventing suffering, but in being smug about it.
It’s the catholic abortion variety of animal suffering: It obviously isn’t that important if it isn’t caused directly.
I haven’t seen you jump in the middle of discussions about bread and complain that people aren’t paying enough attention to the suffering of thousands of baby-deers that are slaughtered each year by harvesting machines.
carlie
Well, how do you say “dear muslima” in Rabbit?
^This^
A.R.
I agree and disagree.
I absolutely agree about factory factory farming, but I think that an animal that is farmed on high ethical standards enjoys the same advantages of a civilized scientific society that we do:
Safety, shelter, no lack of food, medical care. Looking at the USA, probably better medical care.
My dad in law abhorrs cabages. His mum used to put it on the oven to boil in the morning when she sent the kids to school. It would remain there until lunch.
The next day the same procedure would be repeated with the same cabbage.
*yuck*
Oh, Esteleth
Forgot to mention: If I eat pickles I always eat the whole jar full. I can go for more than a year without, I don’t find the especially appetizing when I think about them, or see them. But ONE BITE and I’m lost.
Re: Comodo Dragons:
The documentary I watched had the dragin bite the buffalo just a little and then the creature died slowly over the course of several days while the dragons waited patiently besides it.
Ahh, I remember a documentary about this.
IIRC biologists were worried that the wolf-population was too small for sustaining a healthx gene-pool.
Unfortunately, natural predators aren’t a solution everywhere.
It’s a wango tango!
Oh, yeah. And our state Troglodyte will definitely pass the bill requiring women to have medically unnecessary ultrasounds if they’re going to have an abortion.
Virginia, the first state to require back-alley abortions since Roe v. Wade.
You see, the daddy corporation deposits a memo in the mommy corporation and…
Yeah, I’ve noticed. I thought I would respond, but after seeing the lengthy comments he’s posted, I feel I’m too lazy to read through that pile of garbage. He only wants to talk to NigelTheBold anyway.
I just found out today that I’ll be evicted in a week if I can’t come up with a seemingly impossible sum of money. I’m still freaking out and trying to figure out how to come up with the money. I guess I’ll need to find some things to sell.
Anyway, I just needed to vent to someone. Everyone I know feels uncomfortable or they pity me when I mention my poorness, so I don’t bring it up to anyone anymore.
Dammit, Janine, I wanted to drink my tea, not spew it on my computer screen! Also, hot tea is painful coming out of my nose.
*stomps off to find paper towels*
Corporations: Hmmm, well we can’t apply the Xtian standard of “personhood begins at errection” here, so I’m going to go with janine.
Actually the flamingo has a very big, fleshy tongue for its size, and flamingos gather in huge flocks. Larks’ tongue pastries, which IIRC they also went in for would have required a lot more effort.
There are two predators in the lower 48 that are realistic threats to humans: brown bears and mountain lions. Brown bears are not a major issue as their current (and for the forseeable future) range overlaps urban-wildland interface in very vew places. Mountain lions are a problem. And the current method of dealing with them is working: if one becomes a problem, or moves into an interface area, either kill it or trap it.
Coyotes, bobcats, foxes, and other small predators do present a danger to domestic animals. Dogs, cats, and other domestic animals can be protected by keeping them inside during the hunting times of the predators — nighttime. Or adequate fencing will control most of the problem. And that is, really, the only population that is in danger from apex predators.
The thing is, suburban areas need predators, too. Deer have found that suburbia is heaven: no hunting, no apex predators, shitloads of grass and backyard gardens. Nirvana for deer. Dogs are not effective predators for something as large as a deer; even an Alsatian or a Labrador would, without extensive training, be outmatched by deer.
The way I look at it, encourage the predators, even in suburban areas. Train the people (yes, they can be trained) to deal with the minor problem of large predators (obviously, I am not including either the Brown Bear or the Mountain Lion). And as an added bonus, it cuts down on the number of cars being severely damaged by deer (my last drive past DC, I saw three dead deer along the I-270 connector!). Reintroduce wolves at Shenandoah and encourage them to repopulate the Shenandoah Valley and the Piedmont. The hunters will still have plenty of prey, but the forests may, eventually, recover.
There were also quite a few who, when the wolves first showed up, predicted that all moose would be eliminated from the island within a couple of years. The idea of predator-prey feedback loops was not well developed at the time.
But they are. Even in suburbia. A little planning, education, and voila, a somewhat balanced ecosystem. Right now, the biggest predator for Eastern White Tail Deer are cars and trucks. And hunters. Which is a piss-poor solution.
It’ll never happen because the hunting lobby is determined to make the entire east into a monoculture for the White Tails, but I can dream.
Glad you’re all having a big laugh at the fact that I now live in the fucking 10th century. What’s next on Troglodyte Bob’s agenda? “If you don’t go to church you’re going to jail.” “If you’re not straight go to the gas chambers.” “No condoms. Missionary position. She can’t enjoy it. Don’t even think about foreplay.”
Fuck this state, fuck this country.
I’m writing a letter to my Troglodyte tonight when I get home. Not that it fucking matters. Asshole is gonna pass that miserable anti-woman bill the second it reaches his desk.
Og: I can’t imagine convincing soccer moms of this, but it could work in theory. According to Canadian biologist Val Geist, wolves do present a potential threat to humans if they do not see humans as a threat. How that might be achieved is another question.
I’m sure as fuck not laughing, Katherine.
But I’m also sure as fuck not gonna sit here and tell you not to be angry either… indeed, Fuck virginia.
They do not care about children or babies. They care about making sure women who don’t uphold their petty morals are suitably punished, and a squalling baby is their metaphorical spanking stick.
Katherine,
it’s probably unconstitutional, though.
which doesn’t make it less of an asshole move, but should the bill become law, I don’t think it will survive a legal challenge…
pelamun: Agreed. I’m getting tired of these life begins at erection bills.
Sadly, that isn’t going to happen any time soon. Great idea, though.
Our very own (and not seen in a very long time!) JackC got me to a restaurant that had natto. As thrilled as I was to finally try it, I was…not a big fan. I could tell that it was very well prepared, but I just couldn’t quite handle the taste.
Well, they do get lots of free antibiotics.
I am the same way. Particularly with sweet pickles, eaten (brace yourself) with a wrapping of american cheese food product around the outside. Yum. It must be the fake plastic-wrapped sliced chese – no deli fancy stuff.
I don’t think anyone is. Whistling in the dark, maybe. Hopefully this will blow up in their faces but fast, once they realize what personhood actually means. Full tax deductions, etc.
@TLC:
I knew Troglodyte Bob was going to be bad. I knew he was an asshole. I did not expect his time in office would result in the deaths of women. That’s all that’s going to come of this. Not a sudden thought of “well, guess I can’t have an abortion.” It’s going to result in back-alley, unsafe abortions. Women are going to die. And the smiling Republican establishment are going to just sit there with a smirk on their faces saying they deserved it.
Fuck. This. State. If they can get a fucking personhood bill signed when Missi-fucking-ssippi couldn’t, then what else can they pass?
Katherine, no not mistake my silence for laughing. Shit, only two people said anything about the news I presented about the raid of a LGBT rights meeting in Uganda.
What can I say? I am not at all surprised by this, the governor and attorney general are both cultural warriors who are products of conservative christian schooling. If anything, they are trying to put a legal sheen to their shit. Imagine how hard it is for women to get an abortion in Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota and other states with violence and murder being the means of scaring off abortion providers.
I am not fucking laughing.
Kat – not laughing. There are reasons I will not live in VA.
This must be viewed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OtOcrS6axnE&noredirect=1
Simply replace the word “mud” with “santorum”
janine,
if it’s any consolation, I talked about Uganda at length at the last party I was at…
I’m running out of minutes on my phone for all these calls to various governmental officials I keep making.
This, of course, is what always terrifies me.
I used to be a christian. I remember well the persecution complex. They masturbate themselves to sleep every night with the thought of satan’s minions trying to stamp out their righteous and holy lifestyles.
Make no mistake either, the goal is imposing christianity on the world, ‘for their own good’ of course. Remember, when you tell christians not to proselytize in public or harass gay people or harass women who’ve had abortions with graphic pictures of dismembered fetuses, you’re stamping on their rights. Their right to harass everyone who isn’t part of their religion is more important than a non-christian’s right to not be harassed.
I won’t sink to their level and persecute them, but I WILL persecute the everloving fuck out of their miserable god, and it will be the one prey item I’ve ever targeted that truly is pathetic and helpless on its own.
I beg to differ: Lotka-Volterra
But I’m wondering what the predator-solution would look like for place like this: http://www.hot-map.com/de/saarland. There are hardly any closed wooden areas, it’s densly populated and farmed. We have a lot of woods between settlements, like , say 2X2 kmkm of wood, 4 streets, 0.5×0.3km of wood, an estate…
Wild boars love it. They love the small wood that’s between our house and the next city part. No hunters, no main roads.
Who could bring them down and would wolves really be able to live here?
pelamun
Well, you were 10, she was 3.
If you ask her “Could you take any more time to get dressed she’ll honestly tell you “yes, of course”. She thinks that “Heaven”* is a real place (for the English-speakers, German doesn’t make a difference between heaven and sky).
You remember that we like Pipi Longstockings?
Pipi always says that “her dad is in the Pazific and her mum in heaven”. My daughter is wondering if there’s a “Pipi and Mummy” episode and why she never turns up.
*I admit that I find it damn complicated explaining religious concepts like “heaven” to her. On the one hand religious language is damn incorporated in everyday speech, on the other hand nobody has poisoned her mind with religion yet. Currently her favourite phrase is “Thank god!”, n
Ehm, somehow hit post…
Currently her favourite phrase is “Thank god!”, not knowing what “god” is.
Katherine
It’s stupidly fucked up, even worse than the German regulation that requires that somebody gives you a stern talk. At least you can remain dressed.
Given what incredible sums people are charging in the USA for ultrasounds, I guess that one of their aims is to drive up costs. the other one is to inflict as much pain as possible.
Liberia now also has a “Kill The Gays” bill. It was propose by senator Jewel Howard Taylor. She is the former First Lady and the ex-wife of Charles Taylor. Charles Taylor was one of the African dictators that Pat Robertson supported.
Ask me again why I hate the conservative christian leaders of the US.
Giliell,
well when my greatgrandmother died, I was three, and I still vaguely remembered her. Presumably when I asked about her, the answer was also, “she is in heaven”. I do think the shrine thing though (in East Asia, they put up entire altars) makes it clear to children that those who went to heaven, aren’t coming back.
Personally, I never believed in heaven, but death used to frighten me. The idea of not existing any more.