A dood that’s obsessed with text but hasn’t wised up to the notion that, sometimes, names have meanings? Passion should never be that shallow.
Antiochus Epiphanessays
Esteleth 479: I was under the impression that this use of “cockle” was derivative of “coakle”‘ or like, a coal burning stove. It makes more sense to warm that kind of cockle than a mollusk. However, I do have a soft, sub-mantle-type place in my heart for molluscs, and give a great big damn about my carbon footprint, however metaphorical. So from now on, when I reference metaphorical cockles in my own thorax, they will be in reference only to cardioid bivalves.
You have all been alerted.
Of course this will be of no relevance at all, as I am heartless.
Ogvorbis: shameless AND impudent!says
Hello, all.
Totally shitty night. My stupid brain decided that I needed a night of olfactory hallucinations — burnt plastic, burnt metal and decomp. I rally hat this shit.
My credit card and travel shit is sitting on my desk again. Boss and I will audit it today.
I get to go have my hearing checked. I wonder how I go about getting a copy of the hearing test I got when I was discharged from the Army?
Anyway, happy Thursday.
Ogvorbis: It has been freakishly warm in New England. It is in the eighties Fahrenheit here in southern New Hampshire. It does not bode well in many ways.
Oh, I know. That was an attempt (failed) at irony. Or humour. I’m in northeast PA and we are six weeks ahead on flowers (and allergies). My heating bill likes this. My wildland fire part is scared.
but bitter cold has been in damn short supply throughout New England this year. It’s kinda’ freakin’ me out, TBH.
Again, that was a failed attempt at irony.
Indeed; I’ve been told by several people here that it’s been the warmest winter in Boston in decades. We didn’t even get much snow.
Possibly the warmest ever. I really was trying to be ironic. I failed across the board. I impress me.
=====
Nerd:
Your love and caring are an example to all. I second John M. and admire you.
Esteleth, Who is Totally Not a Dog or Ferret
Just noticed this^. You are still a mammal, right? Just wanna make sure I’m not conversing with a [shudder] amphibian.
If any sees the slime who stole my briefcase and laptop, please kick them into a DNA smear, OK?
Too bad about the laptop, but don’t you keep your briefs in, like, your dresser?
I’m going go talk to danielhaven.
That should cheer me up.
Urgh, I want a new day.
So, I have a mother who cannot accept that I have opinions, interests and hobbies of my own and a father who can’t accept my point of view on how I’m feeling. Actually, I think it’s more the case that it doesn’t matter.
By now I’m actually glad that this broke to light because I was fucking up college and not when fucking up my family because I think that fucking up was inevitable.
Also kindergarten called that #1 has very red eyes and although it could be an allergy there was also a case of trachoma and could I please pick her up and let the pediatrician decide?
But first of all I’m going to have a cuppa coffee.
On the plus side I had 2.5 nice hours with gran and the little one in the sun and I even remembered the sun lotion.
carliesays
And the next Doctor Who companion is another pretty young white woman. Maybe it’s just that I’m in a bad mood, because we did have the older Donna and the nonwhite Martha, but somehow this pisses me off.
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐsays
Walton and I were talking about the Perry decision on Prop 8, and I thought his explanation would be useful and good news for the Horde.
(This was last week when he hadn’t been commenting, which is why I said can I go post that to TET rather than you should go post that to TET. I just don’t check my email often enough. But he’s probably in class right now, so I’ll pretend he’s still gone. Here, then, is a communiqué from the elusive Walton.)
+++++
«Re Perry, it was a very narrow and very carefully-reasoned decision, and very much grounded in the Supreme Court’s existing jurisprudence. Reinhardt, for the majority, opted to decide the case on the basis that the state may not take away a pre-existing right from a class of citizens without a legitimate reason for doing so. They applied the principle in Romer v. Evans that the Equal Protection Clause prevents minority groups from being targeted for the deprivation of a pre-existing right without a legitimate reason. (In the words of Kennedy’s majority opinion in Romer, it “singled out a class of citizens for disfavored legal status” without any legitimate reason.)
On the facts of the Perry case, Reinhardt emphasized the fact that the only legal effect of Proposition 8 was to deny same-sex couples the right to use the term “marriage” to describe their relationships; they could still enter into “registered domestic partnerships” under state law, adopt children, etc. But he also explicitly acknowledged the social, cultural and emotional significance of the term “marriage”, and found that marriage is “the principal manner in which the State attaches respect and dignity to the highest form of a committed relationship and to the individuals who have entered into it.” As he put it, quotably, “a rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but to the couple desiring to enter into a committed lifelong relationship, a marriage by the name of ‘registered domestic partnership’ does not.”
Reinhardt’s opinion dismissed all of the usual arguments that were trotted out in favour of Prop. 8 – that it furthered the state’s interest in “childrearing and responsible procreation”, “protecting religious liberty”, “preventing children being taught about same-sex marriage in classrooms”, etc. – simply on the ground that Prop. 8 had no discernible effect whatsoever on any of these things; all it did was to take the word “marriage” away from same-sex couples, and there was no possible rational basis on which it could be said to advance any of the state’s purported interests. (He also made explicitly clear, though, that this wasn’t meant to imply that Prop. 8 would be constitutional if it had gone further in taking rights away from same-sex couples; rather, it would only be in those circumstances that it would be appropriate to consider the legitimacy of any of the state’s purported rationales for denying them rights. As it was, it was simply irrelevant.) As such, he concluded that Prop. 8 failed rational basis review; it was thus unnecessary to reach the question of whether gay and lesbian people should be treated as a suspect classification so that heightened scrutiny would apply. (This is, again, exactly the same as Kennedy’s reasoning in Romer.)
It’s very narrowly-reasoned, and very much targeted at Kennedy. If SCOTUS hears the Perry case, I think they’ll affirm the Ninth Circuit’s decision by a majority (although of course they might simply deny cert in the first place). If that happens, though, it will establish only that a state can’t take away marriage rights from gay couples where those rights have previously existed; it isn’t necessarily authority for the proposition that all states are required to legalize same-sex marriage, which remains an open question. Still, it’s an important step. (If it gets to SCOTUS, Scalia will definitely dissent; his dissenting opinion in Romer was really rather nasty and homophobic, even by his standards. I don’t think his view has changed since then.)»
+++++
By emphasizing Proposition 8’s limited effect, we do not mean to minimize the harm that this change in the law caused to same-sex couples and their families. To the contrary, we emphasize the extraordinary significance of the official designation of `marriage.’ That designation is important because `marriage’ is the name that society gives to the relationship that matters most between two adults. A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but to the couple desiring to enter into a committed lifelong relationship, a marriage by the name of `registered domestic partnership’ does not. The word `marriage’ is singular in connoting “a harmony in living,” “a bilateral loyalty,” and “a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred.” Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 486 (1965). As Proponents have admitted, “the word `marriage’ has a unique meaning,” and “there is a significant symbolic disparity between domestic partnership and marriage.” It is the designation of `marriage’ itself that expresses validation, by the state and the community, and that serves as a symbol, like a wedding ceremony or a wedding ring, of something profoundly important. See id. at 971.
We need consider only the many ways in which we encounter the word `marriage’ in our daily lives and understand it, consciously or not, to convey a sense of significance. We are regularly given forms to complete that ask us whether we are “single” or “married.” Newspapers run announcements of births, deaths, and marriages. We are excited to see someone ask, “Will you marry me?”, whether on bended knee in a restaurant or in text splashed across a stadium Jumbotron. Certainly it would not have the same effect to see “Will you enter into a registered domestic partnership with me?”. Groucho Marx’s one-liner, “Marriage is a wonderful institution. . . but who wants to live in an institution?” would lack its punch if the word `marriage’ were replaced with the alternative phrase. So too with Shakespeare’s “A young man married is a man that’s marr’d,” Lincoln’s “Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory,” and Sinatra’s “A man doesn’t know what happiness is until he’s married. By then it’s too late.” We see tropes like “marrying for love” versus “marrying for money” played out again and again in our films and literature because of the recognized importance and permanence of the marriage relationship. Had Marilyn Monroe’s film been called How to Register a Domestic Partnership with a Millionaire, it would not have conveyed the same meaning as did her famous movie, even though the underlying drama for same-sex couples is no different. The name `marriage’ signifies the unique recognition that society gives to harmonious, loyal, enduring, and intimate relationships. See Knight v. Super. Ct., 128 Cal.App.4th 14, 31 (2005) (“[M]arriage is considered a more substantial relationship and is accorded a greater stature than a domestic partnership.”); cf. Griswold, 381 U.S. at 486.
The official, cherished status of `marriage’ is distinct from the incidents of marriage, such as those listed in the California Family Code. The incidents are both elements of the institution and manifestations of the recognition that the State affords to those who are in stable and committed lifelong relationships. We allow spouses but not siblings or roommates to file taxes jointly, for example, because we acknowledge the financial interdependence of those who have entered into an “enduring” relationship. The incidents of marriage, standing alone, do not, however, convey the same governmental and societal recognition as does the designation of `marriage’ itself. We do not celebrate when two people merge their bank accounts; we celebrate when a couple marries. The designation of `marriage’ is the status that we recognize. It is the principal manner in which the State attaches respect and dignity to the highest form of a committed relationship and to the individuals who have entered into it.
+++++
Quotable quotes for the next time someone tries to say atheists should leave marriage only to the religious, or gay people should leave marriage only to the heterosexual religious.
Totally shitty night. My stupid brain decided that I needed a night of olfactory hallucinations — burnt plastic, burnt metal and decomp. I rally hat this shit.
Wow! You too? I don’t have this, but my wife is always complaining about cigarette smoke. She knows it’s not really there, but she says it’s like being right next to an active smoker.
What’s up with that? Is it a kind of synesthesia or something?
well in Og’s case I believe it stems from his post-9/11 cleanup experience. Probably not the same as your wife’s cigarette thing.
Ogvorbis: shameless AND impudent!says
What’s up with that? Is it a kind of synesthesia or something?
Nah. Just PTSD (still officially undiagnosed) from working in Manhattan a little over ten years ago. About every three to six months, some part of my little brain decides I need a refresher course in man’s inhumanity.
Ah, hell, Og. That sucks. I didn’t know PTSD could trigger stuff like olfactory hallucinations. I always associated it with the reactions of my father-in-law, who jumps under the table when a car backfires outside.
I’m not sure why you need a refresher course right now. I’m getting emotionally tapped out myself from all the terrible events happening or being disclosed. Castrations, murdering of teens in the street, sabre-rattling over Iran.
And so on.
Ah, fuck it. This is about you, not me.
I hope it’s a transient thing, these shitty nights like that.
More cheerful news (because, fuck, I need as much cheerful news as I can get), my daughter is getting married this weekend, in Oregon. I’ll be in the Portland area starting tomorrow night. I’ll be busy until Monday, but then I’ll be around until Saturday the 31st.
If anyone wants to get together for a beer let me know.
Ogvorbis: shameless AND impudent!says
Ah, fuck it. This is about you, not me.
No, not really. This is about us. This thread is a community so, while we may discuss what is happening in one person’s life, it is still about us.
Ogvorbis: shameless AND impudent!says
my daughter is getting married this weekend, in Oregon.
partner has finished their grad exams. Praise for them plz. Now we just have to plan the matrimony ceramony…I need to get measurements retaken so they can cut the leather in time!
waltonsays
*hugs* for Ogvorbis. Those dreams sound horrible.
====
But he’s probably in class right now, so I’ll pretend he’s still gone.
You overestimate how hard I work. :-p Though I do have lots to do today.
In other news, I was just awarded a sizeable scholarship for the Bar Professional Training Course for next year, which is good news (I couldn’t have afforded to do it otherwise). Still uncertain about my career prospects, and worried about my student debts* and so forth, but if it works out I really want to be a barrister, specializing in immigration and asylum. I believe it’s the right thing to do.
(*I’m at Harvard on a scholarship, but also had to take a supplemental loan to cover the full cost, on top of my existing undergraduate debt.)
I think so. It’s really what she wants. She’s been through a few boyfriends looking for one she likes enough to marry. She’s only been going out with this particular guy for about 6 months or so, but she’s known him for, what, about three years or so.
I haven’t met him yet (stuck half-a-continent away). But she loves him, and that’s enough for me.
In any case, this marriage had better last. I’m skipping the Reason Rally for this.
In other news, I was just awarded a sizeable scholarship for the Bar Professional Training Course for next year, which is good news…
Damn straight it’s good news. Congratulations! It is well-deserved.
…I really want to be a barrister, specializing in immigration and asylum. I believe it’s the right thing to do.
Wow. That is admirable. I can imagine no finer advocate.
Ogvorbis: shameless AND impudent!says
She’s only been going out with this particular guy for about 6 months or so, but she’s known him for, what, about three years or so.
I knew protoWife for only about 3 months before I proposed. We still waited two more years until I graduated to get married, but I knew she was the one. And she, apparently, knew the same thing. So here it is almost 22 years since we were married, we are both completely different people, and we’re still in the puppy love stage.
I can’t think of anything off-hand that better demonstrates the dangers of being indoctrinated by misinformation than this.
Esteleth, Who is Totally Not a Dog or Ferretsays
Oggie:
Sorry to hear about the PTSD-stink. Hugs and chocolate for you.
Just noticed this^. You are still a mammal, right? Just wanna make sure I’m not conversing with a [shudder] amphibian.
*waves tentacle*
Nigel, congrats on the wedding! That’s great!
Ing, congrats on the impending nuptials, and hooray for the partner’s be-grad-ing.
I opened Pharyngula this morning, read the Brother Smoggy post and just went WTF all over it. Still, I LOL’d.
Esteleth, Who is Totally Not a Dog or Ferretsays
Gah. Borked my blockquoting.
Everything from *waves tentacle* on is mine.
Oh, and Oggie:
I knew protoWife for only about 3 months before I proposed. We still waited two more years until I graduated to get married, but I knew she was the one. And she, apparently, knew the same thing. So here it is almost 22 years since we were married, we are both completely different people, and we’re still in the puppy love stage.
You’re making me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside. ♥
keenacatsays
Hello horde.
Og,
that sucks hardcore. What’s up with “not officially diagnosed”? Can you get a decent shrink to work through this?
I love the term “protoWife” by the way. I shall start referring to boyfriend as “protoHusband”. It makes me happy to hear you two are still so much in love. My parents broke up about 23 years after they married so it gives me hope that this is different for other people and might be different for me, too.
nigel,
hooray for the happy couple!
waltonsays
Thanks, nigel. And congratulations to your daughter!
So here it is almost 22 years since we were married, we are both completely different people, and we’re still in the puppy love stage.
Very cool story. It’s strange how relationships change over time. The stories of the ones that grow stronger over time make me all squidgy inside.
My wife and I were together 10 years before we got married. I was pretty sure she and I were long-term compatible after just a few months, but I’d rushed into a marriage once before, and that didn’t turn out too good. (With the very notable exception of my daughter, who is about as good as it gets.)
We’ve been married, what, 9 or 10 years now. So not quite 22 (plus 2, for waiting). But it’s just as good now as it was at the beginning.
My daughter even loves her Wicked Stepmother now. Took her a while, but since the spawn became an adult, she talks to her Wicked more than she talks to me.
So here it is almost 22 years since we were married, we are both completely different people, and we’re still in the puppy love stage.
I recall somewhere with the research into the chemistry of love that the infatuation stage either drops off after some months, or in a certain population persists.
And the next Doctor Who companion is another pretty young white woman. Maybe it’s just that I’m in a bad mood, because we did have the older Donna and the nonwhite Martha, but somehow this pisses me off.
I haven’t really seen Jenna-Louise Coleman acting in anything before, but if she’s a good enough actress, I’m fine with it. Especially since Doctor Who has an overall decent track record when it comes to portraying non white, older and even gay characters (compared to a lot of other series anyway). I’ll give the makers of the show a pass on this one.
Would have been very good if they could do it as a playful nudge nudge wink wink to their fans of “Yes this is your stand in” as long as they don’t go Weasly.
Ogvorbis
Urgh, I’m sorry
We’re going to make chocolate lollies, shall I make some for you, too?
walton
Congratulation on the scholarship
Nigel
Cheers for your daughter.
And maybe your wife does smell cigarettes. Some people have pretty sensitive noses.
Ing
The best for the two of you, too.
Esteleth, Who is Totally Not a Dog or Ferretsays
Jack Harkness was pretty cool, but his attitude towards the Doctor was “Hey, I wanna bone him” and less “Wow!” The latter seems to be the attitude that most of the female companions have. Also, the treatment of Jack’s blatant sexuality stands in stark contrast to the sexuality of the women on the show.
My irritation at the fact that the only queer character is a character who will sleep with anything and is a horndog is another rant.
And maybe your wife does smell cigarettes. Some people have pretty sensitive noses.
Sidenote/OT
I have crazy sensitive hearing at least in one end of the audible range. I can hear high pitched noises most people can’t. My old college room mate used to leave their TV on, with no cable input and it would keep me up at night because I could hear the high pitched screech of the screen from anywhere in the apartment. Sitting under certain old TV’s at TGI Friday like places are unbearable because it is like someone blowing a consistent never ending shrill whistle in my ear. And no one else hears these things.
My irritation at the fact that the only queer character is a character who will sleep with anything and is a horndog is another rant.
See I liked that about Jack because I saw the Trope they were playing with. I remember someone saying that Jack comes from a time where Kirk Diplomacy is the standard.
I think his return in Utopia/Sound of Drums did better for showing his idolizing of the Doctor, having founded his own team to follow in his footsteps. That said I loved when 9 would flirt back with him.
Esteleth, Who is Totally Not a Dog or Ferretsays
Ing, I also recognized the trope they were playing with. I also recognized that while I saw the they were playing with the trope, many people wouldn’t recognize it as a playing. I have talked with people who saw them as doing the trope straight (no pun intended), and I find this aggravating.
And why is it that we can’t have a depiction of a same-sex couple? DW is generally pretty good at sneaking in subversive shit (like the shots of PoC running around minding their own business in Elizabethan London, interracial couples, etc), so why is the only queerness a guy who who will fuck anything?
Thanks for the well-wishes for my spawn and her chosen partner, everyone. I really do appreciate.
Also, too: y’all are the best. As I told my wife (who sometimes wishes she had a church-like congregation of atheists, but doesn’t like hanging out with people*) — this place is better than church. I can show up when I want, and I don’t have to listen to everyone singing sucky songs off-key to a poorly-played organ.
Praise Cthulhu!
* If she attended a church, maybe she could get someone to exorcise her and she can stop complaining about cigarette smells.
Esteleth, Who is Totally Not a Dog or Ferretsays
singing sucky songs off-key to a poorly-played organ.
I was raised in a family that (whatever our day jobs have been) has always had a collective hard-on for music.
Says something that my grandparents left a church not over theology but because the organist sucked.
This trope (bad church music) is something that honestly never occurred to me until I was an adult, as my family always has attended churches that had good music.
FWIW, an organ played well is amazing. It is to my continuing distress that organs are considered exclusively “churchy” and not recognized as the tour de force that they are.
Ogvorbis,
Damn, that sure sucks. Hugs, Jellybabies, cupcakes and a cute baby animal of a species of your chosing are coming your way.
Esteleth,
Jack Harkness was pretty cool, but his attitude towards the Doctor was “Hey, I wanna bone him” and less “Wow!”
I disagree. Jack may have come of like this at first, but certainly when he returned (or when he mentioned the Doctor in Torchwood) he did seem to marvel at him, like any companion who meets the Doctor.
Ing,
Would have been very good if they could do it as a playful nudge nudge wink wink to their fans of “Yes this is your stand in” as long as they don’t go Weasly.
It would be nice if they could pull it off. Wouldn’t be easy to do, though?
singing sucky songs off-key to a poorly-played organ
Music is the one thing I miss about church. I’m sure that lots of people would think the music I was exposed to was terrible, and some of it definitely was. But I like to sing, and I can only keep in tune if there are other people singing too. Church was good for that, so I wasn’t picky about the music. I still have a soft spot for old hymns, even if the words bother me now.
***
I really got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Anyone have links to Awesomeness on the Internet (TM) to improve the day?
carliesays
I think it’s because she’s the one right after Amy, and looks so similar. My mind went “Rose-Amy-new girl”. I liked Donna because she was definitely NOT the “ingenue who falls in love with the Doctor” type. Martha was at least nonwhite, but was still young and in love with the Doctor (and interestingly, was the only one of the three young ones that he didn’t love back). I’d just like something completely different.
waltonsays
Esteleth: I actually love hymns and sacred music, on a strictly aesthetic level, and it’s something I really missed at first when I left the Anglican Church.* I often find myself in the awkward position of enjoying both the music and the poetry of a hymn, while simultaneously finding the sentiments expressed either obviously false or downright obnoxious.
(*The traditional kind of hymns and sacred music, that is. There are few things more annoying than contemporary Christian “praise bands” and the like. And Graham Kendrick. Ugh.)
I quite like the Unitarian Universalist hymnal – which keeps some of the traditional hymns, but often with modifications to the lyrics to get rid of (a) obnoxious gender-exclusionary language and (b) theological claims which most UUs don’t believe. And there are other UU hymns which adapt the tunes from traditional hymns but set different words to them.
carliesays
Finally catching up a bit –
hugs for everyone, especially Og today. That can throw you off for awhile, I’m sure.
And congrats nigel! I hope it’s a fun party and that they’re very happy together.
walton @545: I had the same experience. I actually love Plainchant and some of the older Catholic stuff too. Odd, I know.
Esteleth, Who is Totally Not a Dog or Ferretsays
Totally agreed, Walton.
I was raised Presbyterian, and lots of the old hymns are just gorgeous.
Modern “praise” music is just horrid, both musically and thematically. Never have gotten the point (theological or otherwise) of endless discussions of blood.
Icky.
In other news, the Estelethmobile is sick, so I’m currently hanging out at the mechanics.
Meh. That was $200 I was hoping to spend elsewhere.
chigau (√-1)says
partner has finished their grad exams. Praise for them plz. Now we just have to plan the matrimony ceramony…I need to get measurements retaken so they can cut the leather in time!
Praise to partner-of-Ing!
Now. About that matrimonial leather…?
Ariaflame, BSc, BF, PhDsays
Not primary characters, but there were other gay couples making an appearance in the latest series of Dr Who. Very briefly the gay marine couple, and the interspecies lesbian couple with the swords.
Then there was the alternate world version of Micky earlier on who was with another guy…
So they’re there.
And I would just like to state that I think so far of all the companions in the New Who Rory is by far my favourite.
But until we find out what her character is like, I’m reserving judgement on the new companion, because basing it purely on appearance is on the shallow side.
diannesays
In theory…just in theory…If I complained that my taxes were too low, would anyone here feel compelled to track me down and kill me? If it’s more than one, can you do it together so I can meet several Pharynguloids in real life before dying?
Maybe I should take the old libertarian advice and donate more to charity. If only there were a charity I could contribute to that worked on multiple problems, that could move money from one issue to another as needed, that was ready to respond to disasters before they happened rather than just gathering money after they occurred, that was large enough to tackle really major problems like public health problems or transportation, that was even in principle responsive to all citizens regardless of race, gender, beliefs, etc, that would take the money out of my account without making a lot of fuss or sending me a bunch of spam, yet would allow me to contact leaders of the charity as needed to discuss issues I have…but where could I find an organization like that?
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐsays
C-SPAN Q&A with Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress
I read this line during the organ intro the Nanci Griffith and Hootie and the Blowfish cover of Vic Chesnutt’s Gravity of the Situation. Very cool timing.
Ogvorbis: shameless AND impudent!says
Walton:
Congrats on the scholarship.
All:
Thanks for the commiseration.
I have seen, now, three psychiatrists and one psychologist. All have stated that there are PTSD-like symptoms but have resisted actually writing that down as the diagnosis.
Is this normal? I mean, fuck, it’s been 10 1/2 years and it still keeps reccurring at 3 to 4 month intervals, sometimes with an external trigger, sometimes without.
Summary: it’s about validating privilege more than helping other nations or people.
I’ll have to think on this.
waltonsays
Dianne:
If only there were a charity I could contribute to that worked on multiple problems, that could move money from one issue to another as needed, that was ready to respond to disasters before they happened rather than just gathering money after they occurred, that was large enough to tackle really major problems like public health problems or transportation, that was even in principle responsive to all citizens regardless of race, gender, beliefs, etc, that would take the money out of my account without making a lot of fuss or sending me a bunch of spam, yet would allow me to contact leaders of the charity as needed to discuss issues I have…but where could I find an organization like that?
Oxfam and Amnesty International fit most of those criteria,* and are worthy recipients, should you be inclined to donate to them. Both have an extensive enough worldwide infrastructure that they can tackle a range of issues and prepare for crises before they occur. I’m a member of Amnesty, and though they’re not perfect, I’m happy to support them and promote their work; they’re undoubtedly (along with Human Rights Watch) the most visible and effective global human rights NGO, and they work on an incredible range of issues worldwide: women’s reproductive rights, opposing the death penalty, the rights of political dissidents, the rights of refugees and asylum-seekers, and so forth.
(*Except for the “not sending you a bunch of spam” criterion; sadly, in my experience, most charities will respond to even a small donation with a flurry of leaflets, magazines and thank-you notes. This always worries me.)
And, unlike the US government, at least they won’t spend any of your money on invading and bombing foreign countries, jailing people in huge numbers for minor drug offences, funding a growing security-industrial complex, violently abusing immigrants, detaining people without trial and torturing them, policing women’s bodies, or committing human rights abuses at home and abroad. Which is always a plus. Don’t get me wrong: government is necessary, you’re obviously right that some objectives can only be achieved by government action, and I agree that taxes on the wealthy should be higher; but I wouldn’t exactly say that most governments spend their money better, dollar-for-dollar, than the most effective NGOs do.
(Of course anyone can set up an organization and call it a “human rights NGO”, and there are some pretty dodgy ones out there, including some that are well-intentioned but cause harm; I’d stay well away from International Justice Mission, for instance. But I digress.)
Ogvorbis: shameless AND impudent!says
In theory…just in theory…If I complained that my taxes were too low, would anyone here feel compelled to track me down and kill me?
I actually make this complaint regularly. My total tax rate (property, local, state and federal income tax) is around 11%. And every level of government has so little money that it can no longer effectively do the job it is supposed to do which feeds the morons who claim that government is inefficient and we need to cut taxes so it will become efficient.
but where could I find an organization like that?
We used to have one of those. I think it is now in a bathtub awaiting the Mitts of Romney.
And every level of government has so little money that it can no longer effectively do the job it is supposed to do which feeds the morons who claim that government is inefficient and we need to cut taxes so it will become efficient.
I think they mean “efficient” in the same way a corpse is efficient — you no longer have to feed it.
waltonsays
My wife pointed me to a very interesting article in The Atlantic about the White Savior Industrial Complex.
Summary: it’s about validating privilege more than helping other nations or people.
The lesson: it’s important to listen to the voices of the actual people for whom one claims to be working, rather than forcing things on them based on one’s own (privileged) ideas of what’s “best” for them.
waltonsays
My total tax rate (property, local, state and federal income tax) is around 11%.
Wow. That’s… very low, in comparison with back home.
I always wonder, though, about the total financial burden on the average American middle-class family when one factors in both taxes and health insurance premiums. In Britain, taxes are significantly higher, but most people don’t have or need private health insurance, which is a pretty big difference for the average family.
Minnie The Finn, avec de cèpes de Bordeauxsays
Hi Thread!
Oh, so much romance in the air! Congrats to everyone getting married <3 *scatters white rose petals all over the parlor carpet*
And hugs to all with a less than perfect day.
I'm in the middle of trying to plan some business-related travel. My options at the moment are 1) attending a meeting in Germany, near Cologne, one bloody week AFTER the EAC, or 2) a meeting in Sunnyvale, CA sometime in May.
What's this Sunnyvale like? Anyone from near there?
Re: taxes
We pay too much and too little.
First of all, the amount we pay for the money we earn is insane.
Even with Mr.’s decent but not exorbitant salary and me making peanuts taxed for a couple, we’re in one of the top tax groups.
Why? because our government just doesn’t take infaltion out of the tax-tables.
And then there’s the dividend we get for the shares we have. Since Mr. has been buying shares of the company he works for via a special employes’ program for 25 years, that’s a large amount of shares and more money than I make by teaching evening classes.
And we pay a ridiculous amount of taxes on that. First we get a generous “free amount” and the rest is taxed with 25%
We’re profiting a tiny bit from this injust system but it stinks that you have to pay much more for the money you earned by actually doing something than for the money you earned because you had money in the first place.
What about Doctors without Borders?
Minnie The Finn, avec de cèpes de Bordeauxsays
Ah, no. The German meeting is a week BEFORE the EA convention.
Either way, I’m buggered.
Ogvorbis: shameless AND impudent!says
Sailor:
Thanks for the pdf. Where would I send it?
I always wonder, though, about the total financial burden on the average American middle-class family when one factors in both taxes and health insurance premiums.
And don’t forget the costs of higher education. Girl’s college, tuition alone, is $32k per year. Boy is at a state school and pays around $9k a year. Which is a huge unseen tax for those trying to keep their children in the middle class.
waltonsays
And don’t forget the costs of higher education. Girl’s college, tuition alone, is $32k per year. Boy is at a state school and pays around $9k a year. Which is a huge unseen tax for those trying to keep their children in the middle class.
Well, in Britain, with the recent tripling of tuition fees for undergrads, and dramatic cuts to public funding for higher education, we’re going down the American road in that respect. British universities are trying to adapt by (a) begging alumni for donations and (b) selling their souls to to rich donors, but it seems higher education is really going to suffer for the next few years. We still do have a fairly generous system of government-funded student loans for undergrads, though, which is much better than the US situation.
Danielhaven gets suspiciously comprehensible when he decides to be bigoted and ableist.
Esteleth, Who is Totally Not a Dog or Ferretsays
That’s exactly correct, walton.
In my mind, there are four models of tax/government service ratios.
First, there’s the high/high model – high taxes support a high level of government service, in the form of health care, social safety nets, etc. Many Western European nations follow this model, which is better known as “socialism.”
Second, there’s the low/low model – low taxes together with few government services. This is libertarianism, basically.
Third, there’s the high/low model – high taxes with few government services. This tends to show up in dictatorships – the taxes are lining the pockets of the rulers.
Fourth, there’s the middle/middle – mid-level taxes with mid-level government services (this might be a patchy social safety net, or a partially privatized system).
The American system in many ways is a hybrid – we have shockingly low taxes (especially on business and the super-rich), not bad government services (health care is the big hole), and a ridiculous level of military spending. As has been pointed out many, many times, if American military spending were halved, we would (1) still have the most well-funded military in the world and (2) be able to afford an excellent single-payer health care and social system to rival Sweden – all without raising taxes. This is largely because despite our (overall) low taxes, the US is still quite wealthy – we have a high tax base. If the economy picked up a bit, we’d be doing even better.
The other thing, as Ogvorbis said, is the fact that the GOP has successfully convinced many people that the government is incapable of managing something like a single-payer system successfully, without huge waste (*cough*Medicare*cough*). This is because of their long-standing habit of slashing budgets while maintaining (or increasing) obligations, then complaining that a given office doesn’t work well.
When Grover Norquist says that his goal is to make government small enough to “drown in a bathtub,” he (1) is not joking and (2) is not using hyperbole. The libertarian dream state has a government that serves two functions and two functions only: international immigration and foreign policy (which of course means military policy). They fundamentally do not acknowledge that the federal government has any other role. The other thing to remember is that this is not a new ideology – libertarians complained that the Constitution is too federalist when it came up for ratification in the 1790s, and much of their rhetoric would not look out of place coming from Paulites.
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐsays
Giliell,
A quick google search seemed to indicate that activists don’t object to those words like they do to crazy and insane
language doesn’t work like that, since words develop independently.
It’s no good to just say “language doesn’t work like that”, because sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.
The various words for gay men, for instance, “could” develop in different directions independently, but for the most part they don’t. And they don’t because they’re all used with the same referent, which is viewed negatively by most of the population. So we have exactly one word, gay, which is generally permissible for use by straight people, though never as an insult, and nearly all the other words are insults per se.
If words just sort of “develop independently” of their referents, we would not expect to see such congruent patterns like this.
So, what do you claim is the new referent of these words, which is somehow not mental illness?
We know that mad is actively used as a referent for mental illness. Indeed, when Ing proposed “mad as a hatter” above, it was with clear awareness of the relation to mental illness, albeit with the hope that since the most specific usage referred to a particular illness rarely seen today, it wouldn’t now be widely offensive. There was no lack of awareness about the relation, though.
Same with “nutty”, it was proposed explicitly as a possibly-less-offensive replacement for crazy. And nutty was always a slang term for crazy; it’s not even like it’s an older diagnostic term which has over time allegedly lost some relationship to its previous referent.
These aren’t words like “git” or “punk”, about which we at Pharyngula have seen real surprise on the part of intelligent adults to learn that they also refer to paternal illegitimacy and receptive male homosexuality. No one here is surprised when they see “nutter” being used interchangeably with “insane”.
So, what do you claim is the new referent of these words? Nutty like what? Mad like what?
And maybe ask yourself. Why are you so determined to justify use of these terms — which you must acknowledge can be used ambiguously, allowing insults about mental illness which are then defended by fallacies of equivocation, surely you have seen this happen — while there already exist more specific words, “irrational, stupid, ignorant, anti-social, harmful, biased, fallacious, bigoted, et cetera”, which can do all the necessary work.
It looks for all the world like you want insults which (at least) double as referents for mental illness, and you won’t be satisfied with anything else.
Richard Austinsays
My total tax burden last year would be around 27% if you count my retirement contributions as “tax-free” and about 31% if you take them off the table (since they’re really just tax-deferred).
But I’m not really the average American household: last year was an anomaly, as I had two jobs for most of the year for a combined income that put me in the 90th percentile. That’s not likely to happen again in the near future.
My mom said she and my step-dad had an effective of about 12%, but they’re both ex-IRS people and are very good at playing by the book: every other year, their effective tax rate is about 6%. So, we can call it an average of 9%.
waltonsays
The libertarian dream state has a government that serves two functions and two functions only: international immigration and foreign policy (which of course means military policy).
Indeed. And one of the things I find really frustrating is that libertarians should, if they actually bothered to apply their own free-market ideas honestly and consistently, be supporting immigrants’ rights and open-borders immigration. And some do; Ayn Rand was in favour of open borders, for instance, and some libertarian publications like Reason magazine take a pro-immigration editorial stance.
But we don’t see any support for immigrants’ rights from libertarians, in practice. Ron Paul, who seems to have made himself the de facto spokesperson for the libertarian movement, supports horrific anti-immigration policies and militarizing the border. Which isn’t surprising, because his brand of “libertarianism” is rooted in old-fashioned racist Southern paleoconservatism, in which “small government” historically meant “opposing federal civil rights legislation”. His current policies can’t be separated from his known history of racism: they’re entirely consistent with it. I can’t understand why he’s regarded as some sort of standard-bearer for personal liberty.
And the libertarian movement doesn’t, on the whole, seem to be doing very much for immigrants’ rights. I’ve never met a libertarian at a immigration rally, and I’ve very rarely seen them actually lifting a finger to work for the rights of immigrants. The only time when most libertarian activists even bring the issue up is as an excuse for attacking the welfare state: they’ll say things like “as long as we have such a generous welfare state, we can’t afford to open the borders” (which is completely untrue; the overwhelming majority of immigrants are net contributors to the economy). In reality, my experience has been that almost all the people who are actually working for immigrants’ rights are on the progressive left in some way or another.
Most veterans and their next-of-kin can obtain free copies of their DD Form 214 (Report of Separation) and other military and medical records several ways.
diannesays
Oxfam and Amnesty International fit most of those criteria,* and are worthy recipients, should you be inclined to donate to them.
Been there, doing that, but they’re unlikely to maintain my local public transit system, provide schools for my kid, or fund grants to end cancer, heart disease, and kuru. Still not one-stop shopping.
Nutmegsays
carlie – Otters! Squee!
I was in Seattle for a conference last summer and saw the sea otters at the aquarium. They were sleeping, and it surprised me how much they looked like old dogs taking a nap.
opposablethumbs, que le pouce enragé mette les poucessays
Praises to partner-of-Ing, and conga rats to Walton and nigelTheBold.
Whisky or any acceptable equivalent to Og. I don’t suppose there’s anything you can do to fool your brain into behaving? I was thinking along the lines of those white noise generators that are supposed to help some people with tinnitus, and wondering if there was any RL stimulus that would override the olfactory hallucination – which sounds horrible.
I’m glad to pay higher taxes and not need private health insurance.
I’d REALLY rather pay higher taxes and not need to worry about paying for education either.
And I’d really really rather the richest (individuals and corporations) were prevented from wriggling out of paying their fair share.
Now if I could just remember to keep notepad open for those times when I get a chance to read TET, maybe I could keep up a bit better dammit.
Pteryxxsays
Something in Utah that doesn’t (obviously) have to do with the Mormon church:
The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy.
But “this is more than just a data center,” says one senior intelligence official who until recently was involved with the program. The mammoth Bluffdale center will have another important and far more secret role that until now has gone unrevealed. It is also critical, he says, for breaking codes. And code-breaking is crucial, because much of the data that the center will handle—financial information, stock transactions, business deals, foreign military and diplomatic secrets, legal documents, confidential personal communications—will be heavily encrypted.
But I have a really bad feeling about all the contracts, construction money, and support staff for this center that just happens to be in a state with thoroughly church-infiltrated government.
Silisays
[Today’s puzzle completed 52 Secs ]
*happy dance*
Pteryxxsays
…why is LoveJoyFeminism defaulting to Patheos? Did Libby Anne leave?
waltonsays
Been there, doing that, but they’re unlikely to maintain my local public transit system, provide schools for my kid, or fund grants to end cancer, heart disease, and kuru. Still not one-stop shopping.
True enough. I just wish governments would spend more resources on those things and fewer on the prison-industrial complex, the military-industrial complex, militarized borders, and institutionalized violence in general.
Esteleth, Who is Totally Not a Dog or Ferretsays
Yes, Pteryxx.
As I understand it, a substantial portion of her audience (that is, religious people who are in the process of tiptoeing out of religion) didn’t follow her to FTB. This, together with a juicy offer that Patheos offered her (together with her knowledge of Pathetos’ reader base) led her to leave.
Beatrice, anormalement indécentesays
…why is LoveJoyFeminism defaulting to Patheos? Did Libby Anne leave?
Thanks. The 214 I’ve got. I’m trying to get hold of the hearing test administered as I mustered out. To compare with the hearing test I had today.
Ogvorbis: shameless AND impudent!says
I was thinking along the lines of those white noise generators that are supposed to help some people with tinnitus, and wondering if there was any RL stimulus that would override the olfactory hallucination – which sounds horrible.
I have two older cats. Doesn’t help.
cicely ("Intriguingly Odd")says
*big pile of hugs*, to be applied liberally where needed.
–
Sounds like last night was, in general, SUCK on steroids. Hoping for better tonight.
–
No, not really. This is about us. This thread is a community so, while we may discuss what is happening in one person’s life, it is still about us.
This.
–
nigelTheBold, best wishes for your daughter’s upcoming nuptuals.
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Ing, praise for partner, and *thumbs up* for marriage plans.
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walton, congrats on the scholarship.
–
I think it was about 6 months after first meeting my own proto-Husband that we got engaged. That was back in, ummmm, let’s see…’83? Thenabouts? So, if I’m mathing it right, something like year 27 upcoming middle-ish in October.
(My mother was annoyed that I wasn’t hanging out in bars instead of “wasting time” playing D&D; I’d never meet a man that way!
So I married the DM.)
:)
–
I still have a soft spot for old hymns, even if the words bother me now.
I really like a lot of the old medieval/Rennaissance church music, but I’m an instrumentalist, and I don’t have to care about the words. :D
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I really got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Anyone have links to Awesomeness on the Internet (TM) to improve the day?
Try Cracked. Not all of their stuff is brilliant, but there’s a lot of Awesomeness to be found, there.
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[…] 2) a meeting in Sunnyvale, CA sometime in May.
What’s this Sunnyvale like?
It’s a giant hole that goes all the way down to Hell.
Oh. Sunnyvale, not Sunnydale….
–
Federal grants to CPCs for ultrasound equipment, to meet the demand from all these new forced-ultrasound laws.
…I’ll be under my couch. *whimper*
Cassandra Caligaria (Cipher), OMsays
*rushes in, all out of breath, sits down, and jumps up and down in her seat with her hand raised Hermione-Granger style* I CAN
Cassandra Caligaria (Cipher), OMsays
Thanks for the heads-up on Libby Anne, y’all. Are we supposed to be staying away from Patheos, or am I spacing out?
PZ’s mad at them for trying to poach FTB’s bloggers. They tried to poach the Tentacled Overlord himself even!
Esteleth, Who is Totally Not a Dog or Ferretsays
Oggie: clicky for music glory
I love well-performed organ music and that song is just mind-blowing.
The video is a bit WTF, but whatever.
The other musical thing I love is shape-note singing, if for no other reason than its ability to just knock the listener flat. The fact that 90% of shape-note music is religious (and in English) is problematic, but still.
Thanks for the heads-up on Libby Anne, y’all. Are we supposed to be staying away from Patheos, or am I spacing out?
I think for some people there are other reasons to avoid Patheos
Pteryxxsays
Well, I can see why Libby Anne in particular, with her stated mission of educating questioning ex-fundamentalists, probably would rather not have a couple hundred hardcore skeptics flooding the comments of everything she says, natch. But all I remember about Patheos is a vague impression of warning at the name.
Esteleth, Who is Totally Not a Dog or Ferretsays
Pteryxx, Patheos hosts a number of blogs that are downright horrific. MRAs and such.
Plus at least for me I have an aversion to a host that sounds like Pathogen
Beatrice, anormalement indécentesays
Pteryxx, Patheos hosts a number of blogs that are downright horrific. MRAs and such.
In the previous incarnation of TET, I linked to a blog on Patheos where an anti-abortionist shat all over a woman with a child dying from Tay-Sachs who said she would have aborted is she had known about the disease when she was pregnant.
Patheos seems to shelter some extremely disgusting specimens.
carliesays
I pay about 10% of my income to my healthcare premiums out of pocket, and those are absurdly low for the value I get because I’m unionized in a state where unions still have some pretty big clout (booyah). I’m not sure how much my employer contributes for their portion that I never even know about. I do know that total, they contribute about 40% of my salary amount over and above what they pay me for all the benefits I get (health and retirement and etc.).
(to clarify, if they paid me 10k a year, it would cost them 14k to employ me from paying my salary plus paying their share of my benefits)
Congrats, Walton!
I’m having one of those days where I hate everything even though I have no reason to. Bah. Maybe I’ll go for a walk by the canal before I go home.
Pteryxxsays
…
…Okay, so when random drive-bys say “But FTB’s just a groupthink echo chamber!” this sort of crap is what they mean by “diverse viewpoints”. Got it.
waltonsays
I’m having one of those days where I hate everything even though I have no reason to. Bah.
The various words for gay men, for instance, “could” develop in different directions independently, but for the most part they don’t.
You know what’s funny about that?
You’re prime example is a word that used to mean something completely different and can now hardly be used to signify the original meaning due to its shift.
That’s fucking hilarious with fucking being another one of those words.
And maybe ask yourself. Why are you so determined to justify use of these terms ….
STOP THAT SHIT NOW.
Either say you think I’m a bigoted ableist or stop that shit.
You know what, I’ve had enough of that bullshit and this discussion stops now.
You’re pulling that shit all the time and now I know why I’ve constantly been falling for this and tried to defend myself against your half-made accusations about something being wrong with me.
I’ve had enough of it.
So, you’re interested in people’s emotional responses?
Fine, here you have one. You’re triggering me and I’m not taking that shit any longer.
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐsays
Plus at least for me I have an aversion to a host that sounds like Pathogen
Yeah, that’s the word that’s always sprung to mind for me too. And I really have nothing against that blog network. It’s just an unfortunate name.
And maybe ask yourself. Why are you so determined to justify use of these terms ….
STOP THAT SHIT NOW.
Either say you think I’m a bigoted ableist or stop that shit.
If you prefer. My actual thoughts are that you’re doing what you learned from growing up in a bigoted, ableist culture.
After all, you are demonstrably determined to justify use of these terms — which you must acknowledge can be used ambiguously, allowing insults about mental illness which are then defended by fallacies of equivocation, surely you have seen this happen — while there already exist more specific words, “irrational, stupid, ignorant, anti-social, harmful, biased, fallacious, bigoted, et cetera”, which can do all the necessary work.
That’s just a fact. I don’t think it says anything particularly special about you as an individual, above and beyond anyone else who grows up in this kind of culture.
But if you’d prefer that I call you more bigoted and more ableist than most people, I guess I can oblige.
Ogvorbis: shameless AND impudent!says
Federal grants to CPCs for ultrasound equipment, to meet the demand from all these new forced-ultrasound laws.
Wow. Untrained zealots raping women via state law.
Even for today’s GOP that is impressive.
I’m having one of those days where I hate everything even though I have no reason to.
Don’t let it become a habit. I suspect being a nun would be limiting.
Sorry. When I have a shitty day(s), making jokes keeps me from dissolving into a ball of whimper.
My power was turned off today. I fail at life.
No, no, no, no! You are not failing at life. Being shat upon by power is not the same as failing.
groupthink is another word for governance by consensus.
And the way it is practiced here, it is another word for a community.
ChasCPetersonsays
Depression may have evolved to fight infection your thoughts?
Or, it may not have. I mean, it may not have evolved. And if it did it may or may not have been because it somehow fights infection. If it does. It may not. Either way, this may or may not have something to do with why it evolved when and how it did. If it did.
In short, this idea suffers from all of the same real problems that some folks use to justify their utter disdain for anything called Evolutionary Psychology.
wait–this is Evolutionary Psychology.
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐsays
The various words for gay men, for instance, “could” develop in different directions independently, but for the most part they don’t.
You know what’s funny about that?
You’re prime example is a word that used to mean something completely different and can now hardly be used to signify the original meaning due to its shift.
Yes, what’s funny is you seem to think this just “happened” too. That gay just “developed independently” to have a new referent.
Nowhere have I claimed that words don’t change meanings. What I did say is that it’s no good to just say “language doesn’t work like that”, because sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.
So, if you claim that these words have a new referent, which is not mental illness, then what is that referent?
You’re pulling that shit all the time
I bring this up a lot less frequently than I’d like, actually, because the stigmatization of mental illness at Pharyngula is so frequent that I can’t keep up.
But yeah, all the time that I can stand to devote to it, I do. Okay. You don’t like that about me, I guess. But I do need to be able to respect myself as someone who does not always remain a bystander when bad shit happens.
tried to defend myself against your half-made accusations about something being wrong with me.
500g flour
1/4 l milk
20g fresh yeast
100g sugar (including vanilla and orange sugar)
100g raisins
100g dried cranberries
125g butter (room temperature)
1 egg (room temperature)
1 pinch of salt
-Put flour into a bowl, make hole in the middle.
-Mix milk, yeast and 1 tbsp of sugar, pour onto flour, put a bit of flour on top.
-Put in unheated oven for about an hour. Yes, I mean it.
-Mix in the other ingredients. Knead really long until you have a smooth ball
-Put back in oven for some hours
-Grease a Gugelhupf-mold, put dough inside
-Put back in oven for another hour.
-Turn on oven to 170° with circulating air.
-Bake for about 40 min
Also, Nigel, I clearly can’t type today, sorry. Too much starting at contracts. My brain feels like a jumble of articles and clauses that don’t relate to anything in normal life. Too bad it’s not Friday.
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐsays
Yes, what’s funny is you seem to think this just “happened” too. That gay just “developed independently” to have a new referent.
«Activists within many diverse and overlapping movements have a time-honoured tradition of reclaiming words that have been used as putdowns and slurs. For instance, many members of the LGBTQ communities have reclaimed the word “queer” as a source of pride and strength as in, “We’re Here, We’re Queer! Get Used to It!”. Mad Pride activists reclaim terms such as “mad”, “nutter”, and “psycho” as a way to re-educate the general public on the issue of mental “illness” and as a source of psychiatric-survivor empowerment. As with most reclaimed words, they are best used by members of the groups that have reclaimed them.»
(BTW, my references to these groups should not be construed as a general endorsement of all the stances of the psychiatric survivor movement. Shit is complicated.)
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐsays
In case you didn’t notice the first time, I’ll tell you again:
Yes, I notice that you don’t want to talk about it any more right now, and are probably going to pick another fight with me in the future, without learning anything from this one.
I will say what I have to say about the matter; you are not obliged to respond.
Richard Austinsays
carlie:
I do know that total, they contribute about 40% of my salary amount over and above what they pay me for all the benefits I get (health and retirement and etc.).
[puts on ex-HR hat]
The “fully loaded” cost of an employee varies from location to location and with wages as well as benefits. For hourly employees working part time, we used to use 110% of wages. For full time hourly, it was 120%. For non-executive salaried, it was 133%, and for executives (director, VP, or CxO equivalent) it was 140%.
… Which is backwards at first glance, since the portion the company pays for your healthcare, life insurance, and state taxes actually goes down relative to your income as your income rises since they’re largely flat (or flatten out at some point). The bulk of the difference was in vacation and sick time benefits (hourly don’t get them because they can work overtime, and executives tend to get leave packages we’d drool over) as well as “separation expenses”, which is the word we used to use for golden parachutes, termination “bonuses” (most executives had contracts where they were automatically paid a certain amount even if they were fired for cause), and pension or retirement packages (which are also usually better for execs). I think placement services were covered there too (if we laid off an exec, we helped them find a job somewhere else – another perk we didn’t offer to regular employees).
[takes off HR hat]
Yeah, if you hate witnessing privilege, never work for the HR department of a business with more than 500 employees. I was just a drop-in – I ran some of their systems – but I still had to do reporting and analysis for them. I used to look at contracts for guys making quite literally 10 times my wages with 4 times as much leave, much better health and dental coverage, supplemental travel coverage, often company-paid cars and housing, and then getting 6-figure termination payouts when they screwed something up (as well as placement help).
Yes, I notice that you don’t want to talk about it any more right now,
Yes, and you went on. After I told you that you were triggering me. Asshole. Utter asshole.
Your whole concern about people is obviously just a holier than thou par exellence.
and are probably going to pick another fight with me in the future, without learning anything from this one.
Believe me, I do ->killfile
Beatrice, anormalement indécentesays
Also: Perfect Gugelhupf
It looks delicious.
Recipe copied and saved
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐsays
Yes, and you went on. After I told you that you were triggering me.
Again, are you perhaps the last regular at Pharyngula to notice that insults around mental health are triggering for me?
You wanted to get the last word in, Giliell. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) That’s why you wrote all this:
You know what’s funny about that?
You’re prime example is a word that used to mean something completely different and can now hardly be used to signify the original meaning due to its shift.
That’s fucking hilarious with fucking being another one of those words.
A substantive argument. Flawed, but substantive, and an attempt to address the substance of what I’d said earlier.
STOP THAT SHIT NOW.
Either say you think I’m a bigoted ableist or stop that shit.
A substantive complaint. An ultimatum, as well.
You’re pulling that shit all the time and now I know why I’ve constantly been falling for this and tried to defend myself against your half-made accusations about something being wrong with me.
Accusation that I’m “pulling [some] shit all the time.” Apparently a substantive complaint; though it’s not 100% clear what the substance is, I was able to infer some meaning from context.
+++++
Those are the last words you wanted to get in — and there’s nothing inherently objectionable about wanting to get the last word in.
But you can’t fairly tack on at the end “you’re triggering me” as an insistence that the other person therefore would be indecent to respond to the substance of the arguments you just made.
If you just wanted the conversation to end, then “you’re triggering me and I’m done with this shit” would be perfectly fair. But it fairly can’t be used as a cover to get the last substantive word in.
Your whole concern about people is obviously just a holier than thou par exellence.
That reminds me I still have to write that essay on the moral imperative of self-righteousness,
but,
if that were indeed my only motivation, I would have an easier time of it. I could stick to gay rights issues exclusively, since there’s barely any disagreements thereabouts on Pharyngula. It would be the easiest whack-a-mole, all day long, and I’d never get exhausted, and never have to worry about being attacked from all sides; everyone here would just have my back, no questions asked.
carliesays
Yeah, if you hate witnessing privilege, never work for the HR department of a business with more than 500 employees.
The state publishes all of its salaries every year; it takes a certain amount of willpower not to look at the tables. That can lead to sitting in meetings mentally calculating how much less one is getting paid to be there than the other people in the room. Not good for one’s happiness state.
(side note: I’m certainly not an executive; I imagine ours are so high because our health care is indeed the gold-plated version, and the retirement ain’t bad either)
I can shoot a gun rather well. Well, I can shoot a pistol, shotgun, and semi-auto rather well. As long as they have a laser sight, and I’ve got a trainer standing next to me telling me the best methods to shoot.
Center of mass nearly every time, except the few times I was center of head o.o
Scary… Kat doesn’t like guns, but I daresay that was an impressive showing.
slignot, carlie, and everyone else: thanks. I’m looking forward to the event. My biggest defense of same-sex marriage is identical to my defense of CIS-normal marriage: the more love in the world, the better. And since this is my daughter, I’m fairly overcome with joy.
And slignot, don’t worry about tpyos. Xe is a mighty god, and impossible to placate.
Cassandra Caligaria (Cipher), OMsays
Nigel! Yay! Ing’s partner! Yay! *dance party*
—
I got an A in German! *second dance party*
—
[TMI warning!]
So! I was really really freaked out yesterday because I was heavily spotting. Requested a doctor’s appointment. Spent most of the night panicking.
Meanwhile, I have a stomachache and acne, and I’m bursting into tears at the slightest provocation. Hmm.
Yep! Turns out I just can’t count. Or… like… reason.
[/TMI warning]
Spouse keeps trying to talk me into going shooting with him, but I don’t have any interest. I never really have, guns are just vaguely scary to me; I was one of those kids who knew where the guns were in the house but never ever wanted to play with them. Also, he doesn’t own any guns, so we’d be either heading to Vegas to borrow some from his dad’s collection or borrowing my dad’s rifle.
Yea – at first I thought I missed a few shotgun shots, but it was just the wadding breaking through the cardboard. The shotgun shots were all grouped together in the same area.
It was fun, but I still will never own a gun – except maybe a replica 1887 Winchester.
A. Rsays
Katherine Lorraine: Quite a nice showing. Though I admit I’ve never fired a semi-automaic before, or, for that matter, a repeating shotgun.
Very nice. Isn’t it strange showing an aptitude for something in which you are not interested?
That’s like me and football. Except for the aptitude part.
Me, I have a couple of guns. Growing up in Alaska, it was important to be able to hunt in the fall, to stock up for winter. I was a good shot, but I hated shooting animals. Thirty years later, I’m still not comfortable shooting deer, even though I absolutely love venison.
It’s been better since a friend showed me the Tlingit tradition of giving a deer water after you’ve killed it. To help it on its way. I know it’s stupid, I know the animal is already dead and I’m the one responsible for its death, but it helps.
Know this: after the zombie apocalypse, you shall have useful talents. I mean, as longs as there’s ammo.
Ogvorbis, I quoted from that link where they also have all service records, including medical. And it looks like you can apply online. All teh other info I gathered started with contacting your local VA hospital, but it looks like now all the records are kept in the archive, so I think that site may allow you to skip a few steps.
Something to note, (no pun intended), is that most standard hearing tests are very poor and only show gross anomalies. By the time they detect loss it’s already progressed quite a bit.
Pteryxxsays
Sheesh, I don’t know any better than to speak up. Fair warning, this is to sgbm.
—
ॐ, quit it.
Those are the last words you wanted to get in — and there’s nothing inherently objectionable about wanting to get the last word in.
Obviously you think so, since you won’t stop no matter how often you’re asked; but if getting the last word were no big deal, then you could yield it already.
But you can’t fairly tack on at the end “you’re triggering me” as an insistence that the other person therefore would be indecent to respond to the substance of the arguments you just made.
And you don’t get to presume that someone else’s expression of emotion exists to impugn you. If you had any presumption of good faith to give, you’d back off WITHOUT complaining about how unfair someone else being upset is to YOU.
If you just wanted the conversation to end, then “you’re triggering me and I’m done with this shit” would be perfectly fair. But it fairly can’t be used as a cover to get the last substantive word in.
If you were actually concerned about substantive arguments, and not about who gets to have the last word (which you seem to be fine with, as long as it’s you) then you’d back off the personal inferences and address solely the substance of the argument.
Whatever your substantive grievance is, it doesn’t justify policing other people’s responses to you being an asshole. You don’t get to insinuate that they’re only upset as an excuse to dodge the discussion. It’s not your SUBSTANCE that pisses people off.
You can have as many last words as you want off of me, I really don’t care about engaging you personally over your refusal to disengage from personal attacks.
carliesays
Kat – ooo, have you tried archery? You have to correct more for wind and gravity and stuff, but I bet you’d be good at that too.
Richard Austinsays
Kat: one of the scariest moments was learning that, having never held a real firearm in my life and receiving about 30 seconds of “training”, I was a dead shot with a pistol (any of a half-dozen a friend brought to a range, don’t ask me what they were).
The good side: apparently, playing a lot of video games can train you up on some real-life skills.
The bad side: those skills include firing weapons at people-shaped things.
Yea. Like I said, I’ll never actually own a real gun.
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐsays
ॐ, quit it.
Hi pteryxx. Is this like, a preemptive “do not respond”?
Those are the last words you wanted to get in — and there’s nothing inherently objectionable about wanting to get the last word in.
Obviously you think so, since you won’t stop no matter how often you’re asked; but if getting the last word were no big deal, then you could yield it already.
I said there was nothing inherently objectionable about it.
Clearly it is a fairly big deal to me.
(not inherently objectionable != not a big deal)
But you can’t fairly tack on at the end “you’re triggering me” as an insistence that the other person therefore would be indecent to respond to the substance of the arguments you just made.
And you don’t get to presume that someone else’s expression of emotion exists to impugn you. If you had any presumption of good faith to give, you’d back off WITHOUT complaining about how unfair someone else being upset is to YOU.
Fact: I don’t presume that someone else’s expression exists to impugn me. I just said it’s not fair play. I don’t think it was planned as a deliberate tactic.
Although, “here are my arguments X Y and Z for why I’m right, and now you’re triggering me, so if you respond then you’re an asshole” would be a pretty great tactic. I’ll have to remember it.
If you just wanted the conversation to end, then “you’re triggering me and I’m done with this shit” would be perfectly fair. But it fairly can’t be used as a cover to get the last substantive word in.
If you were actually concerned about substantive arguments, and not about who gets to have the last word (which you seem to be fine with, as long as it’s you) then you’d back off the personal inferences and address solely the substance of the argument.
Yes, if, but it’s not either/or with me. I’m concerned about both.
Whatever your substantive grievance is, it doesn’t justify policing other people’s responses to you being an asshole.
1) That depends on what their responses are.
2) I wasn’t being an asshole when I said «And maybe ask yourself. Why are you so determined to justify use of these terms — which you must acknowledge can be used ambiguously, allowing insults about mental illness which are then defended by fallacies of equivocation, surely you have seen this happen — while there already exist more specific words, “irrational, stupid, ignorant, anti-social, harmful, biased, fallacious, bigoted, et cetera”, which can do all the necessary work.»
That’s the same sort of low-key attempt at being as non-confrontational as possible that we generally use here when someone is defending the use of sexist or racist insults, for instance.
3) If merely continuing to respond to substantive arguments makes me an asshole, I don’t give a shit about that. I’d rather be an asshole than leave socially destructive arguments unanswered.
You don’t get to insinuate that they’re only upset as an excuse to dodge the discussion.
I don’t think I did that. I hope I didn’t do that. I agree that would be a bad thing.
It’s not your SUBSTANCE that pisses people off.
It’s apparently both, in this case. It’s most definitely the substance of this:
«And maybe ask yourself. Why are you so determined to justify use of these terms — which you must acknowledge can be used ambiguously, allowing insults about mental illness which are then defended by fallacies of equivocation, surely you have seen this happen — while there already exist more specific words, “irrational, stupid, ignorant, anti-social, harmful, biased, fallacious, bigoted, et cetera”, which can do all the necessary work.»
which was interpreted as substantively calling Giliell an ableist bigot. Not what I intended, but I do acknowledge it’s the kind of thing that comes off as paralipsis. Unfortunately, I’m not aware of a better way to address that kind of determined justification for a particular kind of insult.
You can have as many last words as you want off of me, I really don’t care about engaging you personally over your refusal to disengage from personal attacks.
Oh dear. What personal attacks, exactly?
Richard Austinsays
KL:
It’s part of the path of self-discovery. Soon you’ll be stockpiling canned beans and SPAM in your bunker and writing conspiracy letters to right-wing magazines.
I can shoot a gun rather well. Well, I can shoot a pistol, shotgun, and semi-auto rather well. As long as they have a laser sight, and I’ve got a trainer standing next to me telling me the best methods to shoot.
Center of mass nearly every time, except the few times I was center of head
Note to self, have you back me up on ME multiplayer…
Damn you, Time! Why can’t you be big enough for everything I want?!?
Cassandra Caligaria (Cipher), OMsays
This was posted on the Never Too Early thread late last night (for USians), and I suspect there might be people who want to respond to it but were sleeping when it was posted, so I figured I’d point at it just in case. It’s a request for resources by someone whose mother was just diagnosed with breast cancer. I would respond myself except that I don’t know anything :(
Can you cross play with people from Xbox to PS3? It goes by EA’s servers right? Is that even possible?
/techignorance
waltonsays
I am pleased to say that I have never eaten spam. (And never will, thankfully, what with being vegetarian and all.) As a kid, I think the first I ever heard of it was the famous Monty Python spam song.
(According to the Pfft, 3.8 cans of spam are eaten every second in the United States. Seriously, who’s eating all that spam? And why?)
As for shooting, I learned to handle firearms a little when I was in the OTC, but was never particularly great at it. And I’ve never been shooting for fun. Not my thing.
waltonsays
I haven’t played any games in years (and never owned a console). I used to love SimCity, though. And The Sims.
It’s a goddy-spiritual-woo-woo site, in other words, with huge helpings of nonsense hidden behind a whitewashed storefront of science, apparently pitched at a lowest-common-denominator audience. Picture standing in line at Wal-Mart, and a magazine at knee-level catches your eye with a cover picture of Britney Spears’ belly fat, or the headline “Should You Do It Doggy-Style on the First Date?” — THAT’S what Patheos is like. Only, you know, sciency, and religious-spiritual.
David Marjanovićsays
O hai! Been on a roll, working, threadrupt. Link dump:
Open-access paper on an animal less closely related to us than Tiktaalik but more closely than Eusthenopteron. It’s named Tinirau after “a character of legend in Polynesian culture and traces to islands located at approximately the same latitude as Nevada during the Middle Devonian. According to the Rarotonga and Mangaia Islanders, Tinirau was a half-man, half-fish lord of the ocean creatures [25].”
Finally, about 150,000 people have signed this petition in the few hours since I did…
“Days ago, 16 year-old Amina Filali, raped, beaten and forced to wed her rapist, killed herself — the only way she saw to escape the trap set for her by her rapist and the law. If we act now, we can stop this unspeakable tragedy from happening to anyone else.
Article 475 in Morocco’s penal code allows a rapist to avoid prosecution and a long prison sentence by marrying his victim if she is a minor. Since 2006, the government has promised to strike this down and pass legislation prohibiting violence against women, but it hasn’t happened.
Hundreds of Moroccan protestors are in the streets demanding real reform, turning up the heat on the Prime Minister and heads of other ministries, who write and sponsor bills and the international media has picked up the story. If we ramp up pressure, we can see real progress now. Sign the petition for a comprehensive law to stop violence against women, including repeal of Article 475. When we reach 250,000 signatures, we’ll deliver it directly to the decision makers.”
I think it’s raised an interesting question on Artist/Creator “rights”
The willingness of Muzyka and Bioware to change Mass Effect 3’s ending could be landmark decision. Muzyka hinted more than a few times that the new coda will seek to balance the current “artistic integrity” with fan requests, and will be no easy challenge.
This confuses me to no end. The biggest complaint I have with the ending is that it is artistically bankrupt. It doesn’t fit into the rest of the work and doesn’t share any of the reoccurring themes or motifs.
Kat (speaking of cross-play between XBox and PS3):
I don’t think so :\
Yep. This is the facts. You can’t play between platforms, which is why I asked.
I don’t often do multiplayer. I’m too often disappointed by humanity when I do — far too much homophobia and misogyny in the chatter. It makes me want to punch someone in the face, and I hate getting so emotional I wish violence. But I thought I might seek out Pharyngula folks for MP. I might actually like playing among folks I like and respect.
@Ing, what disappointed you in ME3? It just fucking came out! And I’ve not finished the first one. But I’m interested. If I’d’ve known BSG was going to end so lamely, I wouldn’t’ve bothered.
Play till the end then just make up your own ending. I really thought people were exaggerating but…wow. It’s…it is indeed shit.
We’re talking Shamylan level shit here.
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐsays
A. R,
I’m not sure what my comment has to do with using the words you mentioned inappropriately.
It didn’t, not those particular words.
I was just mentioning that his prose looked a great deal like that of individuals with certain disorders (don’t remember which, it’s been too long since I took abnormal psychology).
And this is playing armchair psychologist. It’s exceptionally useless in the way you’ve done it here, essentially, “this reminds me of some disorder but I don’t know what”. And communication disorders aren’t dangerous; it’s not like he’s threatening anyone, nor himself.
So all you’re doing is publicly speculating on someone’s medical status, which they didn’t invite your opinion on. This is generally considered rude gossip when the topic is recognized as a physical ailment. There’s no reason that someone’s mental health should be specially regarded as everybody’s goddamn business.
I’ve been doggedly filtering what I see about ME3 because I decided to play through the games again. I’m most of the way through 2, and I’m increasingly apprehensive about the last one.
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐsays
John, I’m not real worried about that. Not these days.
Don’t be apprehensive, just…when you see the bright light turn off the monitor and make up your own ending. Right up until the end it was my favorite game, but it’s like the old saying: “When you add a turd to a delicious sandwich it isn’t a delicious sandwich+turd, it ceases to be a delicious sandwich”
(Leaving out spoiler space, because people need warning)
It’s damn close to BSG’s ending. It even jettison’s the themes of ME to for some reason embrace ones from BSG.
Y’know the stupid thing?
BSG could’ve had a great fucking ending, with one tiny little change.
Make Starbuck a Cylon. From a civilization before the others.
That’s it. One simple change, and everything could make sense. I mean, as every good programmer knows, there’s no problem that one level of indirection can’t solve. And that was it.
No stupid god. No mysticism. No, “WTF?!?eleventyone!?!” at the end.
Just good, clean, “Cylons all the way down.”
Perfect.
So to hear that ME folks took an equally fucked lame ending makes me want to abandon it before I’ve even gotten halfway through the first.
Fuck.
I guess I still have the HD Ratchet and Clank reissue to look forward to.
I’ll just give the spoiler bellow
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Shepard after defeating TLM gets into a secret chamber of the citadel where he meets a God Child who is the Reapers creator. The Reapers are made because synthetic life always rebells against their creator so to preserve life God Child created the Reapers to 50,000 years kill everyone and ‘preserve’ them as Reapers. In other words because synthetics will kill everyone he has even WORSE synthetics rain horrible nightmareish hell on people…and save some of them in the form of assimilated cells of a lovecraftian god. Yay? Now Ing, you’re saying, “But You see that the Geth wasn’t a real rebellion!? It was self preservation and Legion seems nice!? And what about EDI she didn’t rebel” and you’d be right but Shepard doesn’t point this otu because….
So anyway the Starchild gives you 3 choices. Either destroy all Synthetic life along with the Reapers (Why? Doesn’t God control them…why would everyone die form it?), Control them (Because no really Shepard YOU’RE not indoctrinated like everyone else who thought they could control them…really *snicker*) or use the MAAAAAAAAAAAAAGIC device to merge organic and synthetic life into a hybrid. What. Either way the Mass relays EXPLODE!? But your choice has an important impact…namely the color of the explosions. The relay system is destroyed, Joker and your crew inexplicably crash land on a jungle planet for an Adam and Eve plot (see what I meant about BSG?) and the entire fleet you assembled is left stranded around Earth…where they presumably starve to death due to how fucked the planet is. Galactic Civilization, the entire setting you fought for is destroyed, you see none of the effects of your actions (no scene of Krogen or Quarian rebuilding or blue children) and Shepard is dead….in the far future a grandfather reveals that it is the legend of THE SHEPARD and gives you a Continue from last save option. Because everyone wants to play more after that?
All right, my droogs, I’m off for a while. I have a wedding to attend, and games to avoid. I’ll check in when I can, but I leave with this: I count on y’all for my sanity. And that is stretching thin these days.
Hey now, the ‘disaster alert’ my state scheduled for this morning just went off at 7:45 pm. With interruptions to my TV, (including the weather channel, which is where I go to look at wx radar), my radio, my phone (I’m a state employee), & my Uni email.
Oh, did I mention the sirens & loud speaker trucks screeching “this is not an emergency!” ?
In the event of an actual emergency I would find a way to just kiss my ass goodbye.
Here’s the thing. Maybe it’s my naivete or denial…but I think this is intentional. I think we’re going to have to pay for the real ending, and that that was the plan all along. Not sure whether that would make it better or worse.
Nutmegsays
Richard Austin:
apparently, playing a lot of video games can train you up on some real-life skills
(warning: shooting/hunting discussion)
Ah, so this is what I’m doing wrong. Lots of real-life shooting + no video games = Nutmeg is a bad shot.
I’m sure it has nothing to do with me being appallingly bad at spatial relations. ;) Or with my only reference for comparison, my dad, being a ridiculously good shot.
Fortunately, with ducks, it’s pretty much a case of you hit it or you don’t. In my experience, injured birds are usually the result of hunters taking shots at the edge of their range.
(shooting/hunting discussion ends)
chigau:
Almost every meal I’ve shared with Inuit in Northern Canada included SPAM
You’ve mentioned travels up north before. If you don’t mind me asking, what takes you up there?
I actually love hymns and sacred music, on a strictly aesthetic level, and it’s something I really missed at first when I left the Anglican Church.
Oh dear me, I agree: Perhaps the only thing I miss about church is having an excuse to sing in public, and the only reason I’m still willing to go to church on Christmas is the old, familiar carols.
BTW, congrats on your scholarship… but if it means you’ll soon skive off back to merry old England, I feel even more urgent to have a meetup before you go.
Also, congrats and hugs to others as needed; I’m (to paraphrase Mitt Romney) severely threadrupt.
Ing, congratulations to you and Partner. Nigel, congratulations to your daughter and soon-to-be son-in-law. Walton, congratulations on your scholarship.
Ogvorbis, you’re really having a shit week, aren’t you? I’m sorry. I hope it gets better.
Also, you wrongly identified the giant hole that goes all the way down to hell. That would be Colorado Springs.
CC, my sympathies. It sucks when you’re in a bad headspace and you have to go out amongst the throngs of humanity anyway. Also my sympathies on having to put up with Whole Foods. I hope the other things clear up as well.
Sympathy to Chigau and Starstuff as well.
Esteleth:
FWIW, an organ played well is amazing.
/tries without success not to revert to ten years old
I’m one of those bad atheists who happens to like traditional gospel, either African-American or bluegrass/old-time. Churchy music has always left me cold.
Nigel: I didn’t know there were any other Nanci Griffith fans around here. Though I have to admit, I prefer her older, folk-based material, with exceptions such as her duet with Darius Rucker on “Gulf Coast Highway.” Which gave me chills.
Kitty, I’ve been to the shooting range once, with relatives. I don’t find guns scary, but, although I can understand the appeal of hitting targets and the geekery around specialized instruments such as firearms, I just don’t find them all that interesting, either. Of course, I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn in daylight.
Never having heard of Alexander of Abonoteichus until Helena Constantine mentioned him on the Carrier vs. Ehrman thread, I went and looked him up. LOL. Nothing new under the sun, is there?
Silisays
walton,
Congrats on your scholarship and diagnosis.
You may come in from the stoop now.
Nutmegsays
Ms. Daisy Cutter:
I give you A Dramatic Reading of “Fifty Shades of Grey” by Hungover Batman, which is NSFW
Oh. My. Non-existent. God.
The link turned out to be to a reading of “Fifty Shades of Grey” by the Cookie Monster, which was even better. I could not stop laughing.
That was terrible writing, even worse than Twilight. I think that just listening to it moved me about half a point closer to gay on the Kinsey scale.
So, like BSG, it’s worth the ride, in spite of itself?
OK. I’ll follow it out ’til the end. I’ve been enjoying the fuck out of it so far.
Thanks.
Yeah just don’t expect any closure.
Esteleth, Who is Totally Not a Dog or Ferretsays
Daisy,
Have you ever listened to shape note singing?
Like said above, 90% (if not more) of it is hymns. Most of it is in English, as it is a tradition that came out of Appalachia. Clicky for a rather shitty recording of people shape-note singing (of course) “Amazing Grace.”
Now, when it is performed, the audience sits in the middle of the singers – imagine being surrounded by that. :D
waltonsays
BTW, congrats on your scholarship… but if it means you’ll soon skive off back to merry old England, I feel even more urgent to have a meetup before you go.
Well, I’ll be around till the end of May. I’d be happy to meet up – either in Boston, or I could travel by bus and meet you in Hartford or New Haven if that’s easier? (My knowledge of the local geography is a bit on the vague side.)
juliansays
*reads Ing’s ME3 spoiler*
Really?!
Fuck that. Might as well just get back into fighting games.
The whole reason I kept playing was to see what happens to Jane but if that’s what I’m looking at, screw it.
janinesays
Nigel, I know that you are long gone by this time but I have to respond.
Oooh, Nutmeg, you’re an Australian, aren’t you? I give you one word: AICSA.
Esteleth, Who is Totally Not a Dog or Ferretsays
Walton you’re stateside until the end of May?
I’ll be in Western Mass the weekend or the 20th (near Springfield). Not too far from Cambridge, really. I’m not sure if you’d be willing/able to meet me halfway (or maybe a Horde-wide meepup in Boston could be arranged), but I’d be up for something.
Nutmegsays
Alethea: AICSA looks cool, but I’m actually Canadian. And my singing voice is so weak that the only place I could sing was a little church full of old people who were just glad to have someone under 70 in the choir. That’s okay – there are other ways to enjoy music.
Congrats to both nigel and Walton! I hope the bride and groom have a long and happy life together. And, scholarships rule! Don’t waste it.
More congrats to Ing and Parnter! Really, after the BS you’ve been through, Ing, this has got to be one hell of an upper.
Og – refresher course indeed. It’s weird how the brain will randomly decide to throw one at you, sometimes when it’s the last thing you need.
———————————
Not as down as I was last night. Might be because that low point kick-started something in my head and now the beginnings of my first poem in a long time are sitting on a thumb drive. Maybe this Saturday evening can be my wallow time, if this is what can come of it.
I didn’t know there were any other Nanci Griffith fans around here. Though I have to admit, I prefer her older, folk-based material, with exceptions such as her duet with Darius Rucker on “Gulf Coast Highway.” Which gave me chills.
Fuck. Yes.
I’ve been in love with Nanci since Love at the Five and Dime. I’m a huge fan, though not nearly as big as my wife.
Trouble in the Fields brings me to tears almost every time.
And I think Darius did the best duet of Gulf Coast Highway. It fuckin’ kills me.
Oops, sorry, Nutmeg. Australian, Canadian, so similar, eh?
Nutmegsays
Very similar. Although friends who’ve been to your side of the world tell me that Americans are like Australians, and Canadians are like Kiwis. I don’t know how that holds up in your experience. We both spell things the right way, though.
Esteleth,
A dood that’s obsessed with text but hasn’t wised up to the notion that, sometimes, names have meanings? Passion should never be that shallow.
Esteleth 479: I was under the impression that this use of “cockle” was derivative of “coakle”‘ or like, a coal burning stove. It makes more sense to warm that kind of cockle than a mollusk. However, I do have a soft, sub-mantle-type place in my heart for molluscs, and give a great big damn about my carbon footprint, however metaphorical. So from now on, when I reference metaphorical cockles in my own thorax, they will be in reference only to cardioid bivalves.
You have all been alerted.
Of course this will be of no relevance at all, as I am heartless.
Hello, all.
Totally shitty night. My stupid brain decided that I needed a night of olfactory hallucinations — burnt plastic, burnt metal and decomp. I rally hat this shit.
My credit card and travel shit is sitting on my desk again. Boss and I will audit it today.
I get to go have my hearing checked. I wonder how I go about getting a copy of the hearing test I got when I was discharged from the Army?
Anyway, happy Thursday.
Oh, I know. That was an attempt (failed) at irony. Or humour. I’m in northeast PA and we are six weeks ahead on flowers (and allergies). My heating bill likes this. My wildland fire part is scared.
Again, that was a failed attempt at irony.
Possibly the warmest ever. I really was trying to be ironic. I failed across the board. I impress me.
=====
Nerd:
Your love and caring are an example to all. I second John M. and admire you.
Just noticed this^. You are still a mammal, right? Just wanna make sure I’m not conversing with a [shudder] amphibian.
Too bad about the laptop, but don’t you keep your briefs in, like, your dresser?
You have an odd definition ‘cheer me up.’
Urgh, I want a new day.
So, I have a mother who cannot accept that I have opinions, interests and hobbies of my own and a father who can’t accept my point of view on how I’m feeling. Actually, I think it’s more the case that it doesn’t matter.
By now I’m actually glad that this broke to light because I was fucking up college and not when fucking up my family because I think that fucking up was inevitable.
Also kindergarten called that #1 has very red eyes and although it could be an allergy there was also a case of trachoma and could I please pick her up and let the pediatrician decide?
But first of all I’m going to have a cuppa coffee.
On the plus side I had 2.5 nice hours with gran and the little one in the sun and I even remembered the sun lotion.
And the next Doctor Who companion is another pretty young white woman. Maybe it’s just that I’m in a bad mood, because we did have the older Donna and the nonwhite Martha, but somehow this pisses me off.
Walton and I were talking about the Perry decision on Prop 8, and I thought his explanation would be useful and good news for the Horde.
(This was last week when he hadn’t been commenting, which is why I said can I go post that to TET rather than you should go post that to TET. I just don’t check my email often enough. But he’s probably in class right now, so I’ll pretend he’s still gone. Here, then, is a communiqué from the elusive Walton.)
+++++
«Re Perry, it was a very narrow and very carefully-reasoned decision, and very much grounded in the Supreme Court’s existing jurisprudence. Reinhardt, for the majority, opted to decide the case on the basis that the state may not take away a pre-existing right from a class of citizens without a legitimate reason for doing so. They applied the principle in Romer v. Evans that the Equal Protection Clause prevents minority groups from being targeted for the deprivation of a pre-existing right without a legitimate reason. (In the words of Kennedy’s majority opinion in Romer, it “singled out a class of citizens for disfavored legal status” without any legitimate reason.)
On the facts of the Perry case, Reinhardt emphasized the fact that the only legal effect of Proposition 8 was to deny same-sex couples the right to use the term “marriage” to describe their relationships; they could still enter into “registered domestic partnerships” under state law, adopt children, etc. But he also explicitly acknowledged the social, cultural and emotional significance of the term “marriage”, and found that marriage is “the principal manner in which the State attaches respect and dignity to the highest form of a committed relationship and to the individuals who have entered into it.” As he put it, quotably, “a rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but to the couple desiring to enter into a committed lifelong relationship, a marriage by the name of ‘registered domestic partnership’ does not.”
Reinhardt’s opinion dismissed all of the usual arguments that were trotted out in favour of Prop. 8 – that it furthered the state’s interest in “childrearing and responsible procreation”, “protecting religious liberty”, “preventing children being taught about same-sex marriage in classrooms”, etc. – simply on the ground that Prop. 8 had no discernible effect whatsoever on any of these things; all it did was to take the word “marriage” away from same-sex couples, and there was no possible rational basis on which it could be said to advance any of the state’s purported interests. (He also made explicitly clear, though, that this wasn’t meant to imply that Prop. 8 would be constitutional if it had gone further in taking rights away from same-sex couples; rather, it would only be in those circumstances that it would be appropriate to consider the legitimacy of any of the state’s purported rationales for denying them rights. As it was, it was simply irrelevant.) As such, he concluded that Prop. 8 failed rational basis review; it was thus unnecessary to reach the question of whether gay and lesbian people should be treated as a suspect classification so that heightened scrutiny would apply. (This is, again, exactly the same as Kennedy’s reasoning in Romer.)
It’s very narrowly-reasoned, and very much targeted at Kennedy. If SCOTUS hears the Perry case, I think they’ll affirm the Ninth Circuit’s decision by a majority (although of course they might simply deny cert in the first place). If that happens, though, it will establish only that a state can’t take away marriage rights from gay couples where those rights have previously existed; it isn’t necessarily authority for the proposition that all states are required to legalize same-sex marriage, which remains an open question. Still, it’s an important step. (If it gets to SCOTUS, Scalia will definitely dissent; his dissenting opinion in Romer was really rather nasty and homophobic, even by his standards. I don’t think his view has changed since then.)»
And here’s a selection from the decision. (PDF which resists copy&paste, reasonably well formatted HTML.)
+++++
By emphasizing Proposition 8’s limited effect, we do not mean to minimize the harm that this change in the law caused to same-sex couples and their families. To the contrary, we emphasize the extraordinary significance of the official designation of `marriage.’ That designation is important because `marriage’ is the name that society gives to the relationship that matters most between two adults. A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but to the couple desiring to enter into a committed lifelong relationship, a marriage by the name of `registered domestic partnership’ does not. The word `marriage’ is singular in connoting “a harmony in living,” “a bilateral loyalty,” and “a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred.” Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 486 (1965). As Proponents have admitted, “the word `marriage’ has a unique meaning,” and “there is a significant symbolic disparity between domestic partnership and marriage.” It is the designation of `marriage’ itself that expresses validation, by the state and the community, and that serves as a symbol, like a wedding ceremony or a wedding ring, of something profoundly important. See id. at 971.
We need consider only the many ways in which we encounter the word `marriage’ in our daily lives and understand it, consciously or not, to convey a sense of significance. We are regularly given forms to complete that ask us whether we are “single” or “married.” Newspapers run announcements of births, deaths, and marriages. We are excited to see someone ask, “Will you marry me?”, whether on bended knee in a restaurant or in text splashed across a stadium Jumbotron. Certainly it would not have the same effect to see “Will you enter into a registered domestic partnership with me?”. Groucho Marx’s one-liner, “Marriage is a wonderful institution. . . but who wants to live in an institution?” would lack its punch if the word `marriage’ were replaced with the alternative phrase. So too with Shakespeare’s “A young man married is a man that’s marr’d,” Lincoln’s “Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory,” and Sinatra’s “A man doesn’t know what happiness is until he’s married. By then it’s too late.” We see tropes like “marrying for love” versus “marrying for money” played out again and again in our films and literature because of the recognized importance and permanence of the marriage relationship. Had Marilyn Monroe’s film been called How to Register a Domestic Partnership with a Millionaire, it would not have conveyed the same meaning as did her famous movie, even though the underlying drama for same-sex couples is no different. The name `marriage’ signifies the unique recognition that society gives to harmonious, loyal, enduring, and intimate relationships. See Knight v. Super. Ct., 128 Cal.App.4th 14, 31 (2005) (“[M]arriage is considered a more substantial relationship and is accorded a greater stature than a domestic partnership.”); cf. Griswold, 381 U.S. at 486.
The official, cherished status of `marriage’ is distinct from the incidents of marriage, such as those listed in the California Family Code. The incidents are both elements of the institution and manifestations of the recognition that the State affords to those who are in stable and committed lifelong relationships. We allow spouses but not siblings or roommates to file taxes jointly, for example, because we acknowledge the financial interdependence of those who have entered into an “enduring” relationship. The incidents of marriage, standing alone, do not, however, convey the same governmental and societal recognition as does the designation of `marriage’ itself. We do not celebrate when two people merge their bank accounts; we celebrate when a couple marries. The designation of `marriage’ is the status that we recognize. It is the principal manner in which the State attaches respect and dignity to the highest form of a committed relationship and to the individuals who have entered into it.
+++++
Quotable quotes for the next time someone tries to say atheists should leave marriage only to the religious, or gay people should leave marriage only to the heterosexual religious.
Ogvorbis:
Wow! You too? I don’t have this, but my wife is always complaining about cigarette smoke. She knows it’s not really there, but she says it’s like being right next to an active smoker.
What’s up with that? Is it a kind of synesthesia or something?
Also, Ogvorbis, sorry about your shitty night.
well in Og’s case I believe it stems from his post-9/11 cleanup experience. Probably not the same as your wife’s cigarette thing.
Nah. Just PTSD (still officially undiagnosed) from working in Manhattan a little over ten years ago. About every three to six months, some part of my little brain decides I need a refresher course in man’s inhumanity.
Ah, hell, Og. That sucks. I didn’t know PTSD could trigger stuff like olfactory hallucinations. I always associated it with the reactions of my father-in-law, who jumps under the table when a car backfires outside.
I’m not sure why you need a refresher course right now. I’m getting emotionally tapped out myself from all the terrible events happening or being disclosed. Castrations, murdering of teens in the street, sabre-rattling over Iran.
And so on.
Ah, fuck it. This is about you, not me.
I hope it’s a transient thing, these shitty nights like that.
More cheerful news (because, fuck, I need as much cheerful news as I can get), my daughter is getting married this weekend, in Oregon. I’ll be in the Portland area starting tomorrow night. I’ll be busy until Monday, but then I’ll be around until Saturday the 31st.
If anyone wants to get together for a beer let me know.
No, not really. This is about us. This thread is a community so, while we may discuss what is happening in one person’s life, it is still about us.
Congrats, Nigel! That is wonderful news.
Thanks. That means a lot.
I was mostly talking about my post, which was really just to say, “That sucks, I wish our minds didn’t fuck with us like that, and it makes me sad.”
Also, now I have to just accept what I find on the internet as an explanation for my wife’s hallucinatory smoke.
She’s possessed by a ghost.
partner has finished their grad exams. Praise for them plz. Now we just have to plan the matrimony ceramony…I need to get measurements retaken so they can cut the leather in time!
*hugs* for Ogvorbis. Those dreams sound horrible.
====
You overestimate how hard I work. :-p Though I do have lots to do today.
In other news, I was just awarded a sizeable scholarship for the Bar Professional Training Course for next year, which is good news (I couldn’t have afforded to do it otherwise). Still uncertain about my career prospects, and worried about my student debts* and so forth, but if it works out I really want to be a barrister, specializing in immigration and asylum. I believe it’s the right thing to do.
(*I’m at Harvard on a scholarship, but also had to take a supplemental loan to cover the full cost, on top of my existing undergraduate debt.)
Thanks!
I think so. It’s really what she wants. She’s been through a few boyfriends looking for one she likes enough to marry. She’s only been going out with this particular guy for about 6 months or so, but she’s known him for, what, about three years or so.
I haven’t met him yet (stuck half-a-continent away). But she loves him, and that’s enough for me.
In any case, this marriage had better last. I’m skipping the Reason Rally for this.
walton:
Damn straight it’s good news. Congratulations! It is well-deserved.
Wow. That is admirable. I can imagine no finer advocate.
I knew protoWife for only about 3 months before I proposed. We still waited two more years until I graduated to get married, but I knew she was the one. And she, apparently, knew the same thing. So here it is almost 22 years since we were married, we are both completely different people, and we’re still in the puppy love stage.
I hope it works for her. And spouse.
You’ll never hear me accusing a creationist of making sense, but this certainly takes the cake for absurdity.
I can’t think of anything off-hand that better demonstrates the dangers of being indoctrinated by misinformation than this.
Oggie:
Sorry to hear about the PTSD-stink. Hugs and chocolate for you.
Gah. Borked my blockquoting.
Everything from *waves tentacle* on is mine.
Oh, and Oggie:
You’re making me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside. ♥
Hello horde.
Og,
that sucks hardcore. What’s up with “not officially diagnosed”? Can you get a decent shrink to work through this?
I love the term “protoWife” by the way. I shall start referring to boyfriend as “protoHusband”. It makes me happy to hear you two are still so much in love. My parents broke up about 23 years after they married so it gives me hope that this is different for other people and might be different for me, too.
nigel,
hooray for the happy couple!
Thanks, nigel. And congratulations to your daughter!
Og:
Very cool story. It’s strange how relationships change over time. The stories of the ones that grow stronger over time make me all squidgy inside.
My wife and I were together 10 years before we got married. I was pretty sure she and I were long-term compatible after just a few months, but I’d rushed into a marriage once before, and that didn’t turn out too good. (With the very notable exception of my daughter, who is about as good as it gets.)
We’ve been married, what, 9 or 10 years now. So not quite 22 (plus 2, for waiting). But it’s just as good now as it was at the beginning.
My daughter even loves her Wicked Stepmother now. Took her a while, but since the spawn became an adult, she talks to her Wicked more than she talks to me.
I recall somewhere with the research into the chemistry of love that the infatuation stage either drops off after some months, or in a certain population persists.
I haven’t really seen Jenna-Louise Coleman acting in anything before, but if she’s a good enough actress, I’m fine with it. Especially since Doctor Who has an overall decent track record when it comes to portraying non white, older and even gay characters (compared to a lot of other series anyway). I’ll give the makers of the show a pass on this one.
Zugswang
Damn, that’s scary.
Was kind of hoping for a younger male companion this time. Be nice to see a male in worshipful loyalty to the Doctor.
True. Having Rory around was halfway there, though. And Jack Harkness was pretty good. But, yeah, a male companion would be cool for a change.
Would have been very good if they could do it as a playful nudge nudge wink wink to their fans of “Yes this is your stand in” as long as they don’t go Weasly.
Ogvorbis
Urgh, I’m sorry
We’re going to make chocolate lollies, shall I make some for you, too?
walton
Congratulation on the scholarship
Nigel
Cheers for your daughter.
And maybe your wife does smell cigarettes. Some people have pretty sensitive noses.
Ing
The best for the two of you, too.
Jack Harkness was pretty cool, but his attitude towards the Doctor was “Hey, I wanna bone him” and less “Wow!” The latter seems to be the attitude that most of the female companions have. Also, the treatment of Jack’s blatant sexuality stands in stark contrast to the sexuality of the women on the show.
My irritation at the fact that the only queer character is a character who will sleep with anything and is a horndog is another rant.
Sidenote/OT
I have crazy sensitive hearing at least in one end of the audible range. I can hear high pitched noises most people can’t. My old college room mate used to leave their TV on, with no cable input and it would keep me up at night because I could hear the high pitched screech of the screen from anywhere in the apartment. Sitting under certain old TV’s at TGI Friday like places are unbearable because it is like someone blowing a consistent never ending shrill whistle in my ear. And no one else hears these things.
See I liked that about Jack because I saw the Trope they were playing with. I remember someone saying that Jack comes from a time where Kirk Diplomacy is the standard.
I think his return in Utopia/Sound of Drums did better for showing his idolizing of the Doctor, having founded his own team to follow in his footsteps. That said I loved when 9 would flirt back with him.
Ing, I also recognized the trope they were playing with. I also recognized that while I saw the they were playing with the trope, many people wouldn’t recognize it as a playing. I have talked with people who saw them as doing the trope straight (no pun intended), and I find this aggravating.
And why is it that we can’t have a depiction of a same-sex couple? DW is generally pretty good at sneaking in subversive shit (like the shots of PoC running around minding their own business in Elizabethan London, interracial couples, etc), so why is the only queerness a guy who who will fuck anything?
Thanks for the well-wishes for my spawn and her chosen partner, everyone. I really do appreciate.
Also, too: y’all are the best. As I told my wife (who sometimes wishes she had a church-like congregation of atheists, but doesn’t like hanging out with people*) — this place is better than church. I can show up when I want, and I don’t have to listen to everyone singing sucky songs off-key to a poorly-played organ.
Praise Cthulhu!
* If she attended a church, maybe she could get someone to exorcise her and she can stop complaining about cigarette smells.
I was raised in a family that (whatever our day jobs have been) has always had a collective hard-on for music.
Says something that my grandparents left a church not over theology but because the organist sucked.
This trope (bad church music) is something that honestly never occurred to me until I was an adult, as my family always has attended churches that had good music.
FWIW, an organ played well is amazing. It is to my continuing distress that organs are considered exclusively “churchy” and not recognized as the tour de force that they are.
Ogvorbis,
Damn, that sure sucks. Hugs, Jellybabies, cupcakes and a cute baby animal of a species of your chosing are coming your way.
Esteleth,
Jack Harkness was pretty cool, but his attitude towards the Doctor was “Hey, I wanna bone him” and less “Wow!”
I disagree. Jack may have come of like this at first, but certainly when he returned (or when he mentioned the Doctor in Torchwood) he did seem to marvel at him, like any companion who meets the Doctor.
Ing,
It would be nice if they could pull it off. Wouldn’t be easy to do, though?
Okay… I missed a blockquote up there. Oops.
Music is the one thing I miss about church. I’m sure that lots of people would think the music I was exposed to was terrible, and some of it definitely was. But I like to sing, and I can only keep in tune if there are other people singing too. Church was good for that, so I wasn’t picky about the music. I still have a soft spot for old hymns, even if the words bother me now.
***
I really got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Anyone have links to Awesomeness on the Internet (TM) to improve the day?
I think it’s because she’s the one right after Amy, and looks so similar. My mind went “Rose-Amy-new girl”. I liked Donna because she was definitely NOT the “ingenue who falls in love with the Doctor” type. Martha was at least nonwhite, but was still young and in love with the Doctor (and interestingly, was the only one of the three young ones that he didn’t love back). I’d just like something completely different.
Esteleth: I actually love hymns and sacred music, on a strictly aesthetic level, and it’s something I really missed at first when I left the Anglican Church.* I often find myself in the awkward position of enjoying both the music and the poetry of a hymn, while simultaneously finding the sentiments expressed either obviously false or downright obnoxious.
(*The traditional kind of hymns and sacred music, that is. There are few things more annoying than contemporary Christian “praise bands” and the like. And Graham Kendrick. Ugh.)
I quite like the Unitarian Universalist hymnal – which keeps some of the traditional hymns, but often with modifications to the lyrics to get rid of (a) obnoxious gender-exclusionary language and (b) theological claims which most UUs don’t believe. And there are other UU hymns which adapt the tunes from traditional hymns but set different words to them.
Finally catching up a bit –
hugs for everyone, especially Og today. That can throw you off for awhile, I’m sure.
And congrats nigel! I hope it’s a fun party and that they’re very happy together.
Nutmeg – would Otters who look like Benedict Cumberbatch count?
walton @545: I had the same experience. I actually love Plainchant and some of the older Catholic stuff too. Odd, I know.
Totally agreed, Walton.
I was raised Presbyterian, and lots of the old hymns are just gorgeous.
Modern “praise” music is just horrid, both musically and thematically. Never have gotten the point (theological or otherwise) of endless discussions of blood.
Icky.
In other news, the Estelethmobile is sick, so I’m currently hanging out at the mechanics.
Meh. That was $200 I was hoping to spend elsewhere.
Praise to partner-of-Ing!
Now. About that matrimonial leather…?
Not primary characters, but there were other gay couples making an appearance in the latest series of Dr Who. Very briefly the gay marine couple, and the interspecies lesbian couple with the swords.
Then there was the alternate world version of Micky earlier on who was with another guy…
So they’re there.
And I would just like to state that I think so far of all the companions in the New Who Rory is by far my favourite.
But until we find out what her character is like, I’m reserving judgement on the new companion, because basing it purely on appearance is on the shallow side.
In theory…just in theory…If I complained that my taxes were too low, would anyone here feel compelled to track me down and kill me? If it’s more than one, can you do it together so I can meet several Pharynguloids in real life before dying?
Maybe I should take the old libertarian advice and donate more to charity. If only there were a charity I could contribute to that worked on multiple problems, that could move money from one issue to another as needed, that was ready to respond to disasters before they happened rather than just gathering money after they occurred, that was large enough to tackle really major problems like public health problems or transportation, that was even in principle responsive to all citizens regardless of race, gender, beliefs, etc, that would take the money out of my account without making a lot of fuss or sending me a bunch of spam, yet would allow me to contact leaders of the charity as needed to discuss issues I have…but where could I find an organization like that?
C-SPAN Q&A with Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Neer
Esteleth:
I read this line during the organ intro the Nanci Griffith and Hootie and the Blowfish cover of Vic Chesnutt’s Gravity of the Situation. Very cool timing.
Walton:
Congrats on the scholarship.
All:
Thanks for the commiseration.
I have seen, now, three psychiatrists and one psychologist. All have stated that there are PTSD-like symptoms but have resisted actually writing that down as the diagnosis.
Is this normal? I mean, fuck, it’s been 10 1/2 years and it still keeps reccurring at 3 to 4 month intervals, sometimes with an external trigger, sometimes without.
My conclusion? My subconscious hates me.
Sorry.
Interesting.
My wife pointed me to a very interesting article in The Atlantic about the White Savior Industrial Complex.
Summary: it’s about validating privilege more than helping other nations or people.
I’ll have to think on this.
Dianne:
Oxfam and Amnesty International fit most of those criteria,* and are worthy recipients, should you be inclined to donate to them. Both have an extensive enough worldwide infrastructure that they can tackle a range of issues and prepare for crises before they occur. I’m a member of Amnesty, and though they’re not perfect, I’m happy to support them and promote their work; they’re undoubtedly (along with Human Rights Watch) the most visible and effective global human rights NGO, and they work on an incredible range of issues worldwide: women’s reproductive rights, opposing the death penalty, the rights of political dissidents, the rights of refugees and asylum-seekers, and so forth.
(*Except for the “not sending you a bunch of spam” criterion; sadly, in my experience, most charities will respond to even a small donation with a flurry of leaflets, magazines and thank-you notes. This always worries me.)
And, unlike the US government, at least they won’t spend any of your money on invading and bombing foreign countries, jailing people in huge numbers for minor drug offences, funding a growing security-industrial complex, violently abusing immigrants, detaining people without trial and torturing them, policing women’s bodies, or committing human rights abuses at home and abroad. Which is always a plus. Don’t get me wrong: government is necessary, you’re obviously right that some objectives can only be achieved by government action, and I agree that taxes on the wealthy should be higher; but I wouldn’t exactly say that most governments spend their money better, dollar-for-dollar, than the most effective NGOs do.
(Of course anyone can set up an organization and call it a “human rights NGO”, and there are some pretty dodgy ones out there, including some that are well-intentioned but cause harm; I’d stay well away from International Justice Mission, for instance. But I digress.)
I actually make this complaint regularly. My total tax rate (property, local, state and federal income tax) is around 11%. And every level of government has so little money that it can no longer effectively do the job it is supposed to do which feeds the morons who claim that government is inefficient and we need to cut taxes so it will become efficient.
We used to have one of those. I think it is now in a bathtub awaiting the Mitts of Romney.
Oggie, maybe this link will help w/ the medical records:
http://www.va.gov/vaforms/medical/pdf/vha-10-5345-fill.pdf
And maybe this has something for you too:
https://www.myhealth.va.gov/index.html
Ogvorbis:
I think they mean “efficient” in the same way a corpse is efficient — you no longer have to feed it.
Yep, I think that’s sometimes true. And there are times when well-intentioned-but-clueless activism actually ends up really hurting the very people it’s meant to help. The article you linked mentions Nicholas Kristof, who is a good example; Kristof has worked, among other things, with International Justice Mission, a religious anti-trafficking charity which works with local police to “rescue” sex workers from brothels in the developing world. Unfortunately, this can have very bad consequences for some of the people thus “rescued”, with detention, deportation for undocumented sex workers, and in many cases brutality and abuse by police.
The lesson: it’s important to listen to the voices of the actual people for whom one claims to be working, rather than forcing things on them based on one’s own (privileged) ideas of what’s “best” for them.
Wow. That’s… very low, in comparison with back home.
I always wonder, though, about the total financial burden on the average American middle-class family when one factors in both taxes and health insurance premiums. In Britain, taxes are significantly higher, but most people don’t have or need private health insurance, which is a pretty big difference for the average family.
Hi Thread!
Oh, so much romance in the air! Congrats to everyone getting married <3 *scatters white rose petals all over the parlor carpet*
And hugs to all with a less than perfect day.
I'm in the middle of trying to plan some business-related travel. My options at the moment are 1) attending a meeting in Germany, near Cologne, one bloody week AFTER the EAC, or 2) a meeting in Sunnyvale, CA sometime in May.
What's this Sunnyvale like? Anyone from near there?
Re: taxes
We pay too much and too little.
First of all, the amount we pay for the money we earn is insane.
Even with Mr.’s decent but not exorbitant salary and me making peanuts taxed for a couple, we’re in one of the top tax groups.
Why? because our government just doesn’t take infaltion out of the tax-tables.
And then there’s the dividend we get for the shares we have. Since Mr. has been buying shares of the company he works for via a special employes’ program for 25 years, that’s a large amount of shares and more money than I make by teaching evening classes.
And we pay a ridiculous amount of taxes on that. First we get a generous “free amount” and the rest is taxed with 25%
We’re profiting a tiny bit from this injust system but it stinks that you have to pay much more for the money you earned by actually doing something than for the money you earned because you had money in the first place.
What about Doctors without Borders?
Ah, no. The German meeting is a week BEFORE the EA convention.
Either way, I’m buggered.
Sailor:
Thanks for the pdf. Where would I send it?
And don’t forget the costs of higher education. Girl’s college, tuition alone, is $32k per year. Boy is at a state school and pays around $9k a year. Which is a huge unseen tax for those trying to keep their children in the middle class.
Well, in Britain, with the recent tripling of tuition fees for undergrads, and dramatic cuts to public funding for higher education, we’re going down the American road in that respect. British universities are trying to adapt by (a) begging alumni for donations and (b) selling their souls to to rich donors, but it seems higher education is really going to suffer for the next few years. We still do have a fairly generous system of government-funded student loans for undergrads, though, which is much better than the US situation.
Danielhaven gets suspiciously comprehensible when he decides to be bigoted and ableist.
That’s exactly correct, walton.
In my mind, there are four models of tax/government service ratios.
First, there’s the high/high model – high taxes support a high level of government service, in the form of health care, social safety nets, etc. Many Western European nations follow this model, which is better known as “socialism.”
Second, there’s the low/low model – low taxes together with few government services. This is libertarianism, basically.
Third, there’s the high/low model – high taxes with few government services. This tends to show up in dictatorships – the taxes are lining the pockets of the rulers.
Fourth, there’s the middle/middle – mid-level taxes with mid-level government services (this might be a patchy social safety net, or a partially privatized system).
The American system in many ways is a hybrid – we have shockingly low taxes (especially on business and the super-rich), not bad government services (health care is the big hole), and a ridiculous level of military spending. As has been pointed out many, many times, if American military spending were halved, we would (1) still have the most well-funded military in the world and (2) be able to afford an excellent single-payer health care and social system to rival Sweden – all without raising taxes. This is largely because despite our (overall) low taxes, the US is still quite wealthy – we have a high tax base. If the economy picked up a bit, we’d be doing even better.
The other thing, as Ogvorbis said, is the fact that the GOP has successfully convinced many people that the government is incapable of managing something like a single-payer system successfully, without huge waste (*cough*Medicare*cough*). This is because of their long-standing habit of slashing budgets while maintaining (or increasing) obligations, then complaining that a given office doesn’t work well.
When Grover Norquist says that his goal is to make government small enough to “drown in a bathtub,” he (1) is not joking and (2) is not using hyperbole. The libertarian dream state has a government that serves two functions and two functions only: international immigration and foreign policy (which of course means military policy). They fundamentally do not acknowledge that the federal government has any other role. The other thing to remember is that this is not a new ideology – libertarians complained that the Constitution is too federalist when it came up for ratification in the 1790s, and much of their rhetoric would not look out of place coming from Paulites.
Giliell,
Too quick, obviously.
It’s no good to just say “language doesn’t work like that”, because sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.
The various words for gay men, for instance, “could” develop in different directions independently, but for the most part they don’t. And they don’t because they’re all used with the same referent, which is viewed negatively by most of the population. So we have exactly one word, gay, which is generally permissible for use by straight people, though never as an insult, and nearly all the other words are insults per se.
If words just sort of “develop independently” of their referents, we would not expect to see such congruent patterns like this.
So, what do you claim is the new referent of these words, which is somehow not mental illness?
We know that mad is actively used as a referent for mental illness. Indeed, when Ing proposed “mad as a hatter” above, it was with clear awareness of the relation to mental illness, albeit with the hope that since the most specific usage referred to a particular illness rarely seen today, it wouldn’t now be widely offensive. There was no lack of awareness about the relation, though.
Same with “nutty”, it was proposed explicitly as a possibly-less-offensive replacement for crazy. And nutty was always a slang term for crazy; it’s not even like it’s an older diagnostic term which has over time allegedly lost some relationship to its previous referent.
These aren’t words like “git” or “punk”, about which we at Pharyngula have seen real surprise on the part of intelligent adults to learn that they also refer to paternal illegitimacy and receptive male homosexuality. No one here is surprised when they see “nutter” being used interchangeably with “insane”.
So, what do you claim is the new referent of these words? Nutty like what? Mad like what?
And maybe ask yourself. Why are you so determined to justify use of these terms — which you must acknowledge can be used ambiguously, allowing insults about mental illness which are then defended by fallacies of equivocation, surely you have seen this happen — while there already exist more specific words, “irrational, stupid, ignorant, anti-social, harmful, biased, fallacious, bigoted, et cetera”, which can do all the necessary work.
It looks for all the world like you want insults which (at least) double as referents for mental illness, and you won’t be satisfied with anything else.
My total tax burden last year would be around 27% if you count my retirement contributions as “tax-free” and about 31% if you take them off the table (since they’re really just tax-deferred).
But I’m not really the average American household: last year was an anomaly, as I had two jobs for most of the year for a combined income that put me in the 90th percentile. That’s not likely to happen again in the near future.
My mom said she and my step-dad had an effective of about 12%, but they’re both ex-IRS people and are very good at playing by the book: every other year, their effective tax rate is about 6%. So, we can call it an average of 9%.
Indeed. And one of the things I find really frustrating is that libertarians should, if they actually bothered to apply their own free-market ideas honestly and consistently, be supporting immigrants’ rights and open-borders immigration. And some do; Ayn Rand was in favour of open borders, for instance, and some libertarian publications like Reason magazine take a pro-immigration editorial stance.
But we don’t see any support for immigrants’ rights from libertarians, in practice. Ron Paul, who seems to have made himself the de facto spokesperson for the libertarian movement, supports horrific anti-immigration policies and militarizing the border. Which isn’t surprising, because his brand of “libertarianism” is rooted in old-fashioned racist Southern paleoconservatism, in which “small government” historically meant “opposing federal civil rights legislation”. His current policies can’t be separated from his known history of racism: they’re entirely consistent with it. I can’t understand why he’s regarded as some sort of standard-bearer for personal liberty.
And the libertarian movement doesn’t, on the whole, seem to be doing very much for immigrants’ rights. I’ve never met a libertarian at a immigration rally, and I’ve very rarely seen them actually lifting a finger to work for the rights of immigrants. The only time when most libertarian activists even bring the issue up is as an excuse for attacking the welfare state: they’ll say things like “as long as we have such a generous welfare state, we can’t afford to open the borders” (which is completely untrue; the overwhelming majority of immigrants are net contributors to the economy). In reality, my experience has been that almost all the people who are actually working for immigrants’ rights are on the progressive left in some way or another.
Oggie, this looks like a helpful site:
http://www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records/
Oxfam and Amnesty International fit most of those criteria,* and are worthy recipients, should you be inclined to donate to them.
Been there, doing that, but they’re unlikely to maintain my local public transit system, provide schools for my kid, or fund grants to end cancer, heart disease, and kuru. Still not one-stop shopping.
carlie – Otters! Squee!
I was in Seattle for a conference last summer and saw the sea otters at the aquarium. They were sleeping, and it surprised me how much they looked like old dogs taking a nap.
Praises to partner-of-Ing, and conga rats to Walton and nigelTheBold.
Whisky or any acceptable equivalent to Og. I don’t suppose there’s anything you can do to fool your brain into behaving? I was thinking along the lines of those white noise generators that are supposed to help some people with tinnitus, and wondering if there was any RL stimulus that would override the olfactory hallucination – which sounds horrible.
I’m glad to pay higher taxes and not need private health insurance.
I’d REALLY rather pay higher taxes and not need to worry about paying for education either.
And I’d really really rather the richest (individuals and corporations) were prevented from wriggling out of paying their fair share.
Now if I could just remember to keep notepad open for those times when I get a chance to read TET, maybe I could keep up a bit better dammit.
Something in Utah that doesn’t (obviously) have to do with the Mormon church:
The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)
But I have a really bad feeling about all the contracts, construction money, and support staff for this center that just happens to be in a state with thoroughly church-infiltrated government.
[Today’s puzzle completed 52 Secs ]
*happy dance*
…why is LoveJoyFeminism defaulting to Patheos? Did Libby Anne leave?
True enough. I just wish governments would spend more resources on those things and fewer on the prison-industrial complex, the military-industrial complex, militarized borders, and institutionalized violence in general.
Yes, Pteryxx.
As I understand it, a substantial portion of her audience (that is, religious people who are in the process of tiptoeing out of religion) didn’t follow her to FTB. This, together with a juicy offer that Patheos offered her (together with her knowledge of Pathetos’ reader base) led her to leave.
Yes. She announced her move in this post : (link to patheos)
Sailor:
Thanks. The 214 I’ve got. I’m trying to get hold of the hearing test administered as I mustered out. To compare with the hearing test I had today.
I have two older cats. Doesn’t help.
*big pile of hugs*, to be applied liberally where needed.
–
Sounds like last night was, in general, SUCK on steroids. Hoping for better tonight.
–
This.
–
nigelTheBold, best wishes for your daughter’s upcoming nuptuals.
–
Ing, praise for partner, and *thumbs up* for marriage plans.
–
walton, congrats on the scholarship.
–
I think it was about 6 months after first meeting my own proto-Husband that we got engaged. That was back in, ummmm, let’s see…’83? Thenabouts? So, if I’m mathing it right, something like year 27 upcoming middle-ish in October.
(My mother was annoyed that I wasn’t hanging out in bars instead of “wasting time” playing D&D; I’d never meet a man that way!
So I married the DM.)
:)
–
I really like a lot of the old medieval/Rennaissance church music, but I’m an instrumentalist, and I don’t have to care about the words. :D
–
Try Cracked. Not all of their stuff is brilliant, but there’s a lot of Awesomeness to be found, there.
–
It’s a giant hole that goes all the way down to Hell.
Oh. Sunnyvale, not Sunnydale….
–
Depression may have evolved to fight infection your thoughts?
I love Gregorian chant. Beautiful. And the words? No one speaks Latin these days.*
I thought that was Ridgecrest, CA.
.
.
.
.
.
*Aside from the 12 who are about to say, “I can!” within five minutes of me hitting submit.
Thanks for the heads-up on Libby Anne, y’all. Are we supposed to be staying away from Patheos, or am I spacing out?
—-
Also this:
http://washingtonindependent.com/106786/u-s-house-bill-would-authorize-grants-to-crisis-pregnancy-centers-to-buy-ultrasound-equipment
Federal grants to CPCs for ultrasound equipment, to meet the demand from all these new forced-ultrasound laws.
…I’ll be under my couch. *whimper*
*rushes in, all out of breath, sits down, and jumps up and down in her seat with her hand raised Hermione-Granger style* I CAN
PZ’s mad at them for trying to poach FTB’s bloggers. They tried to poach the Tentacled Overlord himself even!
Oggie:
clicky for music glory
I love well-performed organ music and that song is just mind-blowing.
The video is a bit WTF, but whatever.
The other musical thing I love is shape-note singing, if for no other reason than its ability to just knock the listener flat. The fact that 90% of shape-note music is religious (and in English) is problematic, but still.
I think for some people there are other reasons to avoid Patheos
Well, I can see why Libby Anne in particular, with her stated mission of educating questioning ex-fundamentalists, probably would rather not have a couple hundred hardcore skeptics flooding the comments of everything she says, natch. But all I remember about Patheos is a vague impression of warning at the name.
Pteryxx, Patheos hosts a number of blogs that are downright horrific. MRAs and such.
Plus at least for me I have an aversion to a host that sounds like Pathogen
In the previous incarnation of TET, I linked to a blog on Patheos where an anti-abortionist shat all over a woman with a child dying from Tay-Sachs who said she would have aborted is she had known about the disease when she was pregnant.
Patheos seems to shelter some extremely disgusting specimens.
I pay about 10% of my income to my healthcare premiums out of pocket, and those are absurdly low for the value I get because I’m unionized in a state where unions still have some pretty big clout (booyah). I’m not sure how much my employer contributes for their portion that I never even know about. I do know that total, they contribute about 40% of my salary amount over and above what they pay me for all the benefits I get (health and retirement and etc.).
(to clarify, if they paid me 10k a year, it would cost them 14k to employ me from paying my salary plus paying their share of my benefits)
Congrats, Walton!
I’m having one of those days where I hate everything even though I have no reason to. Bah. Maybe I’ll go for a walk by the canal before I go home.
…
…Okay, so when random drive-bys say “But FTB’s just a groupthink echo chamber!” this sort of crap is what they mean by “diverse viewpoints”. Got it.
*hugs* I get days like that sometimes.
My power was turned off today. I fail at life.
Legion/Geth: groupthink is another word for governance by consensus.
I don’t like that headline, “did depression evolve to fight infection?”
Upon reading the actual paper, the question seems like asking “did autoimmune diseases evolve to fight infection?”
You know what’s funny about that?
You’re prime example is a word that used to mean something completely different and can now hardly be used to signify the original meaning due to its shift.
That’s fucking hilarious with fucking being another one of those words.
STOP THAT SHIT NOW.
Either say you think I’m a bigoted ableist or stop that shit.
You know what, I’ve had enough of that bullshit and this discussion stops now.
You’re pulling that shit all the time and now I know why I’ve constantly been falling for this and tried to defend myself against your half-made accusations about something being wrong with me.
I’ve had enough of it.
So, you’re interested in people’s emotional responses?
Fine, here you have one. You’re triggering me and I’m not taking that shit any longer.
Yeah, that’s the word that’s always sprung to mind for me too. And I really have nothing against that blog network. It’s just an unfortunate name.
Cheers for Nigl & Ing!
If you prefer. My actual thoughts are that you’re doing what you learned from growing up in a bigoted, ableist culture.
After all, you are demonstrably determined to justify use of these terms — which you must acknowledge can be used ambiguously, allowing insults about mental illness which are then defended by fallacies of equivocation, surely you have seen this happen — while there already exist more specific words, “irrational, stupid, ignorant, anti-social, harmful, biased, fallacious, bigoted, et cetera”, which can do all the necessary work.
That’s just a fact. I don’t think it says anything particularly special about you as an individual, above and beyond anyone else who grows up in this kind of culture.
But if you’d prefer that I call you more bigoted and more ableist than most people, I guess I can oblige.
Wow. Untrained zealots raping women via state law.
Even for today’s GOP that is impressive.
Don’t let it become a habit. I suspect being a nun would be limiting.
Sorry. When I have a shitty day(s), making jokes keeps me from dissolving into a ball of whimper.
No, no, no, no! You are not failing at life. Being shat upon by power is not the same as failing.
And the way it is practiced here, it is another word for a community.
Or, it may not have. I mean, it may not have evolved. And if it did it may or may not have been because it somehow fights infection. If it does. It may not. Either way, this may or may not have something to do with why it evolved when and how it did. If it did.
In short, this idea suffers from all of the same real problems that some folks use to justify their utter disdain for anything called Evolutionary Psychology.
wait–this is Evolutionary Psychology.
Yes, what’s funny is you seem to think this just “happened” too. That gay just “developed independently” to have a new referent.
Nowhere have I claimed that words don’t change meanings. What I did say is that it’s no good to just say “language doesn’t work like that”, because sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.
So, if you claim that these words have a new referent, which is not mental illness, then what is that referent?
I bring this up a lot less frequently than I’d like, actually, because the stigmatization of mental illness at Pharyngula is so frequent that I can’t keep up.
But yeah, all the time that I can stand to devote to it, I do. Okay. You don’t like that about me, I guess. But I do need to be able to respect myself as someone who does not always remain a bystander when bad shit happens.
1) I didn’t seek you out.
2) I don’t really think you’re worse than average on this issue; I think you do better than average.
Sucks for both of us, I guess. Are you perhaps the last regular at Pharyngula to notice that insults around mental health are triggering for me?
And yes, I’m feeling better now.
Some nice things:
Sunshine, sunshine rabbit
Also: Perfect Gugelhupf
500g flour
1/4 l milk
20g fresh yeast
100g sugar (including vanilla and orange sugar)
100g raisins
100g dried cranberries
125g butter (room temperature)
1 egg (room temperature)
1 pinch of salt
-Put flour into a bowl, make hole in the middle.
-Mix milk, yeast and 1 tbsp of sugar, pour onto flour, put a bit of flour on top.
-Put in unheated oven for about an hour. Yes, I mean it.
-Mix in the other ingredients. Knead really long until you have a smooth ball
-Put back in oven for some hours
-Grease a Gugelhupf-mold, put dough inside
-Put back in oven for another hour.
-Turn on oven to 170° with circulating air.
-Bake for about 40 min
SG
In case you didn’t notice the first time, I’ll tell you again:
Also, Nigel, I clearly can’t type today, sorry. Too much starting at contracts. My brain feels like a jumble of articles and clauses that don’t relate to anything in normal life. Too bad it’s not Friday.
And on that note:
«Activists within many diverse and overlapping movements have a time-honoured tradition of reclaiming words that have been used as putdowns and slurs. For instance, many members of the LGBTQ communities have reclaimed the word “queer” as a source of pride and strength as in, “We’re Here, We’re Queer! Get Used to It!”. Mad Pride activists reclaim terms such as “mad”, “nutter”, and “psycho” as a way to re-educate the general public on the issue of mental “illness” and as a source of psychiatric-survivor empowerment. As with most reclaimed words, they are best used by members of the groups that have reclaimed them.»
(BTW, my references to these groups should not be construed as a general endorsement of all the stances of the psychiatric survivor movement. Shit is complicated.)
Yes, I notice that you don’t want to talk about it any more right now, and are probably going to pick another fight with me in the future, without learning anything from this one.
I will say what I have to say about the matter; you are not obliged to respond.
carlie:
[puts on ex-HR hat]
The “fully loaded” cost of an employee varies from location to location and with wages as well as benefits. For hourly employees working part time, we used to use 110% of wages. For full time hourly, it was 120%. For non-executive salaried, it was 133%, and for executives (director, VP, or CxO equivalent) it was 140%.
… Which is backwards at first glance, since the portion the company pays for your healthcare, life insurance, and state taxes actually goes down relative to your income as your income rises since they’re largely flat (or flatten out at some point). The bulk of the difference was in vacation and sick time benefits (hourly don’t get them because they can work overtime, and executives tend to get leave packages we’d drool over) as well as “separation expenses”, which is the word we used to use for golden parachutes, termination “bonuses” (most executives had contracts where they were automatically paid a certain amount even if they were fired for cause), and pension or retirement packages (which are also usually better for execs). I think placement services were covered there too (if we laid off an exec, we helped them find a job somewhere else – another perk we didn’t offer to regular employees).
[takes off HR hat]
Yeah, if you hate witnessing privilege, never work for the HR department of a business with more than 500 employees. I was just a drop-in – I ran some of their systems – but I still had to do reporting and analysis for them. I used to look at contracts for guys making quite literally 10 times my wages with 4 times as much leave, much better health and dental coverage, supplemental travel coverage, often company-paid cars and housing, and then getting 6-figure termination payouts when they screwed something up (as well as placement help).
Yes, and you went on. After I told you that you were triggering me. Asshole. Utter asshole.
Your whole concern about people is obviously just a holier than thou par exellence.
Believe me, I do ->killfile
It looks delicious.
Recipe copied and saved
Again, are you perhaps the last regular at Pharyngula to notice that insults around mental health are triggering for me?
You wanted to get the last word in, Giliell. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) That’s why you wrote all this:
A substantive argument. Flawed, but substantive, and an attempt to address the substance of what I’d said earlier.
A substantive complaint. An ultimatum, as well.
Accusation that I’m “pulling [some] shit all the time.” Apparently a substantive complaint; though it’s not 100% clear what the substance is, I was able to infer some meaning from context.
+++++
Those are the last words you wanted to get in — and there’s nothing inherently objectionable about wanting to get the last word in.
But you can’t fairly tack on at the end “you’re triggering me” as an insistence that the other person therefore would be indecent to respond to the substance of the arguments you just made.
If you just wanted the conversation to end, then “you’re triggering me and I’m done with this shit” would be perfectly fair. But it fairly can’t be used as a cover to get the last substantive word in.
That reminds me I still have to write that essay on the moral imperative of self-righteousness,
but,
if that were indeed my only motivation, I would have an easier time of it. I could stick to gay rights issues exclusively, since there’s barely any disagreements thereabouts on Pharyngula. It would be the easiest whack-a-mole, all day long, and I’d never get exhausted, and never have to worry about being attacked from all sides; everyone here would just have my back, no questions asked.
The state publishes all of its salaries every year; it takes a certain amount of willpower not to look at the tables. That can lead to sitting in meetings mentally calculating how much less one is getting paid to be there than the other people in the room. Not good for one’s happiness state.
(side note: I’m certainly not an executive; I imagine ours are so high because our health care is indeed the gold-plated version, and the retirement ain’t bad either)
So… I discovered a secret talent.
I can shoot a gun rather well. Well, I can shoot a pistol, shotgun, and semi-auto rather well. As long as they have a laser sight, and I’ve got a trainer standing next to me telling me the best methods to shoot.
Center of mass nearly every time, except the few times I was center of head o.o
Scary… Kat doesn’t like guns, but I daresay that was an impressive showing.
slignot, carlie, and everyone else: thanks. I’m looking forward to the event. My biggest defense of same-sex marriage is identical to my defense of CIS-normal marriage: the more love in the world, the better. And since this is my daughter, I’m fairly overcome with joy.
And slignot, don’t worry about tpyos. Xe is a mighty god, and impossible to placate.
Nigel! Yay! Ing’s partner! Yay! *dance party*
—
I got an A in German! *second dance party*
—
[TMI warning!]
So! I was really really freaked out yesterday because I was heavily spotting. Requested a doctor’s appointment. Spent most of the night panicking.
Meanwhile, I have a stomachache and acne, and I’m bursting into tears at the slightest provocation. Hmm.
Yep! Turns out I just can’t count. Or… like… reason.
[/TMI warning]
Katherine, that is an impressive showing.
Spouse keeps trying to talk me into going shooting with him, but I don’t have any interest. I never really have, guns are just vaguely scary to me; I was one of those kids who knew where the guns were in the house but never ever wanted to play with them. Also, he doesn’t own any guns, so we’d be either heading to Vegas to borrow some from his dad’s collection or borrowing my dad’s rifle.
@slignot:
Yea – at first I thought I missed a few shotgun shots, but it was just the wadding breaking through the cardboard. The shotgun shots were all grouped together in the same area.
It was fun, but I still will never own a gun – except maybe a replica 1887 Winchester.
Katherine Lorraine: Quite a nice showing. Though I admit I’ve never fired a semi-automaic before, or, for that matter, a repeating shotgun.
@Kat:
Very nice. Isn’t it strange showing an aptitude for something in which you are not interested?
That’s like me and football. Except for the aptitude part.
Me, I have a couple of guns. Growing up in Alaska, it was important to be able to hunt in the fall, to stock up for winter. I was a good shot, but I hated shooting animals. Thirty years later, I’m still not comfortable shooting deer, even though I absolutely love venison.
It’s been better since a friend showed me the Tlingit tradition of giving a deer water after you’ve killed it. To help it on its way. I know it’s stupid, I know the animal is already dead and I’m the one responsible for its death, but it helps.
Know this: after the zombie apocalypse, you shall have useful talents. I mean, as longs as there’s ammo.
Since I’m an only child, I’ll someday inherit an old revolver that was my great-grandfather’s but I don’t see myself getting any others.
@Nigel:
Yea – it’s weird. I’ll know I can be good in a zombie apocalypse anyway, as long as I get a laser sight XD
Ogvorbis, I quoted from that link where they also have all service records, including medical. And it looks like you can apply online. All teh other info I gathered started with contacting your local VA hospital, but it looks like now all the records are kept in the archive, so I think that site may allow you to skip a few steps.
Something to note, (no pun intended), is that most standard hearing tests are very poor and only show gross anomalies. By the time they detect loss it’s already progressed quite a bit.
Sheesh, I don’t know any better than to speak up. Fair warning, this is to sgbm.
—
ॐ, quit it.
Obviously you think so, since you won’t stop no matter how often you’re asked; but if getting the last word were no big deal, then you could yield it already.
And you don’t get to presume that someone else’s expression of emotion exists to impugn you. If you had any presumption of good faith to give, you’d back off WITHOUT complaining about how unfair someone else being upset is to YOU.
If you were actually concerned about substantive arguments, and not about who gets to have the last word (which you seem to be fine with, as long as it’s you) then you’d back off the personal inferences and address solely the substance of the argument.
Whatever your substantive grievance is, it doesn’t justify policing other people’s responses to you being an asshole. You don’t get to insinuate that they’re only upset as an excuse to dodge the discussion. It’s not your SUBSTANCE that pisses people off.
You can have as many last words as you want off of me, I really don’t care about engaging you personally over your refusal to disengage from personal attacks.
Kat – ooo, have you tried archery? You have to correct more for wind and gravity and stuff, but I bet you’d be good at that too.
Kat: one of the scariest moments was learning that, having never held a real firearm in my life and receiving about 30 seconds of “training”, I was a dead shot with a pistol (any of a half-dozen a friend brought to a range, don’t ask me what they were).
The good side: apparently, playing a lot of video games can train you up on some real-life skills.
The bad side: those skills include firing weapons at people-shaped things.
(I sucked at the shotgun and the rifles.)
@Richard Austin:
Yea. Like I said, I’ll never actually own a real gun.
KL:
It’s part of the path of self-discovery. Soon you’ll be stockpiling canned beans and SPAM in your bunker and writing conspiracy letters to right-wing magazines.
@Richard Austin:
Oh god, no SPAM. It’s horrid!
Kat:
Let me send you some recipe cards from the ’60s. Ways With Spam. It’ll open your eyes to the wonders that are SPAM.
Not that it’ll make it any better. Even the Hawaiian Spamkabobs.
Note to self, have you back me up on ME multiplayer…
@Ing:
I play an Infiltrator in ME3 MP.
I’m an awesome shot, when the target is moving. I tend to miss sitting targets more often than not XD
Almost every meal I’ve shared with Inuit in Northern Canada included SPAM.
(Actually, Klik, a Canadian equivalent)
@Kat
Ive solidified on Vanguard for MP. I love the infiltrator for single player but people kept yelling at me :(.
Read carefully, pteryxx.
I did not object to saying that she was being triggered. I only responded “Sucks for both of us, I guess. Are you perhaps the last regular at Pharyngula to notice that insults around mental health are triggering for me?”
What’s objectionable is the claim that responding to substantive arguments makes me an asshole.
“here are my arguments X Y and Z for why I’m right”: fair play
“you’re triggering me”: fair play
“here are my arguments X Y and Z for why I’m right, and you’re triggering me”: fair play
“here are my arguments X Y and Z for why I’m right, and you’re triggering me, so if you respond to my arguments then you’re an asshole”: not fair play
That should be obvious.
@Ing, @Kat,
PS3? XBOX? PC?
Not that I’ve even finished the first ME.
Damn you, Time! Why can’t you be big enough for everything I want?!?
This was posted on the Never Too Early thread late last night (for USians), and I suspect there might be people who want to respond to it but were sleeping when it was posted, so I figured I’d point at it just in case. It’s a request for resources by someone whose mother was just diagnosed with breast cancer. I would respond myself except that I don’t know anything :(
XBOX, Nigel.
PS3
I honestly haven’t played since finishing ME3….the disappointment hit me emotionally more than I thought and would like to admit.
Can you cross play with people from Xbox to PS3? It goes by EA’s servers right? Is that even possible?
/techignorance
I am pleased to say that I have never eaten spam. (And never will, thankfully, what with being vegetarian and all.) As a kid, I think the first I ever heard of it was the famous Monty Python spam song.
(According to the Pfft, 3.8 cans of spam are eaten every second in the United States. Seriously, who’s eating all that spam? And why?)
As for shooting, I learned to handle firearms a little when I was in the OTC, but was never particularly great at it. And I’ve never been shooting for fun. Not my thing.
I haven’t played any games in years (and never owned a console). I used to love SimCity, though. And The Sims.
@Ing:
I don’t think so :\
On Patheos
http://freethoughtblogs.com/bluecollaratheist/2012/03/20/oh-kid-i-wish-you-the-best
O hai! Been on a roll, working, threadrupt. Link dump:
Open-access paper on an animal less closely related to us than Tiktaalik but more closely than Eusthenopteron. It’s named Tinirau after “a character of legend in Polynesian culture and traces to islands located at approximately the same latitude as Nevada during the Middle Devonian. According to the Rarotonga and Mangaia Islanders, Tinirau was a half-man, half-fish lord of the ocean creatures [25].”
African lungfish can walk/run and hop – entirely underwater, sure, but using their pelvic fins alone. They’re bipedal. The PDF with supplementary information and links to movies may not be open-access, but in any case the main text in HTML is.
Finally, about 150,000 people have signed this petition in the few hours since I did…
“Days ago, 16 year-old Amina Filali, raped, beaten and forced to wed her rapist, killed herself — the only way she saw to escape the trap set for her by her rapist and the law. If we act now, we can stop this unspeakable tragedy from happening to anyone else.
Article 475 in Morocco’s penal code allows a rapist to avoid prosecution and a long prison sentence by marrying his victim if she is a minor. Since 2006, the government has promised to strike this down and pass legislation prohibiting violence against women, but it hasn’t happened.
Hundreds of Moroccan protestors are in the streets demanding real reform, turning up the heat on the Prime Minister and heads of other ministries, who write and sponsor bills and the international media has picked up the story. If we ramp up pressure, we can see real progress now. Sign the petition for a comprehensive law to stop violence against women, including repeal of Article 475. When we reach 250,000 signatures, we’ll deliver it directly to the decision makers.”
It’s already almost at 282,000.
For those who care about ME
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/mass-effect-3-ending-changed-video-gamer-backlash-bioware-announces-article-1.1048196#ixzz1pnNVRTMr
I think it’s raised an interesting question on Artist/Creator “rights”
This confuses me to no end. The biggest complaint I have with the ending is that it is artistically bankrupt. It doesn’t fit into the rest of the work and doesn’t share any of the reoccurring themes or motifs.
Kat (speaking of cross-play between XBox and PS3):
Yep. This is the facts. You can’t play between platforms, which is why I asked.
I don’t often do multiplayer. I’m too often disappointed by humanity when I do — far too much homophobia and misogyny in the chatter. It makes me want to punch someone in the face, and I hate getting so emotional I wish violence. But I thought I might seek out Pharyngula folks for MP. I might actually like playing among folks I like and respect.
@Ing, what disappointed you in ME3? It just fucking came out! And I’ve not finished the first one. But I’m interested. If I’d’ve known BSG was going to end so lamely, I wouldn’t’ve bothered.
Ing:
Sorry. We cross-posted. Ignore my last request for enlightenment.
@Nigel
Play till the end then just make up your own ending. I really thought people were exaggerating but…wow. It’s…it is indeed shit.
We’re talking Shamylan level shit here.
A. R,
It didn’t, not those particular words.
And this is playing armchair psychologist. It’s exceptionally useless in the way you’ve done it here, essentially, “this reminds me of some disorder but I don’t know what”. And communication disorders aren’t dangerous; it’s not like he’s threatening anyone, nor himself.
So all you’re doing is publicly speculating on someone’s medical status, which they didn’t invite your opinion on. This is generally considered rude gossip when the topic is recognized as a physical ailment. There’s no reason that someone’s mental health should be specially regarded as everybody’s goddamn business.
ॐ, your OCD is showing.
@Nigel
Spoiler
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It’s damn close to BSG’s ending. It even jettison’s the themes of ME to for some reason embrace ones from BSG.
I’ve been doggedly filtering what I see about ME3 because I decided to play through the games again. I’m most of the way through 2, and I’m increasingly apprehensive about the last one.
John, I’m not real worried about that. Not these days.
@Slignot
Don’t be apprehensive, just…when you see the bright light turn off the monitor and make up your own ending. Right up until the end it was my favorite game, but it’s like the old saying: “When you add a turd to a delicious sandwich it isn’t a delicious sandwich+turd, it ceases to be a delicious sandwich”
Ing:
(Leaving out spoiler space, because people need warning)
Y’know the stupid thing?
BSG could’ve had a great fucking ending, with one tiny little change.
Make Starbuck a Cylon. From a civilization before the others.
That’s it. One simple change, and everything could make sense. I mean, as every good programmer knows, there’s no problem that one level of indirection can’t solve. And that was it.
No stupid god. No mysticism. No, “WTF?!?eleventyone!?!” at the end.
Just good, clean, “Cylons all the way down.”
Perfect.
So to hear that ME folks took an equally fucked lame ending makes me want to abandon it before I’ve even gotten halfway through the first.
Fuck.
I guess I still have the HD Ratchet and Clank reissue to look forward to.
@Nigelbold
Spoiler.
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No god? Hey guess who you meet in ME!?
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Ing:
Fuck. Me.
I hate popular culture.
Thanks for the warning, Ing. I reckon I’ll check out the Assassin’s Creed games.
walton
Spam sushi is a thing (its actually not bad). Spam, in general, is very popular in Hawai’i.
I’ll just give the spoiler bellow
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Shepard after defeating TLM gets into a secret chamber of the citadel where he meets a God Child who is the Reapers creator. The Reapers are made because synthetic life always rebells against their creator so to preserve life God Child created the Reapers to 50,000 years kill everyone and ‘preserve’ them as Reapers. In other words because synthetics will kill everyone he has even WORSE synthetics rain horrible nightmareish hell on people…and save some of them in the form of assimilated cells of a lovecraftian god. Yay? Now Ing, you’re saying, “But You see that the Geth wasn’t a real rebellion!? It was self preservation and Legion seems nice!? And what about EDI she didn’t rebel” and you’d be right but Shepard doesn’t point this otu because….
So anyway the Starchild gives you 3 choices. Either destroy all Synthetic life along with the Reapers (Why? Doesn’t God control them…why would everyone die form it?), Control them (Because no really Shepard YOU’RE not indoctrinated like everyone else who thought they could control them…really *snicker*) or use the MAAAAAAAAAAAAAGIC device to merge organic and synthetic life into a hybrid. What. Either way the Mass relays EXPLODE!? But your choice has an important impact…namely the color of the explosions. The relay system is destroyed, Joker and your crew inexplicably crash land on a jungle planet for an Adam and Eve plot (see what I meant about BSG?) and the entire fleet you assembled is left stranded around Earth…where they presumably starve to death due to how fucked the planet is. Galactic Civilization, the entire setting you fought for is destroyed, you see none of the effects of your actions (no scene of Krogen or Quarian rebuilding or blue children) and Shepard is dead….in the far future a grandfather reveals that it is the legend of THE SHEPARD and gives you a Continue from last save option. Because everyone wants to play more after that?
THE
FUCKING
END
This is the ending that has artistic integrity
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All right, my droogs, I’m off for a while. I have a wedding to attend, and games to avoid. I’ll check in when I can, but I leave with this: I count on y’all for my sanity. And that is stretching thin these days.
No pressure.
@Ing, #667:
/me melts into a pool of no-longer-gives-a-fuck.
Thanks for taking that bullet.
If anyone wants to purchase some disappointment, I have it for sale. Cheap.
Hey now, the ‘disaster alert’ my state scheduled for this morning just went off at 7:45 pm. With interruptions to my TV, (including the weather channel, which is where I go to look at wx radar), my radio, my phone (I’m a state employee), & my Uni email.
Oh, did I mention the sirens & loud speaker trucks screeching “this is not an emergency!” ?
In the event of an actual emergency I would find a way to just kiss my ass goodbye.
@Nigle
Honestly play the game. The first 2.9 acts end beautifully IMO it is just baffling that they decided to end “artistically”
Here’s the thing. Maybe it’s my naivete or denial…but I think this is intentional. I think we’re going to have to pay for the real ending, and that that was the plan all along. Not sure whether that would make it better or worse.
Richard Austin:
(warning: shooting/hunting discussion)
Ah, so this is what I’m doing wrong. Lots of real-life shooting + no video games = Nutmeg is a bad shot.
I’m sure it has nothing to do with me being appallingly bad at spatial relations. ;) Or with my only reference for comparison, my dad, being a ridiculously good shot.
Fortunately, with ducks, it’s pretty much a case of you hit it or you don’t. In my experience, injured birds are usually the result of hunters taking shots at the edge of their range.
(shooting/hunting discussion ends)
chigau:
You’ve mentioned travels up north before. If you don’t mind me asking, what takes you up there?
Just booked my bus tickets for the Reason Rally!
Can I haz new thread, shiny, sniny, new thread?
Not sure whether this Women’s Rights Petition has been posted before, or not.
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There’s an MRA “pick-up artist” in training over on the Manology thread. He seems to think that certain “c” words are appropriate for use here.
Ing:
So, like BSG, it’s worth the ride, in spite of itself?
OK. I’ll follow it out ’til the end. I’ve been enjoying the fuck out of it so far.
Thanks.
And here’s my final post for the next many hours (as I’m getting on a plane to see my daughter married!).
The world can always use a little more Bob Mould.
And love.
nigelTheBold:
That which can be used can be abused.
Walton:
Oh dear me, I agree: Perhaps the only thing I miss about church is having an excuse to sing in public, and the only reason I’m still willing to go to church on Christmas is the old, familiar carols.
BTW, congrats on your scholarship… but if it means you’ll soon skive off back to merry old England, I feel even more urgent to have a meetup before you go.
Also, congrats and hugs to others as needed; I’m (to paraphrase Mitt Romney) severely threadrupt.
PS
Precisely.
Bill:
Fundamentally so?
Fundamentalistly so?
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Sailor @675: “Can I haz new thread, shiny, sniny, new thread?”
NO.
(If this doesn’t post, no-one but me will ever know. It’s win-win!)
Cicely, romney fundamentally.
:)
Ing, congratulations to you and Partner. Nigel, congratulations to your daughter and soon-to-be son-in-law. Walton, congratulations on your scholarship.
Ogvorbis, you’re really having a shit week, aren’t you? I’m sorry. I hope it gets better.
Also, you wrongly identified the giant hole that goes all the way down to hell. That would be Colorado Springs.
CC, my sympathies. It sucks when you’re in a bad headspace and you have to go out amongst the throngs of humanity anyway. Also my sympathies on having to put up with Whole Foods. I hope the other things clear up as well.
Sympathy to Chigau and Starstuff as well.
Esteleth:
/tries without success not to revert to ten years old
I’m one of those bad atheists who happens to like traditional gospel, either African-American or bluegrass/old-time. Churchy music has always left me cold.
Nigel: I didn’t know there were any other Nanci Griffith fans around here. Though I have to admit, I prefer her older, folk-based material, with exceptions such as her duet with Darius Rucker on “Gulf Coast Highway.” Which gave me chills.
Nutmeg: In case your day has not improved and you would like to close it out on a good note, I give you A Dramatic Reading of “Fifty Shades of Grey” by Hungover Batman, which is NSFW.
Kitty, I’ve been to the shooting range once, with relatives. I don’t find guns scary, but, although I can understand the appeal of hitting targets and the geekery around specialized instruments such as firearms, I just don’t find them all that interesting, either. Of course, I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn in daylight.
Never having heard of Alexander of Abonoteichus until Helena Constantine mentioned him on the Carrier vs. Ehrman thread, I went and looked him up. LOL. Nothing new under the sun, is there?
walton,
Congrats on your scholarship and diagnosis.
You may come in from the stoop now.
Ms. Daisy Cutter:
Oh. My. Non-existent. God.
The link turned out to be to a reading of “Fifty Shades of Grey” by the Cookie Monster, which was even better. I could not stop laughing.
That was terrible writing, even worse than Twilight. I think that just listening to it moved me about half a point closer to gay on the Kinsey scale.
Wow.
Yeah just don’t expect any closure.
Daisy,
Have you ever listened to shape note singing?
Like said above, 90% (if not more) of it is hymns. Most of it is in English, as it is a tradition that came out of Appalachia.
Clicky for a rather shitty recording of people shape-note singing (of course) “Amazing Grace.”
Now, when it is performed, the audience sits in the middle of the singers – imagine being surrounded by that. :D
Well, I’ll be around till the end of May. I’d be happy to meet up – either in Boston, or I could travel by bus and meet you in Hartford or New Haven if that’s easier? (My knowledge of the local geography is a bit on the vague side.)
*reads Ing’s ME3 spoiler*
Really?!
Fuck that. Might as well just get back into fighting games.
The whole reason I kept playing was to see what happens to Jane but if that’s what I’m looking at, screw it.
Nigel, I know that you are long gone by this time but I have to respond.
I see your little light and raise you to black sheets of rain.
It will not take much to get me to link to a lot of Hüsker Dü.
Also, good luck to your daughter.
Nigel,
AC was surprisingly good, much better than I expected from a game based around killing people. I’m halfway through the second.
Oooh, Nutmeg, you’re an Australian, aren’t you? I give you one word: AICSA.
Walton you’re stateside until the end of May?
I’ll be in Western Mass the weekend or the 20th (near Springfield). Not too far from Cambridge, really. I’m not sure if you’d be willing/able to meet me halfway (or maybe a Horde-wide meepup in Boston could be arranged), but I’d be up for something.
Alethea: AICSA looks cool, but I’m actually Canadian. And my singing voice is so weak that the only place I could sing was a little church full of old people who were just glad to have someone under 70 in the choir. That’s okay – there are other ways to enjoy music.
Congrats to both nigel and Walton! I hope the bride and groom have a long and happy life together. And, scholarships rule! Don’t waste it.
More congrats to Ing and Parnter! Really, after the BS you’ve been through, Ing, this has got to be one hell of an upper.
Og – refresher course indeed. It’s weird how the brain will randomly decide to throw one at you, sometimes when it’s the last thing you need.
———————————
Not as down as I was last night. Might be because that low point kick-started something in my head and now the beginnings of my first poem in a long time are sitting on a thumb drive. Maybe this Saturday evening can be my wallow time, if this is what can come of it.
(Okay, I’m not off to bed quite yet.)
Ms. Daisy Cutter:
Fuck. Yes.
I’ve been in love with Nanci since Love at the Five and Dime. I’m a huge fan, though not nearly as big as my wife.
Trouble in the Fields brings me to tears almost every time.
And I think Darius did the best duet of Gulf Coast Highway. It fuckin’ kills me.
“hymns”?
When I went to church, it was more “herms”. ;)
janine:
Do it. Do it!
/nigel hearts him some Hüsker Dü.
nigelTheBold:
I shan’t speak of your sexuality, but it obviously doesn’t kill you (unless you’re a zombie).
(Rucker the fucker, eh?)
Oops, sorry, Nutmeg. Australian, Canadian, so similar, eh?
Very similar. Although friends who’ve been to your side of the world tell me that Americans are like Australians, and Canadians are like Kiwis. I don’t know how that holds up in your experience. We both spell things the right way, though.
NEW THREAD!