All right, nice raucus video, but shouldn’t the squid win in the end?
(Episode CCCXVII: Frantic fill-in.)
« Bleh
Episode CCCXVIII: Death throes of the terrorsquid!
« Bleh
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Squid, squid, squid.
I have nothing really to say, just wanted to sully the sniny new thread.
Damn you PZ, I didn’t get in that time! I will have my revenge. Somehow, I will have my revenge.
In the meantime, I demand a camera for my emotional distress. Do you know where I went to school?
Louis
Niftyatheist, I’m so sorry to hear this happened! Best of luck with the cops.
Louis:
Fess up, you stole the patent for the treadmills from H.R. Giger, didn’t you>?
Ogvorbis, from the last thread #704,
HERETIC! YOU WORSHIP A FALSE GOD!
The TRUE GDO of Clerical Errors is TYPO. And he is a vengeful GDO. Fear TYPO. Fear his mighty wrath.
I have noted that there are a few worshippers of that imposter, that false “god” Tpyos here. You will all burn in a lake of ever burning 1,1,1-trichloroethane forever. You are idolaters, despoilers and heretics. You have discarded the truth faith in TYPO the GDO of Clerical Errors (Blessed Be His Correcting Fluid. Available in Many Colours).
Do not dare trifle with this matter. It may cause Deep Rifts™.
Louis
Ms Daisy Cutter,
Adapted from the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers actually! ;-)
Louis
ALESTORM!!! HELL YEAH!
Okay, so I’m a fan… Does it show?
@Louis
You forgot to threaten to defriend him in facebook.
A.R., #706 thread passim,
I know five eighths of six tenths of twelve eighteenths of fuck all about what guns are commercially available! I care only mildly less.
The point about the .48 magnum was that it was obviously ridiculous. I’d have gone with an ICBM but people might have thought I was bragging.
I think I probably meant the .44 anyway! This is what happens when I don’t have enough guns to shoot people with. And as Dianne intimated, guns are pretty much no use where people have crept in, stolen and crept out leaving you untouched and unwoken. My point was to mock/satirise the foolishness of the subsection of gun nuts who, in substitute for penis, think that guns are the solution to every problem.
Work with me here people!
Louis
Catnip, I hope the bullying is dealt with swiftly and well. Been there (SonSpawn, start of secondary school) and I’m just glad the teachers took it seriously and worked on it.
It’s very hard when you’re not the one being targeted yourself but your child is; you want to help and you want to shred the perpetrators but there are a lot of things you can’t do directly. But the school and individual teachers can make all the difference, and I hope they do in this case.
Ibyea,
Great point. I’ll get on that. I’ll also tell all my Facebook friends who when to school with me (do you know WHERE?) to defriend him. That’ll really hurt.
Louis
Looking for a cheap flight to Berlin and am reminded of this
Opposablethumbs,
There is however a rather large number of things you can do with a thick black cloth bag, some duct tape, a late night abduction, some pliers, a tyre iron and a couple of knowledgeable and willing gentlemen of a large but surprisingly discreet nature.
Apparently.
Louis
P.S. Go to the “Dog and Duck”, 111 Cheam St, London, E14. Ask for Barry, slip the barman £20 and order a “large bastard and soda”. He’ll know what to do. Carry £2000 in non-sequential unmarked £20 notes in a plain brown bag, be prepared to spend half of that, more if you have specific {ahem} “requests”. Just, you know, saying. If anyone asks, you didn’t see me right.
Chamomile :(
quoderatdemonstrandum
You just made my day. Hilarious link.
These tentacles go up to 11.
Ms Daisy Cutter:
Outside the US…?
Pretty much everyone I know has had this stomach… thing, but it seems like I’m suffering way more. We’ve had some crazy fucking weather lately, but I doubt that’s the root cause.
No, the presence of a gun would magically have deterred the robber.
Or they would have stolen the gun, too.
Good luck finding any evidence of me on facebork. I am GOD! on facebork (by that, I mean that I do not exist).
quoderatdemonstrandum, #12
HOLY CRAP! How did I not know about this already?
Fascinating Aida are brilliant! I’ve got two albums and a DVD on the way already. Good stuff!
Luckily I listened to the song on my headphones in my office. I doubt I could get away with the “Dogging” song being out loud…
Louis
Audley, I meant that I don’t know whether the weather patterns have been as volatile outside the U.S. as they have been in it. Sorry that wasn’t clearer.
Can anyone get the Sunday Sacrilege page to load ?
I get to 700 off comments, and then page stops loading but clearly the page has been truncated.
Ms Daisy:
Hm, I don’t either.
Here in upstate NY, though, the weather has been fucking brutal. 91° on Monday! What kind of shit is that?
95° here in New Hampshire on Monday, then 81° yesterday… and today won’t get above the 60s.
Louis: Do you have a linky for your original gravatar? I find it to be quite amusing. (Don’t worry, I’m not going to copy you, I’m quite happy with my ebolavirus.)
Keytar! Ha!
91° on Monday! What kind of shit is that?
A typical April. In Dallas. Get used to it, because the heat’s heading north.
A.R., #24,
Ask, and ye shall receive.
Louis
Matt:
Yes, I can, after 3 or 4 refreshes. I really wish PZ would change the pagination to 600 for those of us with shitastic wireless.
Louis @ 13 and Opposablethumbs
Louis when did you last speak to Barry? Very important: a “large bastard and soda” can no longer be had at the Cheam Street location. The Dog and Duck is now at 18 bateman Street, London W1D 3AJ
Louis: Thanks!
Thanks to all for the sympathy, hugs, chocolate, cookies, hot beverages and cute animals! I really appreciate it.
The police just left after dusting everything etc. They were very friendly and very competent. It turns out that another house downy he street was also broken into – in that case, the people were out of town and the door was kicked in and lying in the foyer, the house ransacked! A neighbor out walking alerted the police. This is what our next door neighbor saw on his walk before he discovered our (empty) laptop bags and Mr Nifty’s briefcase down by the creek behind other very elderly neighbors house.
We all started checking on other neighbors (we – at 50-ish – are the youngsters in our near neighborhood, believe it or not. Looks like no one else was hit.
The worst is that someone walked into our house while we were sleeping and we did not know! Mr Nifty and I sleep on the ground floor – so only about 50 feet at most from the thief – and heard nothing. :(
Funny you mention guns, Louis. One of my sons is learning marksmanship but still this was not the first thought- quite the opposite in fact. Interstingly, a break in has long been one of the greatest fears of my kids because their dad travels so much and it has always been just me and the little ones (now much bigger of course) for probably 6 months out of every year (usually several trips per month, not 6 months at a stretch). I have always told them this: we lock up with dead bolts every night and we have (had :() a dog. Most thieves are looking for an easy mark – they don’t want to confront you, they just want to go into an unoccupied place and get “stuff” – not harm people. If there are deterrents, they are unlikely to try to break into your place – think of a thief as a lazy criminal. They want an easy job and they don’t want to be caught.
As horrible as this experience was, my first thought was “well, at least this will confirm for the boys that most thieves do indeed just want to get in a nd get out with loot, not murder us in our beds!”
Since their dad has just followed the police out the driveway on his way to the airport, it will be important for me to be able to marshall this kind of thinking when I am reassuring them at bedtime tonight!
Anyway, so Mr Nifty – who is suffering because he didn’t want to leave us but HAS to keep his job you know? – and he said to me, “If I buy a gun, will you learn to use it?” (this front he man who I had to convince to let his son learn marksmanship, since making it taboo would only intensify the fascination, btw – we are ex=Pat Canadians and not fans of guns). When I picked my jaw up off the floor, I said to him, “No, I would not do so because of THIS – we both know that brandishing a gun would have been inappropriate in this situation. IN fact, think of it! What if one of us had woken up – heard something- grabbed the gun and come out here to confront the thief? Who knows what could have happened if everyone was scared shitless? So a laptop and a phone got stolen – even if they had taken everything of value int he house that we have, none of that crap is worth a HUMAN LIFE!” .
Heh – OK, I may have cleaned up that speech a little, but the gist was exactly that. And he agreed.
Yes, it is infuriating that some punk thief walked into our house and stole from us – yep it sure feels like a violation. But bottom line- it is probably a petty thief – clearly not out to hurt anyone – and as much as I’d like to smack the little punk or punks, there is nothing that warrants deadly force about this situation.
Mr Nifty just phoned from the road to tell me locksmiths on the way over to change out all locks (even though the door the thieves entered was a slider (we forgot to put down the hockey stick in the track last night :( STUPID!) his keys were in the briefcase including house key.
His work laptop is being traced by his office IT so hopefully that will turn up something. My son’s wasn’t traceable, I don’t think. :(
THanks again for the good wishes. I’m feeling pretty calm – more concerned about the boys not being too freaked out to relax or feel safe at home tonight (especially with Dad away). But I am working on that – locksmith on his way – hockey stick in door and a security alarm company on the way this afternoon to assess our place for a system. We should have done that years ago, but it is so darn expensive! People say it is a good deterrent though. Heh, when hubby called them, they said they will come to us right after they go our neighbor who also called to have a service put in after everyone gathered out not he street this morning to discuss this.
I am not at all caught up with anyone else – sorry it’s me me me. But I did catch the reference to little chamomile. Sending ((hugs)) if you want them, rowanvt. I’m sorry. :(
Matt: yeah, I can load the Sunday Sacrilege page, and I see your comment at #771 and Ye Olde Blacksmith at #772. Looks fine to me. (That’s with a recently refreshed browser and a fast Net connection, natch.)
yec123 is in full form over on the WIAAA-Kassiane thread. Just said that vision was “non material.”
borked my link @ 29
dog and duck
I finally got the whole page to load, but it took about five refreshed. I am with you on the pagination!
Thanks, and thanks also Pteryxx.
Similar – when I’m on crappy wireless, long FTB pages take multiple refreshes, and when I’m on dial-up I can’t read anything past about #400-500 no matter how many times I refresh it.
However, this is unique to FTB. Apparently something about FTB’s servers gives up and stops sending information if your machine doesn’t load the page fast enough. I know this because I *can* load long comment threads on other pages (such as Reddit, Cracked or BB) simply by letting the page run until everything’s loaded, even if it takes five or ten minutes to do so.
oh, also – it helps to load a long page if Noscript is on, Adblocker is on, and images are turned off; thus nothing is loading but the page itself and the text. That’s Firefox but other browsers have equivalents.
quoderatdemonstrandum, #29,
A large bastard and soda? In the West End? I don’t think so me old china. That’s very much an East End caper.
Trust me, the Dog and Duck is not the sort of establishment to appear on websites. Nor streets if you get my meaning. That #13 there was a coded message…I’ve said too much.
Louis
RIP Chamomile :(
Still, it must be said that the kitty had a peaceful end and was well-loved until the end. May that thought lessen grief.
__
So sorry to hear about that, Nifty! fresh chocolate chip cookies will be coming out of your usb soon. Please have a plate ready.
__
Bad + worse stories: My mom had the following problem:
(1) pregnancy, 8.5 months along (the fetus would become me).
(2) winter, very icy, coldest on record.
She went to the doc for a general checkup, and to the upcoming discuss delivery. While she was in there, someone hit her car, crumpling the driver side door.
Mechanic came, inspected the car, declared it drivable, but door broken. So now she had to go home.
Had to climb in the passenger door and slide over.
Car was a subcompact.
Stick shift.
(sorry, mom!)
I have somehow lost the ability to link to websites
was it different on old Pharyngula or have I just gotten dumber?
Could someone please send some sunshine through my USB port? Sounds like you folks in the south have plenty to spare.
Dammit, I’m a prairie girl, I don’t do rain or clouds for more than 24 hours at a time.
Off for a walk to try to improve my mood, and I’m staying home and writing today. It’s not a day for labwork.
[/sunlight-deprived grumpiness]
I wonder if we could convince danielhaven, yec123, syfy and rajkummar to get together in their own private space? I would love to hear/see the four of them as they argue how many drug trips can dance on yec123’s head.
Hmmm…it’s easy for me to change the pagination size. What’s the consensus? 600 comments? 500?
Thanks for the heads-up in re the Dog and Duck, QED and Louis. I’ll take it under advisement …
Many many Nice Cups of Tea to niftyatheist. You are handling this exactly right, imo (especially with reference to the guns stuff). I hope you are OK and not too horribly shaken up ::sends extra Cup of Tea::
600 would OK for me, it is only when page size gets upto the late 600s I get problems.
500 posts/page seems like a good balance to me, but I don’t generally have problems with loading. What do others think?
Knowing full well that this is not a democracy, I will still vote:
My vote: comment 666 for pagination.
500 would really help *me* personally… but I’m SOOOO tempted to ask for 666 here…
PZ:
500 would work best for me.
Um, another note – pagination at 500 would mean Endless Threads get refreshed more often than currently. Right now, they usually get renewed between 600 and 700 posts. (Which makes 666 even cooler.) While a break at 500 means I’d be able to load any thread in two or three tries, which would be *awesome* for me, doesn’t that also mean PZ would have to make new TETs more often than he has been? Or would we just adapt to all TETs running to two pages?
I’m in the privileged position to not be worrying about pagination too much. But 666 is kinda funny…
My, completely unresearched and entirely from memory, idea is that threads rarely get >500 unless they are about topics where divots abound, or when Herr Doktor Poopyhead is Abroad on Business™. So for the sake of those people who need smaller paginations, it costs us pagination rich folk nothing to have an extra tab open, beyond a click or two that is. I’d err on the lower pagination side for that reason alone.
Of course that is enough reason for an all out flame war on the internet, which I now expect!
Louis
I know I went for 600, but if the consensus is 500 it is not a problem for me.
Yep, I agree. TET and battle-threads (usually misogynist, but not always) are the only ones where I drop out due to poor connection when the numbers get high.
I am so tempted to go all Randian on your arse for suggesting that we actually should give a shit about those who are not pagination rich, but I will not even mention the idea.
Why do I see this as the basis for the next Michael Bay movie?
Addendum to my #51,
…threads rarely get >500 unless they are about topics where divots abound, or when Herr Doktor Poopyhead is Abroad on Business™, or if the thread is TET.
Bugger.
Louis
Well, having two-page threads on a regular basis *will* result in quite a few folks losing track of where the previous comments went. Losing some drive-bys in the fog of war might not be such a bad thing, maybe? But there seem to be about as many or more folks who lose their way as there are folks with slow connections.
There must be some kind of squid signal that goes out when Herr Doktor Poopyhead is Abroad on Business™. What else can explain the loons who entertained(*) us so well this weekend.
*. I use the term entertained wholly inappropriately of course.
I would like 503.
If the fax number of the Beast™ is still a bit on the long side for those with re-loading issues, maybe we could go for god’s phone prefix, 555?
Well it works in the US for all other fictional characters, doesn’t it?
I suspect if double-paging became more common then regulars would soon get used to it. We are hardly a stupid bunch after all. Whereas the likelihood of those of us without super-duper fast Internet speeds being stuck with them for a while is pretty high(*)
*. Although in the UK we are promised a minimum Internet connection speed of 2Mbps by 2012,2013,2014,sometime, when the Government can be arsed.
chigau – (sort of) snap, I suppose :)
LOL You all crack me up – speaking of the Squidly poopyhead – I found a cephalopod of unknown species beanie baby in my son’s closet yesterday! It made me think of PZ. It was hanging over the shelf looking down balefully at me. (Damn! I should have had that thing on the kitchen counter – that would have put the fear of Cthulhu into that burglar!
I don’t have trouble loading pages usually, but sometimes yes. I love Ogvorbis’s suggestion 666
E-:< <- evil grin
Locksmith is here. TTYL Thanks again!
I see The Squidly Overlord has already put a new pagination scheme is place!
And yay!, pages are loading super quick.
OK. Pagination now set at 500; I look for TET to hit 666 before I close it. Which means we will regularly have two-page threads, but y’all can figure it out.
And if routine multi-page threads work well, I could reduce the pagination still further at some later date, to both reduce drain on resources here and to facilitate faster downloading on everyone elses ends.
Yay! Thank you, PZ.
Aw. 500 is practical, I suppose, but it has no funniness. :(
Too late! You mentioned it!
(Clears throat…)
Oh sure. Suuuurre. Make me open a whole ‘nother tab just ‘cos someone else has the poor sense to get stuck in some ‘shitty internet connection’ ghetto! That’s a crock, son–you’re only stuck with that meagre dialup bullshit ‘cos you lack ambition and chutzpah and good ole’ American drive! You know, this is bandwidth wealth redistribution, that’s what this is! I have to risk cramping my hand on the mouse just because some Harry Hardluck or Sally Sobstory spent all their download quota surfing for better prices for oxy instead of investing it properly in Pharyngula threads?! What about my needs! I got my snappy downloads the hard way, with work and perserverance and stick-to-itedness the way you’re supposed to, and now you’re going to do this to me! Commies! I’m off to go tea-bagging*, you bastards!
(*/What?! It’s what we call it, dammit!)
Yay! On behalf of my other self when I’m in dial-up fundie hell, THANK YOU PZ!
I’m convinced that if the birds weren’t gendered as “feminine” in our society, we’d have men-only sports teams called The Swans.
A J Milne,
Dear Sir,
Will you please have the decency to not post a near identical piece of comedy ranting to the one I was about to submit?
I refreshed and was most distressed to have been unceremoniously scooped. In the future will you please run all such comedy past the Head of Comedy (Pharyngula Department) for approval prior to submission, so that Joke Overlap of this nature does not occur.
Yours etc.
Louis
We do. Swansea City, a football team playing the English Premier League are known as The Swans.
Matt: I should’ve done my research. Let me save face by stipulating that, in the U.S., no men’s team would call themselves that, due to anxious masculinity.
Amplifying: via JT, sending Internet nominations to the White House for consideration of Jessica Ahlquist for the 2012 Citizens’ Medal. Nominations must be received by April 24.
JT: http://freethoughtblogs.com/wwjtd/2012/04/18/let-obama-know-about-jessica-ahlquist
Nomination site: http://www.whitehouse.gov/citizensmedal/submit-a-nomination
Weep as wingnut from the US whine about how the US is trying to end the criminalization of homosexuality around the world. How dare they tell Africa and Asia what to do. (Yeah, the bitter fucking irony of that statement.) Watch in horror as they force a close up on Hilary Clinton’s face when she says that homosexual rights are human rights.
Dammit, if only we were nice to these people, they might change their minds.
Apropos of nothing, is it just me that sings Abu Qatada’s name to the tune of the Lion King’s Hakuna Matata?
I have a feeling I could do some lyrical wizardry here…
Louis
THIS TURN OF PHRASE, I IS STEALING IT.
OK Daisy, I’ll over look that one :)
I hate the practice of calling the women’s team . Especially silly when the mascot is male.
Let’s hear it for the Lady Bulls!
PZ,
Gracias! Long threads sometimes refuse to load on my phone– believe me, it’s a pain in the ass when I’m trying to avoid work. ;)
Ogvorbis (previous thread)
Doesn’t surprise me on bit. My parent’s are both disabled and had their food stamps cut by $100 2 months ago because they don’t have a child. Fucking ridiculous. So I’ve been helping them out with our food stamps so everyone gets food and both of our households go to food banks etc to supplement.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they cut food stamps here to $100 per month for those without children or not give it at all. They already won’t give cash assistance to those without children and a 2 year life time limit to those who do.
But I live in a republican hellhole where I’m competing against 2k other applicants per job posting with way more experience than me for jobs as well. They seriously are okay with and want the poor to starve on the streets.
Janine, I hate that too.
Also, “The Lady Bulls” reminds me of the “citiots” who don’t realize that cows are female and bulls male and therefore don’t find ads such as the one for Gateway Computers (that featured a baritone cow) ridiculous.
Janine:
So… they’re cows? Heifers?
Is that better or worse than the public school district in southern Illinois where the high school mascot is the Wooden Shoe and the middle school is colloquially known as the “Wooden Booties”?
I mean, it is worse than the private school in the next town where the high school is the Bulldog and the middle school is the Bull Puppy.
Was there recently a cartoon movie where the milking cows were voiced by men?
Daisy:
Prolly. However, if anyone thought* about it, The Swans would be a good name, as swans tend to be vicious.
*Yes, I know that’s asking too much.
Janine,
Yes. Several. Including Cows With Guns
Beck: Most Americans ‘in bed with absolute evil’ and ‘worshiping Baal’
Ms. Daisy Cutter, that is pretty much the same kind of message as Romney was saying when he complained of Obama’s secular religion.
Fuck it, if only we were nice to these people, they just become reasonable and change their minds.
Ted Nugent: “I’m a black Jew at a Nazi-Klan rally”
Janine: Oh, yeah, the underlying sentiment is the same damn thing we hear all the time, and not just from Mor[m]ons, but I was perversely amused by the comments about sleeping with evil and worshiping ancient fertility gods.
Beck is such a fine example of compleat stupidity. If I’m not worshipping El Shaddai, I’m not worshipping Baal. Not difficult, that. Besides, I’ve looked everywhere, and there’s no golden calf in this house.
Score! Threads are loading so much faster now!
Caine, you better send a complaint to the federal government. All of us secular feminist Gaia worshiping welfare recipients got one when we applied.
It would be nice if Ted Nugent would show up at the Tea Party events presented as he was when he when before the draft board forty five years ago.
Daisy:
Funny, I didn’t realize that the fucking capital gains tax or minimum wage even existed 2,000 years ago.
God, I hate these people.
I’ll catch up with the previous subthread later. Have skimmed through this one…
I’d greatly appreciate some kind of warning that a thread now has two pages. After all, if you happen not to see the number of comments given at the top and know that a new page opens at 500, you won’t notice anytime soon – the comment numbers on the second page start at 1! I had that problem yesterday night.
Utterly awesome. Great comments (at least on the first page).
Moment of Mormon Madness for the new chapter of The Endless Thread.
Some of you may remember that a few years back the LDS Church was allowed to buy a public street in Salt Lake City. Church leaders promised a walkway that would remind people of Paris. Instead, Church security officers arrested and roughed up two gay men for holding hands on their no-longer-public property.
Well, mormon leaders are at it again. This time, they are buying a public street in Provo and turning it into private, LDS Church property. This kind of thing can happen when more than 85% of all city, county, and state officials are mormons.
Same fucking mindset as the Constitutional Originalist. Life is frozen in a single moment and we must conform to that imagined ideal.
Nostalgia for an age that never existed.
Oh dear, I’ve had it.
#1 anounced that I’m a bad mum (same voice as you’d scold a dog who’s just left a steaming puddle on the carpet).
She has further proclaimed that she’ll never snuggle with me again.
Except tomorrow morning.
After that she’ll only snuggle with daddy!
Unless he’s out of town.
Looks like my eternal punishment will be the exact same as life is now :)
There’s a link that says “Older Comments” at the bottom of the thread: see the previous TET, which is now divided in half at #500.
(I agree that the comment-numbering scheme kind of sucks – it’s relative, doesn’t copy-paste, and doesn’t start at #501 on the second page as it honestly should. Also, there should be an Older Comments/Newer Comments link at the TOP of each comment page, where it says “710 comments”, not just at the bottom. Those aren’t things PZ can quickly fix, though.)
Janine:
Dammit! I’m always the last one to get this stuff…
Giliell,
I hear ya!
My 2-soon-to-be-3 year old has informed me on several occasions that Mama Cuddle is preferable to Dada Cuddle. Usually via the medium of “Bye Bye Dada. Mama Cuddle”. Mind you, I get better sentences out of him than that, Mama is clearly the go to person for comforting babyishness, I am Scary Dada of the Timeout and the Countdown of Doom. I need to be Impressed, apparently.
My beloved wife is away on business tonight, I am at home with The Boy. I also have two days off to spend with him. So Dada will be getting in a post bedtime sneaky beer whilst nobody is looking.
It’s the safest way.
Louis
On especially pestilential threads (yec, raj, dh, syfy) you could set it to 1 and heads would explode.
No, heifers are cows that have never given birth and are thus not making milk.
Never been attacked by a swan. Geese, however, are vicious little bastards. A friend of mine from high school had his arm broken when he was five by a goose.
—-
From the Bleck article:
headdesk
headdesk
headdesk
thud
headfloor
headfloor
David M:
There’s some pretty choice comments on page 2, as well.
Beck bullshit: I believe that this would be the best initial test of the SLH/DC (Superlarge Head/Desk Collider) on the LOLstar. It’s capable of accelerating a head toward a desk target at nearly the speed of light. Because when shit like this is read, nothing else will do.
Hee hee. Yeah. And I think the guy who pointed out the Mammon thing nailed it…
… as in: Beck’s not pissed people are worshiping some bronze-fertility god. Mr. Goldscam is just pissed, rather, they’re not worshiping the personification of avarice he prefers.
Oh, and re:
Dear Sir:
I had a brief conversation with our admin people, took some time, got to the bottom of this thing, and I regrettably must inform you this error was at our end.
It’s embarrassing to have to report, but apparently in our recent downsizing (honestly, I’d have thought writing Michael Richards’ material would have been a steadier, safer contract, but what can you do), the tech in charge of bringing us up to the ISO 9001 joke clearing standard was canned, and it escaped the notice of management we had this gap.
Long story short: it may be a while before we can put this properly in order. In the meanwhile, however, I’ve put one of the secretaries on phoning them in*. With any luck we should have no further difficulties of this nature.
Yours respectfully,
AJ
(*/And yes, she has already filed the notice on the inevitable comment that, as we’ve sounded like we’ve been phoning them in for years now anyway, no one’s likely to notice much difference.)
These Swans were oh so femme.
(Yes, I know there was a woman in the band.)
Looks like my eternal punishment will be the exact same as life is now :)
Despite my intermittent whining about my life, if someone told me that my eternal punishment would be life as it is right now, I’d be pretty happy with that.
I got an email this morning from one of the directors of my school’s laboratory animal division advising that next week has been named by…someone to be World Laboratory Animal Liberation Week. I know that at least a few of the others here are involved with animal research, so stay sharp and keep your eyes peeled!
In other news, my Blackberry bit the dust yesterday and I now have an iPhone. I think I may end up losing my job over Draw Something.
Last fall I went to a volleyball game against Central Arkansas. Their womens teams are called the Sugar Bears. I am not kidding.
Also, the Geese.
Oh for fuck’s sake. Read the Pentateuch, God can’t even do math.
@88
I am absolute evil. At least that’s what I’ve been told. Having been identified as Satan by a local mormon, l am fairly certain of my status.
But my bed is only occupied, presently at least, by me. If “most Americans” are in bed with me then most Americans are really, really tiny. Much smaller than I would have expected.
Hope they don’t try this with flies. I’ll let the animal care people in the psych department know though.
Ogvorbis and Brownian, I suspect The Geese would be a more popular team name if geese weren’t associated with abject stupidity.
This is one of the times I’m happy that I work with non-charismatic animals. Very few people would want to liberate my critters.
That doesn’t make up for the lack of data on my study species, but it’s something, at least.
Louis
Well, since their daddy is out of town 5 out of 7 days, I am clearly the person they rely most on in terms of their emotional wellfare.
Yet when it is about sneaking into the big parental bed for nightly cuddling, daddy is the person to go to. I don’t do that.
Funny enough, the kids resemble us completely in that. In the caravan they got into several fights because #1 was for cuddling while the little one wanted to be left alone :)
But so far they’re seriously overestimating their power in pitching mummy against daddy since that is exactly zero.
I am also the big bad mum with Teh Rules.
I am the big bad mum who does not dress you even if you beg with big bambie eyes.
:(
Sorry to hear about Chamomile. Poor wee kitteh.
–
That’s ’cause to them, it’s religion, with all of the cherry-picking of Holy Writ that that implies.
–
O.O
And also *hugs*
–
–
Or take all those ludicrously-highly-paid jobs in the hands-on agriculture biz, i.e., hire out as field hands so that all those nasty brown people can be deported to the places from whence they—or their parents—came.
–
Dunno about that, but there was a movie wherein the male bovines had udders. It looked ridiculous.
–
Giliell,
Ah yes the Mummy vs Daddy ploy. It’s good, and innate it seems. Even my little lad, who is what I still call “seriously little”, is trying it on in unsubtle and coltish ways.
It works not at all!
I will confess though it might have some traction eventually, my wife is much more of a big old softie than me, but since we largely agree on most topics to do with child care, it might not be something to worry overly about.
I am looking forward to parental Good Cop/Bad Cop though. I have a whole series of entertaining punishments and strategies worked out already. A friend of mine told me that of all the friends he had that said they would experiment on their kids, I was the only one he thought would actually do it.
He was right. ;-)
Louis
Contacted for his reaction, however, God was quick to distance himself from Martin’s comments.
“Listen,” said the alleged creator of the universe, “I’m really not a money manager. More an idea guy, y’know? I mean, the only time I can remember when I talked money with this guy was the time I got drunk with him over lunch a few times, told him how Lucifer had hooked me up with this Multi-Level Marketing thing. Oh, and about that… that didn’t work out in the end quite like he told me it would… Shoulda known, I guess. But anyway, my point is, I think he needs to keep in mind who he’s talking to, here…
“I mean, man, I don’t even remember quite what I told him. But I am pretty sure about this whole ‘render unto Caesar’ thing… Listen, that’s not even what I meant to say. That was supposed to be ‘I wonder if they do Caesars’. But y’know, I get a little mumbly after the third martini…
“But seriously, they’ve been trying to run an economy on my advice? That’s just… Look, that’s just silly. That’s like, oh, man. No wonder. I wish I’d known. I mean, I really don’t know money, but do I know me. And if I’d known they were actually listening to me, I would have put my money in Asian stocks.”
I got an email like that, too, Predator.
It included the command that if we lose our ID cards to call Security (using a special line set up just for this purpose) within 2 hours so it can be deactivated.
Not long ago a not-dissimilar email went about about Generation Rescue and some stunt they were threatening to pull (it never happened, glad to say).
Fuck.
Just talked to Wife.
Apparently, Boy has an anpaid balance at his college. We don’t know how much yet, but it could be %500. Aaaargh.
And his checking account is overdrawn.
And Wife is discovering about a thousand dollars worth of unbuilt plastic models, bottle of India ink, paints, brushes, model trains, etc. up in his room.
We can bail him out but shit! this is annoying. He’s almost 22 years old!
All those with small children, enjoy them now. It may get even more annoying.
Threadrupt. Popping in to baldly solicit hugs. I won’t say why due to the public nature of TET, but I just got devastating news.
I’m at work (both kids are currently asleep or on their way), and I’m supposed to go babysit until late tonight.
And all I want to do is curl up in a little ball and have a good cry.
Sometimes it’s hard to believe how cruel luck can be.
(FTR, my physical well-being is a-ok, so don’t go worrying about that.)
*opens infinite knitted hug basket and shoves over to Jules*
Jules:
Whatever it is, here are three shots of grog, one bottle of scotch, two beer, a hug, some chocolate, a slice of cake, a friendly smile, etc.
Jules: just hang in there, y’know?
Ogvorbis:
Well. I’d be returning things and then I’d shoot the little fucker. Or possibly kick his ass to the curb and tell him to clean up his own financial situation.
There’s a reason I’m childfree. Good luck, Oggie.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/18/illinois-man-dies-in-attack-by-swans/
Louis
hehe, the young man will love you
I’m currently looking forward to them teaming up against the evil parents. I’m seeing the first evidence of this already
Jules
Obviously not but I get what you mean
Big, big hugs are coming.
Ogvorbis
Shit.
You really shouldn’t have to deal with this on top of everything else or even without everything else.
Though my spawn is still small I grew up with a cousin who worked like that.
Make him pay as much as possible, make it hurt. My aunt always bailed her son out without him ever feeling the hardship his parents had to endure because of him.
Jules: *manymanymanymanyhugs*
–
Jules – Big bosomy hugs on the way!
We want to help him finish college, so he’ll be at home for at least a little while longer.
Oh, he will. Wife is taking over his home life and I am taking over his finances for a while. And his disposable income will be miniscule.
Dang, sympathies all around. Appears to be one of those days. Looks like the coffee is fresh and the water is ready for tea. Of course, the bar is open. Beverage of choice transported as needed.
Jules
chocolaterumbacon
and a kitten
Jeez, must be bad news day. I just found out my dad has 30% heart function and 20% kidney function. Left a message with his doctor to explain this to me, I’m rather stunned.
Thanks, y’all. I’m in Complete Freak-Out Mode™, so I just wanted some snuggles.
When I know more about what to expect, I’ll be able to start calming down (even if it’s a worst case scenario).
*hugs*, *hot chocolate*, *puppies* for all who need them
Patricia:
I would be too. Sorry about this, Patricia.
Jules – Grog & walnettos on the way!
Jules,
I can’t offer big bosomy hugs or knitted ones, but I have decided for your benefit to be Extra British. Therefore I shall offer you a hearty “pip pip” and a well placed dose of “stiff upper lip, old girl” combined with a dash of “worse things happen at sea you know”. Take twice nightly, and see me in the morning if things don’t improve.
I also happen to have a bottle of Sailor Jerry rum I am about to crack the seal on after a successful and rapid Achievement of Bedtime for my son. I can pour some into the USB Intercontinental Embooze-inator 4000 for you.
Hang in there, Jules. It could be worse, you could be Piers Morgan. ;-)
Louis
*hug* for Patricia.
.
.
.
Okay, I move that we declare today to be Null and Void, come back and take another shot at it tomorrow.
–
Patricia
Hugs for your Dad.
Ogvorbis,
The Boy has $1000 worth of plastic models and is in college?
I demand for the sake of propriety you immediately raise his drinking allowance to $200. Weekly. Find him at least ten ladies of dubious virtue, or one woman from New Jersey, whichever is easier, and hand him all the hard drugs you can find within a six block radius.
I’ll be over as soon as I can. I will waive my normal Corruption Consultancy fee in this case.
No, no. No need to thank me. I’ve got to come over for a go on Josh anyway. I may include Brownian, but only if he’s been very good.
Also, free chemistry tuition available whilst I’m remotely sober. This won’t last long!
Louis
P.S. The above is all in jest and not to be taken remotely seriously. Me? Sober? As if!
Ogvorbis:
I don’t know if it helps, but I wasn’t very fiscally responsible until I hit 25 or so. The thing that helped me most was actually having limited funds: restricting the amount of money I pulled out of the bank and not using debit or credit cards at all other than to pull said funds from the bank. It took a bit, but it got me more in the habit of keeping track not of what I’d spent but of what I was going to need to spend, which was far more effective for me.
A bit part of that, though, is being realistic about expenses and fun money, which is usually the first step: making a spreadsheet, for the last few months, of how much is spent on different categories of things.
I grew out of it, hopefully he will too. Good luck either way.
Thanks Caine, I’m in my 50’s and still call him daddy, so you know what he means to me.
Louis – just how does and old girl keep a stiff upper lip? Or should I ask Walton that?
Patricia,
I’m with Cicely. Clearly we have broken today somehow. I’ll check the workings and see if we can make tomorrow work better.
My sympathies regarding your dad. See previous Extra Britishness directed at Jules, I have enough to go around so grab a pile. ;-)
Louis
Jules: I, like Louis have decided to be extra English for your benefit (Even though I’m American by birth). Thusly, you should find gin and tonic or malt whisky flowing out of your USB momentarily, along with a supply of upper lip stiffener. If needed, tweedy hugs are available.
Patricia,
Old girls can maintain a stiff upper lip as well as any old boy. This is the age of enlightenment dotcherknow. Women aren’t just pretty little things any more, oh no. Some of them have jobs, and vote too. I’ve heard tell that in some places they are considered to be people!
I think you are referring to maintaining Not Only A Stiff Upper Lip, which is the sole province of a gentleman, as you intimate. Here is an instructional videogram for your edification.
The beastly business is dealt with at roughly 1:55.
Louis
Louis:
He already did that. That was the missing freshman year. It did not work.
That’s basically the programme.
Things he can use his debit card for: gasoline. That’s it. The card has to be used six times each month so he can jolly well put in two gallons at a time to get the requisite number of uses.
Other than that, if he needs money, he goes to an ATM. No more plopping the card down for a Big Mac and a coke. No more.
I figure he will grow out of it. I did. But, for me, it took marriage and a kid to get me there. And he’s not a whole lot younger than I was . . . .
That’s not funny!
=========
Patricia:
Cyberhugs and chocoscotch to you.
Thanks for the good thoughts everyone!
I’ll try to entertain myself with lip stiffining while I wait for the doctor to call. *smirk*
Null and Void Day sounds great, better than It Sucks Day.
Patricia:
*hugs* if you want them, because health issues are never fun.
20% kidney function – total or for each kidney (assuming he still has both)? My step-dad’s one kidney (other removed for cancer) has been functioning at about 25% for around 12 years now; that’s high enough to keep him out of the dialysis danger zone (which , IIRC, is 18% but they start talking about getting ready for it at 20%), but he has to watch what he eats (mostly potassium, which is apparently in everything healthy). It’s odd, he can (for example) have all the ice cream he wants but no oranges.
I’m not sure what the 30% heart function would be, unless they mean blood flow to the heart. That’s bad but can potentially be remedied with things like stents. A good friend had around 30% (I can’t remember the exact number, but it was 25-40%) blood flow; apparently two of his arteries were very constricted. They put in a couple of stents and he’s on blood thinners but is otherwise fine.
So, not great news but not necessarily drastic. Here’s hoping it ends up being reversible and not on the more drastic end.
Ogvorbis,
Hmmm a tricky problem. I see, I see. Foolish of me to fail to realise that a personage of your inside leg measurements would not have already tried a good old corrupting.
Have you considered two women from New Jersey? And possibly some sort of special ointment of enthusiasm?
I realise it’s a bit much, but needs must when the devil shits in your hat as I always say.
Louis
THIS! is some good news. (via Daily Kos):
Somewhere, Vox Day is having a conniption by committee.
@ogvorbis
God, that hurts. I know because I myself have to pay a VERY high price for my education, and figuring things out with my dad was a pain. So all the best luck to you.
Patricia
Big hugs.
For what it’s worth, my mum in laws heart function was down to 30% after the chemotherapy. It has grown better steadily since.
*hugs* to Patricia and Oggie. Today sounds like One of Those Days.
Louis, thank you for your kind Extra Britishness.
I shall take all of the booze and bacon that anyone offers, and with much gratitude. I absolutely hate feeling like this.
Richard Austin – Hey thanks for that info, it takes some of the shock out of it. Also that gives me a couple of better informed questions to ask. My dad is 84, so they probably wouldn’t risk heart surgery on him. (I’m guessing)
Louis – That lesson on stiff upper lipping was entirely enlightening. Damned funny too!
This is all making me think of a newspaper article I read in The Province, yesterday, where some english Archbishop was whining openly about christian persecution, about how ‘people are no longer able to express their beliefs without being called a bigot or possibly fired.’
True, it’s infuriating to hear their bellyaching and sobbing about no longer being allowed to openly discriminate, but this is how all bullies react when you finally manage to split their upper lip, or bounce a rock off their temple.
It means we’re winning.
Cry more, archbishop. Your tears are like sangria to me.
That’s about when my grandpa got his pacemaker, he lived until 89 (died from COPD), including another surgery for a broken humerus.
Og – my brother spent money without regard to what “credit limit” means until he was almost 30; some people do take longer to figure it out. Sorry it’s going down like that.
Jules – I have no good bosoms for hugs, but I do have fat arms. Just as cushy. :)
Patricia- I’m so sorry. I hope when the doctor calls back they already have a Plan for How To Fix It.
Janine – Back to the Barnyard was not only a movie, but also a 52 episode cartoon series, where the main character is a boy cow. Who has udders. ARGH
TLC,
Ah yes that guy, the ex-Archbishop of Canterbury, Carey, is the likely culprit without seeing the actual article.
It’s all paranoid drivel. Christians here are not in any way persecuted, the cases that enrage the ex-Aggabagga Cagga are cases where Christians have demanded special treatment for no other reason than they are Christian (not even for a specific common doctrinal reason) and been told to sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up. Of course they didn’t like this and went whining to the Telegraph, Daily Mail, and sundry suspiciously evangelical Christian law firms with suspiciously deep pockets.
Basically it’s a pampered, over privileged, highly potected arsehole whinging about the fact that some told him his shit stinks.
Louis
P.S. It might be hard to tell where I stand on this issue, I have been rather subtle…
In fact, if you do a Bing search on the main character and write “Why does Otis”, the auto-fill ins are all “have udders”
Also, The Lord* knows I am not a violent man,** but if given the opportunity I would like to have a quiet word with Vox Day. He is one of the most odious of people I have had the misfortune of encountering online. I would not trust myself with him in person, even in public.
The smug stupidity he exudes is…words…failing…rage…oh no…the rage…
Louis
* My pet rock.
** I am, but I work very, very, VERY hard at not being.
Louis: Ah yeah, Carey. That was the name. I couldn’t remember the details too well but “Carey” definitely rung the bell.
They remind me of that neighborhood kid everyone remembers from their youth… the spoiled sop who would take his ball home and tell his dad you were all being mean to him if you didn’t let him win.
I prefer it the Pratchett way:
If I may quote Sergeant Jackrum, I’m not a violent man, but…
Rum of correct flavour?* Check!
Low fat Sour Cream and Onion Pretzels? Check!
Korean serial killer movie I am not allowed to watch whilst my wife is in the house? Check!
Pointless hand occupying computer game I will play whilst watching movie? Check!
Evening of well earned relaxation proceeding according to plan? Check!
Louis
* The correct flavour of rum is simple: Large. Large rum is always the right rum.
Louis,
I believe Janine once described Pox Day as a shit stain on the panties of life.
Giliell,
You’re right, that is better.
Well, I’ve never claimed to be up to Pratchett standards! Pfffff the very idea! Sorry I just actually made myself laugh!
Louis
Jules and Patricia,
Hugs from me.
Patricia,
My friend’s angiogram was arthroscopic: they went in through his thigh and placed them remotely. He was in and out in a few days (IIRC, in on Wednesday out on Sunday). So, that’s still a possibility.
If some of our resident residents were around, they could probably provide more info. Still, I hope none of that’s necessary and it’s far less drastic than it could be.
Instead of many hugs for Jules, I offer one long hug (time duration, her choice) with her head cradled on my ample bosoms. I removed the burnished copper breastplate for the time being.
Sorry to hear about your Dad, Patricia. This is indeed a day to shove into the dustbin. My neighbor’s grandson, who is only 34 years old, had a heart attack today. I had a low-fat lunch in honor of the stricken.
Ogvorbis, a kid of that age could declare bankruptcy and learn a very painful lesson. Your method is letting him down easier than that. If he doesn’t realize that you’ve provided him with a soft landing, perhaps you could mention bankruptcy.
Don’t deprive your children of valuable life lessons.
‘Tis, #167,
Janine must have been feeling kind. Shitstains have uses.*
Louis
* Don’t ask me to think of them right now, but if offered the choice between saving a shitstain or saving Vox Dei…I’d have to think very seriously. I’d probably come to the wrong conclusion too.
Dick Clark bid his farewell to his life on this earth. He’s outta here.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/entertainment/53940610-81/clark-american-dick-bandstand.html.csp
Only in Utah: there’s a Democratic caucus of LDS members, the LDS Dems caucus held in Salt Lake City.
First, a big WTF for there being enough mormons who are Democratic Party supporters to hold a caucus.
And another big WTF for mormons feeling that they need to hold a mormons-only caucus.
And lastly, the biggest WTF of all for this proposed political strategy:
Full story in the Salt Lake Tribune.
More hugs to Jules and Patricia, and lots of Nice Cups of Tea. Jules, I really hope that whatever this is turns out to be not the worst case scenario, and hopefully even turns out to be doable. Patricia, hoping for improvement for your dad. {{hugs enclosed here}}
So sad about Dick Clark, but I had to laugh at a tweet I saw that said “The Mayans were right. 2012 is the last year because now there’s no Dick Clark to give us a new one.”
Hugs to Jules, Patricia, and anyone else who need ’em.
RIP Chamomile. He was lucky that you and your SIL found him, Nifty. He at least died knowing there are people who care.
Og – Fucking hell, I had financial troubles, but nothing like what you mentioned. And you can bet that after losing my wallet abroad, I got even better at managing money. Even in a developing country, 200 bucks could go fast. Maybe you can do that over the summer – have him work out how to make $200 last for two weeks. And only 200. Doing so while he lives in another country seems a bit drastic right now.
Does he have a job, btw?
——————————————
Ugh, is soft shell crab supposed to make your stomach feel weird? Tonight’s the first time I ever ate it, and my stomach only calmed down after I ate some saltines and drank some water. Mom didn’t like the crab either. In the future I’ll try not to puke when I see people eating it in restaurants.
—————————————–
Wore my Evil Little Thing T-shirt today. Since it was very cool, I kept my windbreaker on at work, so no one really got to see it. Upon getting home, I shucked the windbreaker before my run. Nothing was said by those who passed me on the road, and Mom didn’t say anything. Then again, maybe I just happen to live where very few people care about that sort of thing.
———————————————
The police cleared out the Occupy site downtown. I was hoping a few people would be left by the time I left work, but aside from the makeshift fencing, there was nothing left. No idea where they’ve gone, and I’m a bit sad they had to take the library too – I was going to see if there any more interesting books and maybe have a brief convo or two while browsing.
On the upside, so far no reports of police brutality. And our police force isn’t known for subtlety, though they are not as harsh as others are. I do think the original message got lost somewhere along the way, but for a while, it was great.
I kind of regret I didn’t get to do one thing: Someone put up a sign that said “Occupy (city name).” Someone else spray-painted “un” next to “occupy.” My first impulse was to find a can of spray paint and change the message to, “REOccupy (city name).”
Jules, sending ((hugs)) along with a gift certificate for the kind of soothing comfort food/drink that you most like.
Ogvorbis, So sorry to hear you’ve got stress from an unexpected direction. When your children are little, it seems like everything will get easier when they are more independent – but often it doesn’t work out quite like that. :( Often the challenges are harder. I hope your boy gets things under control, (with yours and his mother’s guidance).
Patricia…so sorry about your dad. (filling out another certificate for comforting treat of your choice)
What a day.
Patricia, about a year and a half ago my mother had heart by-pass surgery. Since I’m 60+, you can guess her age. She’s still here.
Oh no! Hugs to Jules & Patricia.
And for Ms Daisy: http://www.sydneyswans.com.au/
My kitteh had a good check-up at the vet and a manicure.
Unlike me, for some reason, the vet is never bleeding after trimming the kitty-claws.
PZ, thanks for the pagination!
If ChasC was still around he could probably calculate the drop off in business after ~500 comments on TET because it became time brutal to reload & reload after 500.
++++++++++++++++
To all: And I thought I had a shitty day, hugs and reinforcing rum (why, yes, Louis, I do drink Sailor Jerry, how did you know?) to ya’ll.
++++++++++++++++
Slightly threadrupt, and this is normally Lynna’s territory so I may be poaching/repeating:Lawsuit: Former Bain execs fired employees for not being Mormon
RIP, Chamomile. At the very least his life, though brief, ended surrounded by people who care about him.
All the talk of meat pies the other day got me hungry, so I baked one of my special pies.
I used whole chicken carcasses, slaughtered myself, including livers, gizzards, hearts, feet, and heads. The gravy, of course, was made by adding beer, and the whole thing was wrapped in good biscuit crust, so it can be eaten by hand like a cornish pasty.
The only acceptable accompaniment to these pies is beer. It’s part of the ‘meal’ experience. They just don’t taste right without a cold frosty beer to wash them down.
Jewelry created by organic patterns.
That’s what I was thinking. It must have made an immense difference to him that he was relatively comfortable, safe and cared for.
Livers and hearts, yay delicious! Feet, well, sure, why not. I confess to feeling slightly iffy about gizzards (aren’t they a bit tough?) and heads (just because they’re, well, heads. I never said it was all reason all the time). BEER. BEER GOOD.
Sounds pretty good altogether, TLC – bon appetit!
Opposablethumbs: Yeah, I’ll probably skip the heads next time. Plenty of good stuff in a bird head, but they disintegrate into lots of small bones. I picked them all out, but it was a near-thing.
Though I’ve done these with beef, I’m thinking of trying a steak and mushroom variant sometime in the future.
TLC,
I went to a wedding in Hungary once, great affair, Hungarians = nice folk in my book. Boy can they drink though! Phew, their national drink (apparently) was this stuff called Unicum. It is an acquired taste! We sank a few Unicums that night…
…anyway, at the wedding we had “Cock Soup”. Now this is soup made with an aged male chicken and not a penis. I checked. Apparently the cock has superior flavour, I tried that line on my wife, but I digress. In my bowl of soup I got the head of the cock. When I produced this and showed my neighbour, much amused might I add, the Hungarians all went mental. Apparently this is some omen of incredibly good luck. Which is nice. Only time I’ve (knowingly) eaten a cock’s head though.
I got through that with minimal dick jokes, I’m so proud.
Louis
The first time we had dim sum, we fell upon the chicken feet with cries of joy–it was the only thing we recognized and they did taste like chicken!
Sorry thought it was clarified in later posts. TLDR, nothing in particular just general atmosphere. I actually have Arab and Muslim friends and IMHO the atmosphere of atheism, outside of certain places, is complacent or in some places bends over backwards to accommodate bigotry against people in the guise of critique of religion.
Now I also see this directed towards Christians as well, to be fair, but rhetoric about how we should basically work towards killing as much Arabs as possible for peace is disturbingly acceptable. Like a lot of the issues I get screechy about it isn’t just an abstract ideal to me. To me when people challenge the rights of women or gays it is a threat to my “tribe”. It feels the same way with people promoting the war on terror. It isn’t just an abstract it’s people saying that they want to put either my friends or their family in real dire harm, if not actively seek their death. I’m having trouble emotionally distancing that from the intellectual disagreement.
I always thought the eating of chicken feet made the excellent political point that some other fucker had had it away with the rest of the chicken.
Louis
Chicken feet add good flavor and nutrients like almost any other part. Bones, edible organs, skin, cartilege, when making a stew (which is what this basically is before it gets wrapped in pastry) these all contribute nutrients and add to the flavor of the whole.
Having killed the birds myself, I felt strongly that every edible part should be utilized. And nothing does that more efficiently than stewing it all.
Well, except maybe unhinging my lower jaw and devouring it all in one go like some sort of humanoid snake, but this is more difficult than it looks.
OK, it’s midnight. Prevthread roundup, thisthread later today.
Giliell re ear candles:
http://www.badscience.net/2004/03/waxing-sceptical/
—
niftyatheist, “Laptops and smartphone stolen off kitchen counter”.
Shit, that’s awful. Hope you get them back. “… but, if no-one else can help, and you can find him, maybe you can hire” this guy. If you can’t, maybe it will cheer you up anyway. [long shot]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4oB28ksiIo&feature=player_detailpage#t=200s
—
I think that’s child ear infections. The last (grown-up) one I had was 15 years ago and after 36 hours of counting the minutes until the next painkiller, a prescription for co-amoxiclav sorted it out in, oooh, about 8 hours (plus finishing the course).
Sample size = 1. Statistical relevance = 0, of course.
—
I think it was rorschach posted a link to the South Korean anti-bullying initiative …
… but from their sidebar, this caught my eye.
http://asiancorrespondent.com/80257/in-an-airplane-lavatory-artist-creates-flemish-style-self-portraits/
Image #6. Airplane cyberwoman for the win!
Nighty night thread. Have pleasant dreams all. I go to sleep, perchance to dream of naughty ladies.
I like naughty ladies.
To be fair I also like nice ladies. Basically, ladies = good. Sorry, but I’m a fan.
Louis
Nifty, you can get door braces that go from the floor to the door and prevent it from being forced. They go up to about knee level.
I recently got burglar alarms that go off if a door is opened or if the sound of breaking glass or something falling heavily is detected. So far, the only one to set off an alarm was a raccoon knocking something down. It also comes with flood detection for the basement. There’s a mobile panic button we keep in the bedroom. I like having it.
cm re antibiotics for ear infections: True, but I haven’t found *anything* studying ear infections in adults. Most of my doctors have had to be convinced that yes, I’m an adult who gets ear infections every. single. year.
The little kids (male & female) outside my apt, by little kids I mean <10 I think, are talking about penises and the little girl is talking about pole dancing and gave a demo.
They're mostly foster kids, and they were all laughing, but gggggaaaawwwdamn!
Sorry to hear about all the bad news from Jules and Patricia.
It seems that the sum of all misery is indeed constant.
Announcement: Ow. Ow ow ow. :(
My body is all achy, especially my legs (why are they doing this? I am walking exactly the same amount as I usually do, at roughly the same speed) so I’m trying to relax in bed. The downside is it’s really hard for me to do my translation in bed, because I need my text, my dictionary, and a textbook all open in front of me, so I’m basically doing all the easy, never going to be due anyway work.
Also, GIANT HUGS to Jules and Patricia, with blankets (that is the way I like my hugs), and hugs as well to nifty and Giliell and Og, and Sailor, whose day was shitty. Hefty doses of USB chocolate prescribed for everybody.
Sili, I forgot to say congratulations on your job!! I did notice that earlier, but stuff happened before I got to say Congrats – champagne for you!!
Markita – done! Had locksmith in today and he told me about a bracing thing for the door – even though I suspect it is probably as good as the hockey stick (when one doesn’t forget to put down said stick ahem), I thought having that installed at a nice waist high level visible for all to see would be reassuring for the boys and a deterrent for thieves – I hope!
Mr NIfty sent me a text from the airport “I married a CAN-DO woman!” :) I hope I can do get some sleep tonight – and the boys too.
Carlie:
Wowsa. That’s some beautiful stuff.
Cicely @6 on Frantic thread: ants also really hate cinnamon. I keep some stale cinnamon around labelled “antbane.” A line across my doorway keeps them out. I think those powders get into their spiracles.
You might consider hiring an exterminator if they are carpenter ants.
I shouldn’t read Matt Taibbi. He makes me angry.
(Though not for the reasons you might expect.)
Right here, under “Interest Rate Swaps”:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h15/data.htm
Jeez, do they not have editors at Rolling Stone? Or do they just not care about accuracy since the bullshit is captivating enough to keep the readers and advertisers paying?
Seriously, if you’re getting your economic analysis from this guy, don’t.
Ask me instead. I’m cheap. *grrr*
(Don’t even get me started about “commodities speculators cause famine” shit: Krugman explains why it’s wrong, and he’s in the fricking Occupy Handbook.)
*blegh*
Nifty.
Thats a shit start to the day. Hope it resolves quickly.
I’m reminded of the time we were broken into. (fortunately) not whilst sleeping, rather whilst at work. Thief didn’t sneak in through door. Thief used the spare key left around the neighbourhood. You know, the large, rectangular cuboid key, made of ceramic. Appliled to the largest plate glass window. Key bounced on the hardwood floor. Short version: floor had to be redone, along with window. Estimated total cost (fortunately to insurance company) of about $10,000. A week of absense from the house (smell of drying poly urethane), and $1000 in excess. The thief made of with a computer, tv & cash. I’d guess his total haul on the black market would have fetched about $400.
The police caught him & he got 18 months for 23 houses.
——————–
QED@ #12 Excellent link. Loved it! thanks.
——————–
ms Daisy Cutter:
It might be out of your jurisdiction, but there is the Sydney Swans (Aussie Rules football team), They used to be called “the Bloods” but that’s back in the olden days.
Ooops, looks like my comment is too late!
——————–
That’s how they get to have cheap labour to make them richer.
Gotta go to a meeting now. I’ll attempt to catch up later
Hugs to those in need of same.
Lynna, OM, the CBC radio once had a dust mite expert on. He said that no matter how old and ugly he got, he’d never sleep alone.
So is that whole Koch brothers funding anti-abortion moves thing really a bid for cheap, desperate labor?
Is there any way to make the second page of comments start with #501?
If the French didn’t make a big deal of the Burqua, it 30 years it would be a thing of the past as the younger generation wouldn’t have it.
That’s my guess.
I love the idea that if she wears it, he has to wear it to keep her company. In fact, or at least, if women wear traditional dress, men must also. So often we see the men looking Western-ordinary and the women looking different.
I believe there’s at least one country that got rid of the death penalty for adultery by mandating that men and women had to suffer the same punishments.
Pteryxx RE ear infections: Have you considered myringotomy? May not be beneficial in your case though.
—
Just found out that I have a near 100% chance of getting into [Grad school of A. R’s dreams]!!!
Titanic & Concordia have 2 things in common. You can’t make anything foolproof, you can only make it fool resistant.
A.R: Gaaaaah… even if I had money/medical coverage, no thanks. I’m doing very well with ridiculously strong decongestants – take at the first sign of ear blockage, combine with steams, tea and four-star chili sauce, and I’ve been fine for years.
Also, congratz!
Pteryxx: Cayenne is my front line treatment for congestion. The stuff works wonders.
Heck, once I had horrendous ear and sinus congestion while on vacation, facing a FLIGHT back home. A bunch of us went out for sushi, so I smeared a heaping fingerful of fresh wasabi paste on my tongue… OWWWW! But my head was freakin’ CLEAR as a block of sculpture ice, no lie.
Pteryxx: I can believe that. One of the reasons I avoid wasabi.
Oh, I hate wasabi. But it does have uses. >_>
The rock hyrax is a surprisingly sophisticated communicator:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17729868
I can testify from personal experience that they are insanely cute, and from my literature survey, that their middens are highly informative to paleoclimatologists. What’s not to like?
I WANT A HYRAX.
Wow, TET is pretty slow tonight. Must be because TZT now has trolls.
I thought of you and your seat in class today, Cassandra. Because the grocery store my family has shopped at for 8 years just closed with no warning, and we’ve had to start shopping at a different location of the same chain. It’s terribly unsettling because there’s enough familiarity to suggest that it should be “right”, but a lot of things “wrong”. Wrong neighborhood, wrong shape parking lot, wrong people at the checkout, things shelved in the wrong places, wrong selection of groceries (unlike our neighborhood location, they have no Eastern European section, so I have no way to get my favorite cookies or any orange blossom water *sob*). And our grocery shopping schedule has to change, which is wrong too. I hate it with every fiber of my being, and Mr Kristinc tries very hard to be sympathetic but really doesn’t grasp why it’s so disturbing to me. Bleh.
Horde, something is bugging me.
Why would someone steal a recycling bin that is provided free of charge by the city?
*ponders*
I don’t get it.
I got an extra bin, but it required a trip to the city’s storage/transportation facility during working hours to pick up. Being salaried exempt, and working in the city, no problem to get away to do that. For somebody who can’t get away during the day, a big problem. So they “borrowed” yours. My two cents.
No one stole it, the space plastic monster brought it to life and it rolled away.
Sili, you got employed! How’d I miss this news? Congrats on upcoming financial stability!
Tell that to the guy who found a deep-fried chicken head in his McDonald’s meal.
Esteleth
I know! I know!
*ahem*
Some people are fucking assholes.
What do I win?
scavenger hunt
chigau: Though I’m very happy TZT is getting comments, raj is getting terribly boring.
@Rey Fox
Wait, that is a joke, is it?!
A. R
Xe is repetitive.
Indeed, xe is.
The gender-bending movies that bug me are those that take place in an ant nest and all the workers are male instead of female.
RowanVT, sorry to hear about Chamomile. I can’t find your initial post about it, although I went back several threads.
Can we give Slignot some publicity for this issue? Military structure treats women as disposable & harms women following rape.”
Is Jens around? The tulip bulbs are blooming!
I think Nerd has it right: it’s easier to steal your bin than to go get their own from the city. And let that be a lesson to you: at the very least, write your address on your bins. Maybe even put a few stripes of reflective tape on them so they are obvious from a distance. Thieves will then steal someone else’s.
Kristinc, ask the manager of the new store if your favourite items can be ordered. The rule of thumb is that if one person asks, quite a few people turn away silently. You can point out that the previous supplier is gone and they have a chance to attract customers who are casting about for a new store.
More bad news. The IV fluids have not helped Plummet. He has only days left now. I’ll be taking him home shortly for some last meals of kangaroo, milk and opiates.
Alethea
*hugs* for you
and heavy cream, bacon, chicken liver, etc. for Plummet.
He should go out happy.
@ Alethea
Sorry to hear about Plummet. It has not been a good week for the Pharyngula kittehz. :'(
Alethea, I’m really sorry about Plummet. I suppose that as it has to happen, then cuddles and kangaroo/milk/good drugs are the best way possible.
Still miss our first dog, that was with us for about 10 years, but am glad it was cuddles and drugs at the end. ‘scuse me, I seem to have something in my eye.
And huge congrats to AR and to Sili. Absolutely excellent achievement in both cases!
Good morning
Ear is better although not good, but I think I can stay off the painkiller at least.
And our flat is a complete mess (holiday backlog+3 days sick+ two monsters). Let’s see if I can mend that today.
Alethea
I’m sorry about Plummet. I’m sure you’ll give him some comfort in his last days.
Probably the same person who filled my rubbish bin absolutely full, just after the garbage truck had emptied it.
chigau (違う) got it right
Alethea. Sorry to hear about plummet. :(
Giliell. Good to hear ear is improving.
Oh, I hate wasabi. But it does have uses…
color me intrigued as to what these other possible uses could be?
I suppose “genital stimulant” is right out?
Ichthyic
Ouch!
Sorry to hear about Plummet, Alethea.
Sandy’s last days/weeks were all about love and treats and more love. I still miss her, but I’m very grateful her end times on earth were as good as they were.
Funny, people keep asking if if we’re going to get another dog. Don’t want another dog. Want that dog.
BTW, we’re setting up home-brewing this weekend, inspired by you and The Bloke.
Ooohhhhh, got puppy-snuggles today.
My therapist’s got a puppy and since she’s too young to be left alone at home she’s with him in the office.
Extremely well behaved I must say.
And cuddly
I love wasabi, but I hate normal radish.
Oh, and remember my rant about those idiot construction workers?
Well, seems like I have to inform the authorities since the cable is hovering 5 inches above the ground again. Did so when I left the house, is still doing so.
And no I fucking don’t care if they get into deep trouble. I’ve done my best to solve the problem without getting them into deep trouble. Not my fault that they didn’t care.
Ooohhhhh, got puppy-snuggles today.
*sigh*
I live next to a major road these days. Well, major for HERE anyway (meaning it’s 2 lanes and actually has constant traffic).
no four legged critters for me.
I wouldn’t risk it; I’d say 50% chance of pet roadkill in the first 3 months.
I have fish instead.
no snuggles, but fun to watch anyway. OK, I think maybe the bright purple betta tries to snuggle when I clean the tank, but other than that…
Didn’t mention yesterday, but I finished a post on my non-nym blog about Dragons, and then I did part 2 today.
Good morning.
I get to go check my bp today and find out how my old person meds are working.
And I have dropped seven pounds in the last month (with brings me all the way down to 270!).
We did not kill Boy.
Much of what Wife was freaking about was from over the last five years, not the last four months, but there was enough new shit to make anger a viable response.
I am now the World Bank and Boy is an ex-colonial nation being put on an austerity budget. Except that his transportation and food needs will still be covered.
Yeah. He works full time at a quicky mart.
And the bill at the school is for an overdue book. Not what we thought it was.
Nah, I don’t think that give a rat’s ass about abortion. But abortion keeps the godbot’s upset and brings them to the polls. So they can vote for anti-environmental, science-denying anti-tax zealot politicians. The misogyny is merely a way to get social conservatives to vote against their economic self interest.
One of my prized kitchen possessions is a smaller hyrax glass cooking dish. It is the perfect size for 3-4 servings.
@Ichthyic Back in my marine tank days I had a flame hawkfish. Interesting fish hawkfish, they have a swim bladder that doesn’t quite work right so they have to continually swim to maintain ‘altitude’. So instead they have got little hooks on the end of their fins which they use to perch on reefs and rocks and swoop down on things that go past that they want to eat (mine really liked brine shrimp).
So they’re used to perching on things. So when I used to put a vitamin pellet in, I’d sometimes start by putting it in my hand and putting my hand in the tank and the hawkfish would come sit on my hand and nibble the pellet. That’s probably about as tactile as you can get with fish.
Am I the only one who has Facebook, but actually really dislikes facebook?
I like bits of facebook. But I haven’t clicked the like button for it as a whole.
@pentatomid:
I hate Facebook. But I use it reluctantly.
—
Serious question here:
I’m finding it impossible to do any work right now. I know it’s probably related to anxiety from moving and the anxiety related to my transgenderism and needing to go to a therapist next month. I start on something, and then just can’t do anything about it. I’ve been having mini panic attacks all week, just short little moments of sweating and shortness of breath.
I think it’s related to the whole EEO thing. They do not have a clearly expressed policy towards transgenders and transitioning and I’m afraid that things will go pear-shaped when I start next month. Should I talk to my EEO office about it now or wait until next month?
They attacked it with Metal: the poor creature never stood a chance.
I spent all day trying to figure out how to record video & audio from a webcam (and microphone) on Linux, to put together a clip that I can upload to YT. It seems my best option is either VLC or wxcam, but there is still a slight timelag issue with both of those. Anyway, might do a trial run tomorrow and see how it comes out.
Does anyone have any tips ?
By timelag do you mean the audio is not synced correctly with the video ?
If so most video editing packages should allow you to fix that.
Yeah, true. What I’m trying to do is to not have separate streams, but it seems impossible.
Oh, my FSM, this is hilarious. Martin Robbins deals with homeopaths by following the advice of Tom Paxton: “Some people, you don’t have to satirize. You just quote ’em.”
Esteleth:
As already said, some people are lazy. Also, some people will steal anything that isn’t nailed down, just because it’s there.
However, if you’ve had a windstorm in the last day or two, that could explain its disappearance.
Alethea, I’m really sorry about Plummet.
Ichthyic:
Nah, that’s capsaicin.
On a serious note, what about keeping four-legged critters indoors, unless you take them out for a walk on a leash?
Og, glad to hear some good news from you.
I know of a Windows video-editing program what will take in a video file that has audio, and will split the strip the audio from the video so you can edit them separately.
I am pretty sure there is Linux software that will do the same.
Been there, done that, had to jump in the shower to get relief.
Do we want to know the details?
I think it will suffice to say it was bloody painful, and taught never to to have a pee after handling chillies without first thoroughly washing my hands.
Ah.
I learned that lesson, too, except that for “have a pee,” substitute “handle my contact lenses.”
I think that must be even more painful!
There are several non-linear editors for Linux, all of which would allow you to do this. Since you’ve already got separate streams, it’s just a matter of synching them properly.
Easiest thing in this situation is probably just to give yourself a manual method of synch (you could just go with the old-fashioned clapper board or snapping your fingers, even)… But if you don’t want to reshoot everything, you can also just wiggle the audio track back and forth until it looks close enough for rock and roll. If the video’s clear enough, you could also use a bilabial plosive somewhere (p or b) and try to nail the consonant sound right onto where the lips meet. As in: use the lips as clapper board. Find the pop of the consonant in the audio track, mark it, find the lips meeting in the video, mark it, then wiggle the audio ’til they line up. As long as the tracking/timing of both recordings are the same, you should be good from there. If they’re *not*, then you’re going to have to slice one or the other up (I’d suggest the audio… easier to hide the transition), and redo it, here and there.
As to non-linear editors for Linux: I used to use Cinelerra, but it can be a bit of a beast to set up, and I haven’t used it lately, so don’t know what it’s like lately. If you’re using KDE, you might try also kdenLive… I *have* used this lately, and it’s a non-linear editor that should be easy enough to pull in through package management (on Debian, I just tell apt to install it, and away we go).
Mucus membranes in both cases. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Easier to wash a willy :)
Mucous, rather.
And both still preferable to having contact dermatitis (poison ivy, in the anecdotes I’ve personally heard) and not being careful before handling such membranes…
Heh, well, eyewash cups exist.
I forgot to mention that one fellow with poison ivy resorted to using a pot holder (don’t know what they’re called in the UK) as an aide to urination until the rash went away.
@ All
Sorry to lurch into the lounge like this, but I had to share: Large study on human interaction is recently completed. The result… A swing to matriachal society. (Link to BBC.)
MRA explosion in 3…2…1…
I once saw a documentary about Hungary and the pepper harvest. In olden times, when this was done manually (including to remove the seeds), the men would bind a piece of string around their peepee so they didn’t have to handle it with their hands.
Katherine
It’s a tough question, but I don’t want you to think it goes unheeded.
I know what you mean by not being able to work because of the anxiety.
Is there somebody in your company who is supposed to be “on your side”?
Here in larger companies there’s the institution of a “person of trust”, usually part of the union and they have the job of having an open ear for your worries and are not allowed to spill the beans and such.
If there is, maybe you could talk to them first and have them at our side when you finally come out?
A list that illuminates the gender discrimination in the mormon church:
Full list here: http://www.i4m.com/think/lists/mormon_gender.htm
I kid of think that “less likely to actively harm in public and legally restrict their rights” doesn’t really translate as being “more matriarchal”. Marginal tolerance =/= rulership.
The Sailor @ 182
Nah, “poaching” does not exist when it comes to mormonism. We need more wary eyes focused on their way of doing things.
Great link, btw. Here’s an excerpt:
I’m surprised this issue didn’t surface before. I’m not surprised to find that mormons prefer to hire other mormons, especially for jobs that require defective ethical frameworks.
Behold! The HugsandBacon-inator!
{dramatically pulls covering away from bizarre steampunky ray gun looking contraption comprised of vacuum tubes, boilers, and cephalopods and begins rapid firing at Jules, Patricia, Katherine and Og then widening field of fire to encompass the entire Horde}
Also, behold (again) the Yay-gun!
{looks just like the HugsandBacon-inator except moar cephalopods! BegIns firing at A.R. And Sili.*}
*yes, I can fire them both at the same time. What about it?
Markita Lynda @ 208
[In reference to my post @112]
Ah, that explains it. So Beck was just referring to all the dust mites in my bed with that remark about most Americans being in bed with absolute evil.
Regarding my post at 278, there are some great comments below that article:
And here’s the link to the article. The Sailor provided this up-thread, but I meant to repeat it.
Now, if I could Just figure out how to interface The HugsandBacon-inator with the LOLstar, I could fire hugs and bacon on an unprecedented scale.
Salon took another look at Mitt Romney’s view of women, and at Ann Romney’s adherence to mormon doctrine when it comes to appropriate roles for women.
http://www.salon.com/2012/04/19/can_mitt_talk_to_women/
Excerpt:
Oh Great Cthulhu. I’ve seen this in Utah a lot.
It’s like there are two parallel societies occupying the same space.
One company run by Mormons will have an all Mormon workforce. Another company run by nonMormons will have an all nonMormon workforce.
No one gets too upset over this. Mormons don’t want to associate with Pagans. NonMormons don’t want to associate with Mormons either.
The Mormon companies have a lot of ways of screening out nonMormons in Utah.
In a Mormon company, during the interview they might offer you a cup of coffee. In you say yes, end of story. You didn’t want to work there anyway.
Ye Olde Blacksmith: The interface is definitely possible with the right adapters to scale down the power being delivered to the device. I think we even have room for installation somewhere in one of the unused docking bays in the equatorial trench.
Yeah. Kinda surprised. And no dreams last night (well, I did dream about a giant donut, three dwarfs (as in, long beard, axes, lots of armour), and a bottle of creme de menthe, but no bad dreams).
A.R.:
My aetheric field dampeners should be able to scale the power down, if I can get the Igor ratio correct.
I have some concerns regarding the docking bay, however. Are there any exhaust ports near by? Also, there aren’t any disembodied voices instructing people to “use” stuff on the LOLstar, are there?
That sounds like an awesome dream. (certainly compared to the others.) Here’s to many more like that in the future for you!
Carlie:
I was wondering if I were the only one who smelled a lot of overreach, patriarchal bias, and general bullshit in that study. We’re becoming a matriarchy because… women do most of the relationship work. Uh-huh.
—–
NSFW, from HappiestSadist: Petra Postulant picked a pack of pendant peckers.
That’s an actual 14th-century illumination, from Roman de la Rose. Described by a friend of a friend (both of whom are in the SCA) as “The Tale of the Lustful Monk, The Slutty Nun, and the Penis Tree.”
Raven, I enjoyed your from-my-own-experience comments.
This is second hand, but an engineer who works at INL in Idaho told me that the mormons on the job hang together in cliques, and that the mormons see nothing wrong in finding ways to extend a project by neglecting their jobs or by taking longer than necessary to do their jobs.
During a recent interview with the blog Shark Tank, Bachmann insisted that new legislation wasn’t necessary because Obama “already has the tools and he knows it.”
“So, if there is a problem then president Obama is the problem for failing to utilize these tools that he has,” she continued.
On another subject, Michelle Bachmann put her foot in her mouth … again, [emphasis mine]:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/19/bachmann-says-obama-waving-a-tar-baby-with-oil-policy/
Did you know that an axe thrown by a dwarf will actually stop a rampaging bottle of creme de menthe? It wasn’t a scary dream, but the four of us were trying to rescue a giant donut from a bottle of liqueur. Definitely a nice change from the usual horrors.
whoops
I see I goofed up in my comment @290.
This text:
should have been within the blockquotes, and below the “On another topic…” intro.
Og,
I don’t know about creme de menthe, but I’ve heard that bottles of Jack Daniels are mean fuckers. Same with tequila and schnapps. Especially apple schnapps. Especially half of a 750 ml bottle of apple schnapps drunk on an empty stomach during a heat wave and chased with a beer.
Not that I’m speaking from experience or anything.
Ye Old Blacksmith: The thermal exhaust system on the current LOLstar is distributed across the entire station, so no worries there. No concerns about disembodied voices either. But if you hear one that sounds disembodied, look around with a magnifying glass for tardigrades lighting off hetacombs. Anyway, I’ll have some minions get Docking Bay 2343-R ready.
Barman! A pint of creme de menthe. I am threadrupt, weary and feeling decadent. And worse. Sober.
Louis
Louis: This is an emergency! I’ll dispatch a transport ship filled with booze to dump several thousand liters of booze through your USB at one!
Bottles of Jack Daniels that are threatening you in your dreams can be rendered impotent by using them as tree decorations.
On the subject of nightmares, here’s one, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum getting together to agree on strategy and policy:
I’ve not imbibed that particular liqueur since I was around ten years old (Mom would put it on our vanilla ice cream and we would sleep quite well). No recent experiences.
My last time with J. Daniels, I won a $20 bet and downed five shots in less than one minute without vomiting. Eh.
I like tequila, but I like is straight with a little salt.
And apple schnapps? Never had it.
I guess I am just very limited in my life experience.
The article quoted in comment #278 is also being discussed on an ex-mormon forum. One comment from the ex-mormon forum:
Raven had noted that mormons have sneaky ways of finding out if you are mormon before they hire you, offering you a cup of coffee, for example. I have been subjected to garmie feelups (an extended hug during which time the outlines of mormon garments are felt for). But the woman mentioned above was directly confronted about her mormonism, or lack thereof.
Like the issue of being anti-gay, mormons have learned to hide their true feelings/doctrines, but have not changed their minds or their actions.
A.R.
Several thousand litres of booze? It might be enough…
Louis
Holy fucking shit. They said that and got away with it. They are supported for it.
Goddamn I hate this country so much sometimes. I’ve had people comment on my “mutt bastard” child. Goddamn racists. Ugh. I seriously hate them. Fuck them. Fuck anyone that excuses or buys their bullshit explanations. Grr.
Og: good to know about creme de menthe and dwarven axes. I would,however, not recommend them against MD 20/20! especially if they are in a herd!!!!
———————–
A.R.:
Firing up my ship now to transport the HugsandBacon-inator. May take a while, though, as I’m running low on coal and the boilers are slow to heat up.
Plus, the cephalopods are nervous about the trip, so I have to go reassure them.
———————–
Louis:
Sober?! SOBER?!?!? Sir, that will not do. Or, in the vernacular of my people; that dog won’t hunt!
JAL @ 301:
+1!!!!!
J_A_L, regarding the “tar baby” remarks: Foul, but completely unsurprising. Since Obama was elected they’ve put down the dogwhistles and picked up the air-raid sirens.
The University of Utah (that’s the not-mormon-owned institution of higher learning in Utah) spent about $130 million to build a new biotech center:
Full story here: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/53940844-78/building-ustar-research-utah.html.csp
(too much stuff)
to Katherine: My instincts say, test-drive your transition discussion BEFORE going into it with your real, future-in-their-hands EEO. Maybe go over it with your therapist, but that would cut into your therapy time *and* require you to wait that long, dealing with anxiety all the way. I suggest, contact a trans counselor or a trans blogger from Natalie’s list (Natalie’s really busy right now) or one of her commenters and ask, specifically, for advice on broaching transition with your EEO. You need in-the-field information, and I would bet that just having the discussion with a sympathetic person will really help the anxiety.
I recently made contact with someone at a trans social support center who I bet could help. Let me know if you need put in touch with her, okay? (gmail, nym, all that.)
Oh, and *anklehugs* if you want them. (I’m so bad at sympathy sometimes, heh.)
Want. ALL OF IT.
Kat, I wish I had an answer. All I’ve got here are hugs and prouds for you :-)
Re: hot sauce on mucous membranes
One of my favorite pastimes is to get a large order of hotwings with extra habanero sauce on the side, eat the whole mess of them, and then…give myself a good time. I rinse my hands with a wet nap first, of course. I’m not insane. [cue fire crotch jokes]
I’m in better spirits today. Because I don’t have all of the information yet, I sort of exhausted myself worrying and decided to ignore the stress and pretend that it’s all one big mistake (which is actually possible in this case, so I’m not being entirely in denial). Also I drank a bottle (or two) of wine last night and am a bit hungover today. So that’s a good distraction.
J_A_L, it enrages me that people would act like that about your child. What the hell is wrong with the world?
A kid I babysit for is 4. This kid makes insanely racist comments fairly regularly. It depresses me so much.
If I ever do procreate, I’m going to do it somewhere not shitty. Alabama’s racist bullshit stew is no place for a kid. Apparently neither is your neck of the woods.
@Pteryxx:
Fortunately for me, gender identity is a protected class in my job, I just have no idea about the transitioning policy. I looked already and couldn’t find any policy or information so it’s clearly one of those areas they’ve either not had to deal with yet or that they’ve got the information somewhere and haven’t put it on the Web site.
*sigh* This on top of the whole moving thing is gonna make my life murderous for the next few weeks.
Huzzah!
–
I seem to have overskimmed the announcement, so I’d like to retrofit a Huzzah! for Sili’s employedness into the appropriate spot upThread.
–
*hugs* for Alethea, and Plummet.
–
Ogvorbis, congrats on not having killed Boy; something like that never fails to put a damper on the day.
–
@Katherine: That’s awesome that gender identity’s protected. I still think though, and maybe I’m overcautious, that it’d be prudent to talk to someone who could tell you what to expect or look for, what information not to volunteer, that sort of thing. Maybe they’ll deal in good faith and just haven’t had anyone ask before, but if they don’t, your only recourse might be filing suit. At the very least, knowing what to expect may make the actual meeting less stressful.
I suppose many Pharyngulites have already seen this, but I will post it anyway. Rachel Maddow presented an excellent segment chronicling the history of the pray-the-gay-away industry, and she brings us up to date with current info that blows that whole industry out of the water:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#47094763
Followup interview with a man subjected to pray-the-gay-away industry:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#47094765
Not caught up.
*hugs for Kat*
*hugs for Pteryxx so Pteryxx gets used to it ;-) *
What happens when you burp in their general direction?
You get off on pain in the mouth?
Hmm, just took the elderly Golden retriever in from taking a nap outside, and though she was still walking a bit weird, she actually managed a good trot and her elbow barely seemed to bother her. These must be some really good meds she’s on.
Well, I do enjoy pain in my mouth, but I was referring to self-pleasuring via my ladybits. Spiciness is the spice of life.
TLC, *hugs* about your goggie and *scritches* to goggie herself. </doesn’t handle sad pet stories well>
…Now I’m wondering if ladybits gradually develop greater capsaicin tolerance with exposure, like tongues do. This requires experimentation. >_>
Argh, this ear is driving me nuts.
It doesn’t hurt much anymore, but I hardly hear anything on it except a constant beep like an old TV set not turned off.
Which is normal for an ear-infection, I suppose but it’s driving me nuts because I have to have the TV turned on to drown the beep out and I can’t locate where sounds are coming from.
Jules
Hoookay, that sounds at least interesting…
JAL
Some people are simply hateable. There can’t be a redeeming feature about somebody who says such a thing about a child.
Now now, be fair. Their raw materials can make a wonderful emergency shelter should you be stranded in the arctic with them.
I’m on it!
I actually do think a certain tolerance level builds up, but I’m not sure if it’s from the ladybits end or from the adrenaline rush one.
But clearly I need to do something a bit more controlled just to be sure there are not confounding data. #sacrificesforscience
I ordered a $20 tube of super duper sensitive skin sunscreen, only physical blockers as active ingredients, the shortest list of inactive ingredients I could find, no fragrance, no scent masking ingredients. And … it burns my face. Argh! argh! argh! argh! argh! argh!
David:
I know one person fond of extremely spicy food who has been seen to be… uhhhh… pitching a tent in his jeans, shall we say, post-consumption. Not making that up.
Yes, and there’s probably two good kidneys to them.
kristinc
Shit.
Is there a possibility to have an allergy test on raw ingredients?
Unfortunately, Giliell, no. No health insurance :( I have one sensitive sunscreen brand with a good reputation left to try, and then I have to resort to hats and parasols forever.
@Kristinc:
At least hats and parasols can be stylish :D
…
Sorry, not helpful. I’ll go sit in the corner and play with LEGOs…
kristinc
Shit, shit, shit.
Any possibility of doing it yourself, like getting the stuff (or at least some of it) at the pharmacy and try out.
I’d ship you every type I can find here but I doubt it would make it to you.
re sunscreen: I can vouch for Touch of Mink sunscreen for sensitive skin (though I’m not THAT sensitive), searchable online. Got it for years from the state fair in Washington. Full disclosure, the mink oil’s a byproduct of farms.
I’m beginning to fear that I’ve become sensitized to one of the physical sunblockers like zinc. I keep trying more brands, though, in the hope that it’s one of the inactive ingredients that’s bothering me and I’ll find one without the culprit. Of course even if I find one that doesn’t burn my face now, a year from now it might start :( I’m becoming a sunscreen trying-and-returning fiend.
Lego! Awesome.
I know. I was wondering about the combination.
For Science!
(You’ll like the picture.)
So, that makes two.
Looks like Rule 34 holds in real life!
…who… have sexual experiences enhanced, if not triggered, by pain in the mouth: Jules and that guy Ms. Daisy Cutter knows. Not me. *shudder* I hate writing ambiguous sentences.
David Marjanović: TVTROPES AGAIN!!??!1ELEBENTY!?!!
I’m starting to think that warnings should be mandatory for links to that time black hole.
Fellow MarkDoesStuff people,
I don’t know if you read the comments, but today, you should read allll the ones at MarkWatches. The commenters are officially winning ALL of my prizes. ♥
I heard a story (from the observer) about a young man (as he would have been then~25?) who cut chillies whilst making dinner. Then went to “pleasure himself” whilst waiting for it to cook.
Forgot to wash his hands, didn’t he?
Apparently, not in most lucid, thoughtful state of mind, he rushed to the kitchen, to the fridge, looking for something soothing….. Yoghurt is a really good soothing agent. And a tub was present.
That was how the observer found him when he arrived home.
Moral of the story: never eat yoghurt from an unsealed tub in a share house.
I suppose it’s better than fucking crackers.
We get a lot of stuff done in hallways and chance discussions. That’s one reason our hallways are lined with chalk boards. (The other is you can’t have chalk dust near optics.)
Our hallways are lined with chalkboards and scientific posters of meetings. It’s inspiring. It’s a taste of what we have done, what we can do, and some jokes.
+++++++++++++
Jules, I’m fairly certain DavidM got your first reference.
I got it, and I’ll be in my bunk.
+++++++++++++
Katherine, maybe you should put off the discussion until the move is over.
Are the two stressful events intertwined?
chalk dust. Optics.
Ugh!
What about whiteboards? The solvents shouldn’t be sufficiently ubiquitous to be a fogging problem, unless you have strong UV, and then I’d be worried about you being in the room. (for the optics’ sake, not yours! ;-))
Are you sitting comfortably?
And you haven’t, say, eaten too much lately, have you?
Go here.
Then sign the petition to Clinton.
*searches thread to see what had happened to Jules*
*finds yesterday’s Julesball lying around in the corner*
*hugs around*
*finds aching CCball lying under blanket*
*hugs around blanket, like around baby sister*
Last time I actually included a warning as alt-text.
This time, Jules in particular, but probably everyone in general, had to see the picture. You can always mouse over the link and see that it goes to TV Tropes.
NEWS! Canadians and Danes stand down from mutual annihilation:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/04/11/matt-gurney-move-over-syria-canada-and-denmark-are-ready-to-talk-peace/
*teary*
If only everyone could get along. *sniffle*
“What about whiteboards?”
Are you referring to dry erase markers? They still create dust. we’re very particular about dust. (/dry humor)
In the lab we use paper and Sharpies for the broad strokes, mainly we use computers.
Thanks for all the congratulations.
Hugs and pity for those who’re down and out at the moment.
Best of luck coping with the next month, Katherine. Looking forward to seeing you again come October.
I suppose I am. And on reflection*, you’re right. Still dust.
*(see what I did there? :-))
———————-
Update for those interested,
Child#2 teacher has been made aware & is now addressing the situation. Hopefully resolution will ensue. Turns out it is not of the major kind of bullying, but is the start. So it will be good to nip in the bud.
———————-
I have blokes running cables through the ceiling space, right above me. Can’t hear myself think! Might have to go mooch around in the lab instead of attempting to write reports.
@David.
*headdesk*
Signed
I love my job – today I went on a hike to prepare for a merit badge class I’m doing on Saturday and discovered hundreds of cranefly orchids growing on the sides of the area where the landscaping crew for the park dumps the mulch. And since the spot is often bulldozed, and since cranefly transplants well (it needs a particular fungus found in decomposing wood for germination, but can use a wide variety of fungus once it’s established), some of these spiffy orchids are going to move a bit closer to the nature center. This is, obviously, not an endangered or threatened species, and they’ll be moving a few hundred meters at most.
Came home last night to discover that SonSpawn had purchased a replica Viking spear and battle axe from a reenactor friend who was selling them. I guess he’s got a nice start on his shield wall armaments…
For anyone on the east coast US, I’ve consulted with some of the FB group and reserved a lodge at an environmental education center near DC for Martin Luther King weekend 2013. Yes, we will be holding the first Camp Pharyngula – merit badge suggestions welcome. Cost should be fairly reasonable – ~$150-200 for 3 days and nights of food and lodging. More details will follow in the fall, but save the date for now.
I actually enjoy FB, but I don’t post anything particularly personal, and I ruthlessly defriend people who irritate me. And I’m fairly cynical about privacy and the general lack thereof in contemporary society. I was pretty cynical about privacy and surveillance even before the internet.
Best idea ever! I’m jealous of those who live in areas with high enough Pharyngulite population density to do this kind of thing.
(I also just really really really want to go camping. Not that I’ve mentioned that 7000 times in the last month or anything.)
I’m trying to think of those I’m sure live in the middle of the continent, and I haven’t needed to switch hands yet. :(
There are plenty who live in the middle of the continent, but the problem is that it’s an enormous continent with an enormous middle. (I can think of a dozen at least, fwiw.)
Tomorrow I will have been married to Mr. M for 21 years. How did that happen?
does Texas count as middle of the continent? >_>
Couldn’t we make a sort of Pharyngulite Google map?
hey, congrats Mr. and Mr. Mattir! ;>
There already is a Pharyngulite Google map. Can’t remember where, though.
So I came home about an hour ago.
I tend to toss dirty laundry downstairs and let it sit at the foot of the stairs until I have enough to wash. I live alone, so it’s not a big deal.
There were fucking ants crawling in the laundry pile tonight. Despite my having put ant stakes in the ground right outside that wall.
I went to town on the laundry pile with my can of Raid. Right now, because my living room is kind of topsy-turvy, I don’t have enough of a light source to go through the pile, or to apply the gel I bought the other day in crevices where Kitteh can’t get at it. Which is fine, because I don’t particularly look forward to either task.
So I come upstairs and pick up my mug full of water… and there is something black and dissolved in it. Like, maybe, I dunno, a fucking ant. Even though I haven’t had ants upstairs so far, knock wood. Or so I thought.
I hate everything.
Congrats to the Mattirarchy!
Utterly exhausted. Unfortunately, my brain checked out last week, and I have eleven days left in this semester. Argh.
Nutmeg – there are quite a few Pharyungulites in the Missouri area. Doesn’t get too much more middle than that.
The Darkheart Duckie Project: One Duckie Down…
Congrats on your anniversary, Mattir!
Yeah, it’s an awfully big middle of the continent, and it’s full of a lot of empty space. Normally I like that, but it does spread people out a bit.
Punk Duckie is adorable!
Hmmmm – looks like I might just be able to make it to Cologne in May as well.
Anyone else going? Anyone know anything about how to get cheap accommodation?
CongraRats to Mattir and spouse.
@Mattir
Happy anniversary!
Nutmeg:
Thank you! On to Zombie Duckie…
I haven’t had creme de menthe in ages. Thanks to Ogvorbis, I have indulged tonight without fear of dwarves. I’ve never actually had a fear of dwarves, but the creme de menthe appears to have fought off any fear of the fear of dwarves.
@Ms. Daisy:
I feel your pain, and that pain feels like ants crawling on my skin.
Oh wait–that really was an ant crawling on my arm. Dammit.
Here in Eugene, Oregon, those fucking little sugar ants are pretty much part of life. At least half of the 9 or 10 places I’ve lived here had occasional invasions by those evil fuckers.
I’m currently getting a few lazy stragglers around my kitchen sink. They seem exceptionally slow and stupid for some reason, and aren’t engaging in a full-scale attack.
I usually wipe them out with Lysol or woodsoap or something from a spray bottle–kills them quickly and seems to muck up their chemical trail. After that I pick off the stragglers. I usually only Raid where I think they’re coming in.
Anything like sugar or honey goes in the fridge, and any food garbage goes outside.
In my college years about 25 years ago, I shared a place with several friends. Once one of my friends was in the kitchen with me, making those slow-cook pancakes that take like half an hour for a nice stack. He patiently cooked them one by one, put them on his plate, and covered them to keep them warm. Then he melted some butter on top. Mmmmmmm. Then he took the syrup out of the cupboard–can you tell where this is going?–and poured a healthy dollop on the pancakes.
The entire bottle of syrup was riddled with a few hundred dead ants, who had somehow crawled in there. And now they were all over his pancakes.
Pancakes went in garbage, plate and all.
Mattir: A Happy anniversary to you and spouse. Champagne will be flowing through your USB shortly if desired.
@feralboy12
Those ants aren’t very smart, are they? Man, those ants must have been desperate if they were willing to kill themselves for some sugar.
Feralboy:
That’s one of the worst things about an infestation – every little itch or tickle you feel, you look to see if something’s crawling on you. Just as you look twice at every little speck on the wall, or that clump of dark-colored pollen you brought in on your shoe.
When I was stripping the living room wall last week, one ant crawled up my calf. My hands were occupied at the moment so I tried to remove the damn thing with the other (bare) foot, unsuccessfully. About the only thing I can say is that they weren’t roaches. And I’ve had a couple of roaches, or roach-like… things, turn up in my bedroom this spring as well.
I’m gathering from various anecdata that this is a bad, bad year in terms of bugs.
:-X
And the specks move when you see them out of the corner of your eye. So you stare at them and dare them to try to crawl away, while you wait with some tissue ready to apply Death From Above.
Then you realize it’s a coffee ground, at which point you say “I suppose you think you’re pretty clever, pretending you’re an ant.”
.
.
Or maybe that’s just me.
I’ll get back to you on that if I have another bout of severe insomnia before I get rid of the ants.
That duckie is both adorable and impressive, Caine. Your stitches are just lovely.
Kristinc, thank you. ♥ Looks like each one will take 1 to 1.5 weeks to finish, which is good, because it will give me more time on the quilt itself. Construction skills aren’t my strong suit.
cm’s changeable moniker #336
OMG!OMG!OMFG!
At last! At long last!
http://satwcomic.com/epic-battle
Nuns Did Not Expect the Inquisition:
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
I did.
You guys ! You guys !!! I did it !!! My first YT video ! Don’t be too harsh on me with regards to the skill or art involved, I’m working on it…Anyway, any feedback or tips much appreciated.
rorschach
I left a bad email address. The “r” after the “w” should be an “o”.
Anyway, I liked it.
Ah, thanks….
rorschach:
Many good points, but I disagree with your argument that gods or the supernatural is impossible by definition. I was just discussing pretty much the same thing with Ing on the Sacking the City of God thread. (BTW, Ing: I left another comment when I saw your response from yesterday.)
On a technical note: It’s not too bad, but there’s a slight hum in the background. It’s always a good idea to try keeping microphones and wires separated and away from power sources as much as possible to avoid interference, and set the recording level high (but not so high it causes clipping) to reduce the effect a bit. It would also help if you have some way to cut off the low frequency end with an equalizer. I don’t know what your software options are with Linux Mint, but there’s almost certainly a free program that just does basic stuff like that.
Good news : Hollywood studios lose landmark download case
Yay! Bill Donohue found himself something new to be righteously indignant about. Anyone guess “secular Jews”? Yup! Jon Stewart it is.
Anyway, he’s all kinds of pissed about the “vagina manger” bit on the Daily Show from a couple of days ago.
http://jezebel.com/5903149/church-group-calls-for-boycott-of-the-daily-show-over-hilarious-vagina-manger-joke
Poor man’s just not happy unless he’s apoplectic with rage and everything in a ten-foot radius is drenched with his spittle and bile.
‘Tortured’ US Muslim seeks asylum in Sweden http://www.thelocal.se/40368/20120419/
His tale of brutal treatment by US allies, and “outsorced” torture is consistent with the stories of many others that were tagged as suspects. The racists show up in force in the comment thread.
— — — — — —
This is what we look like in North Sweden: “Giant lizard found in kitchen” http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/kvinna-hittade-jatteodla-i-koket
So we all know the tallis are the favorite race that I’ve written (what’s not to love about skeptical, hyperactive steampunk dragons?!) but today I’ve written about my favorite place in my stories.
The University of Kordera!
I could totally write a whole series involving the university, but then I’d be ripping off Harry Potter and I wouldn’t want to be sued by J.K. Rowling. Unlike HP though, I’ve actually put into place the fact that through all these magical studies, the students learn things like high-level mathematics, science, history, and grammar! Harry Potter may be an awesome magician, but I don’t know how much math he learned.
Rorschach.
Watched your video. Good first. I agree that it would be improved with speaking slower. Easy for me to say, having never attempted such a thing.
I actually find your arguments in alignment with the view that I have been developing, where I tend to find that should a god manifest, then it is clearly part the observable universe & that we just need to rethink the theories of physics to account for the extra data.
I had a discussion a while back with consciousness razor on this (actually a few comments before rajwhoshallnotbenamedlesthebeinvoked derailed the thread -the Dawkins thread I think). Along similar lines to that between cr & ing. I can see cr’s points, but not yet convinced that the usefulness of gods isn’t over. (except in developing persuasive arguments to provide context for theists to deconvert).
Certainly be interested to view any others you may decide to make. Best way to hone a skill is practice!
Levon Helm 1941-2012
That doesn’t sound at all like my view. The “usefulness of gods” was over centuries ago. Religion has already lost intellectually; now it just needs to lose socially. I just don’t think we should use shifty arguments or play word games with theists. I do have a hard time imagining what evidence for gods or anything supernatural would even look like. I certainly don’t expect anyone to ever come up with any evidence for them, so it doesn’t quite seem possible, but that’s not to say that it isn’t possible. I mean, seriously, what is this logical argument that proves gods cannot possibly exist? If there is one, lay it on me, and I’ll start using it.
Adding monsters to thrift store paintings. A lot funnier than it might sound.
Also, thank FSM, I don’t have more ants. What I saw last night, exaggerated by fatigue and darkness, were a couple of tiny black beetles. Like, two or at most three. There’s likely a gap in the nearby window screen that I’ve got to seal up, which is easy enough to do. Probably the same type of beetle fell into my water cup. Knock wood (yes, I know, superstitious), I haven’t seen a single additional ant.
Slept like shit, going back to bed now, will catch up later.
@ rorschach
I checked out your YT video and left a crit on your blog. Kudos on your initiative.
@ Kitty
I can see walton in particular loving your book. (Hey, where is walton anyhow?)
@theophontes:
Walton was interested in Tavsere and Moore.
I just like it cause it’s my sort of “Atlas of Dramoth Gilead.”
I think the next thing I’m gonna write is an introductory chapter to one of the textbooks given to first year students at Kordera XD
Mattir: Gratz!
———————–
Caine: love love love the duckie!
———————–
Rorschach: very nice. I have a question over there though.
————————
Everybody:
Ragutis’ post @375 made me think “ppptttthhhhh Bill D has always got his panties in a bunch.”
Now I wonder if that phrase is OK? I’ve been trying to identify and remove sexist (racist, privileged, etc) language from my personal lexicon and this threw up a flag. My question: is that phrase a red flag, yellow flag or no flag at all?
Sorry consciousness razor, was not intending to misrepresent you. I understand that you were not suggesting that gods are still useful. I was meaning to say that i understood your point of view as you presented it @380. I just did not word it correctly.
The view on the existence of gods that I have, is that any evidence that can be presented for the existence of god is only evidence for the existence of some phenomenon not yet characterised. There is nothing that would induce me to treat that phenomenon as worthy of worship, or deference. There is nothing that would cause me to accept it as anything ther than another area of physics, cosmology &/or xenobiology (or other field of scientific investigation). All the standard definitions of god that I have seen in my life are, even if they could be proved, not worthy of god status.
Perhaps I am defining god as that which must be worshipped. This is too narrow a definition, but given that nobody can give a coherent definition of what god is, then either I go with the narrow definition, and reject it as previously described, or widen the term god as rajwhoshallnotbeinvoked tried to do to mean anything he wants, and then it is rejected as being a complete irrelevance. Either way, there is no use for god in my philosophy. It is a broken concept, as I have better concepts to fit any evidence that may (or may not) ever be presented. So there is no evidence that will be sufficient to convince me that the term “god” is in any way useful…..except:
As I mentioned in passing at comment 378, to provide context for presenting arguments for use in persuading theists to change their view.
As an aside, I don’t see this as shifty arguments or word games. I see it as an acknowledgement that the hypothesis is broken.
I’m not suggesting that this proves god does not exist. I’m suggesting it makes proof either way irrelevant.
Further. I’m not suggesting you should use this argument against a theist. What you use is entirely up to you.
On reflection, my comment @385 might have been better over on “sunday” to avoid making this thread too heavy. Sorry to all if that is so.
Red flag for me. It’s the whole hysterical woman type thing.
Once phrase I personally have issues removing from my vocab is “Bitch please”. Stupid memes. I smack myself mentally after I say things like that, but “bitch, please” has stuck far more than the others. >.>
I think the obvious feminine underwear reference on an hysterical male makes it a red flag. I did have to go away and think about it, as such phrases are ubiquitous & are often used without reference to the origins.
Good for you in attempting to eliminate.
Wohl denn den Dänen und denen, denen die Dänen wohl sind.
(I had to say it. There are wonderful comments to the article.)
Good that I’m sitting. My knees are getting weak.
Ask onion girl. She’s made it.
*quietly rolling on floor laughing*
I want to cuddle it.
(Very carefully.)
…In that case, I should probably go as well. Are there even still any tickets left?
Rorschach:
Technically, I found it fine. I don’t think you’re talking too fast at all… Did you slow it down already? The audio was a smidge muddy, however, and yes, I noticed a bit of what I’d think was motor noise, maybe? Fan somewhere on a machine? From my point of view: with that fixed, I’d have no complaints at all about the audio, speed-wise or otherwise.
(That said, re speed: if you haven’t slowed it down, probably my perception isn’t that helpful, here: I always get told I’m talking too fast, too. To which I’m always tempted to respond: Well, listen faster. But anyway.)
Re the script: nice. Hoping I’m not going to start some ag/ath flamewar: my own suspicion is ‘agnosticism’ in the modern context is at least frequently as much an excuse to avoid conflict as it is an acknowledgement of certain normally more theoretical limits on certainty. As, honestly, those limits apply to almost everything we think we know, and normally, notably, we don’t let them bother us nearly as much. You don’t frequently get people spending a lot of time emphasizing they’re ‘agnostic’ about Elvis being alive and well and living on Pluto. And with the ‘god hypothesis’, really, the problem is way beyond that, besides. And the essential observation that a conjecture that can’t even be meaningfully negated or shifted or refined by any evidence gathered–and at a level far outside this normal irreducible uncertainty due to its very construction–that the essential observation that such a conjecture is fundamentally useless/broken isn’t exactly in a rarefied domain of logic, after all. It’s like people want to use the one thing (irreducible epistemological uncertainty) to cover for the other far more damning one (broken/meaningless conjecture held onto for not-at-all evidence-based reasons), and try to slip out of saying clearly how utterly broken it is thereby… Or, in a slightly less sophisticated dodge, just avoiding mentioning that if it’s that hopeless even seeking evidence, whoever put forward the conjecture in the first place had no business doing so, and has, indeed, effectively confessed to an attempt to game the system by so arranging their conjecture to avoid such refutation.
Oh, and re:
I thought it sounded hilarious just from that phrase. And it was even slightly more so, watching it. So this one, I must also directly link.
That doesn’t make sense to me. How is this not defining physical stuff as the only logically possible stuff that exists?
I am not even halfway caught up this morning, but I had to stop to bow to Ye Olde Blacksmith – this absolutely made my morning! And:
LOL!!! Thanks for a good laugh this morning!
What’s your point?
Good morning.
Another dream involving donuts. And alcohol. No dwarfs this time.
What the fuck is going on in my brain?
Simple, you are Homer Simpson.
There’s no reason to think that’s correct. You’d have to give a logical proof, but you said you couldn’t do that.
Now witness… the power… of this fully armed… and opedational…
JAL & Catnip:
Thanks for the response. Y’all confirmed what I was thinking. Consider it gone.
was my thinking back when I used to use “pansy”. At the time I truly didn’t think pansy was problematic. The convo that ensued my using it here one day is what prompted me to be more aware of my words and phrases.
I have the same problem. I don’t use it but my wife loves it. Her favorite saying is “you say bitch like it’s a bad thing.” she uses it as a positive descriptor of high praise.
Why do I have to give a logical proof, and for what?
I think you missed my point. I simply said that any possible evidence that might be construed as evidence for any form of god would simply be evidence for some other natural phenomenon. Why do I need to prove that?
Bwahahahahaha… My plan is proceeding according to…erm…plan.
I’ll show you*!!!! I’ll show you all*!!!!!!!
.
.
.
.
*hugs and bacon and beer and kisses
I was just giving some thought to the quality of our current chewtoys, and I realized something: we need to attract some hardcore geocentrists and flat-earthers. Imagine the hilarity.
Ye Olde Blacksmith: Were is your ship? I would come to you, but the interthread hyperdrive is down for repair after having to make so many jumps to keep up with yec123 and raj.
AR, perhaps one of us could dress up as a egocentric, or flat earther? No? Oh well, just a suggestion. I guess it wouldn’t be the same.
I resemble that remark. Physically, at least. But there is no crayon in my nose. My mental deficiencies are purely my own.
No dwarfs this time.
Just me. Skiing (I think I was at Mount Snow in Vermont — looked like it, anyway). With a very large external-frame backpack filled with fresh warm Krispy Kreme donuts. And four bottle of Peach Schnapps. And I was racing. Super-G. And the rules were we had to stop at each gate, have shot and a donut, and then keep going.
This was even stranger than last night.
Nice Duckie, Caine!
++++++++++++++
Couldn’t have said it better myself!
++++++++++++++
Happy 4/20! (to those who get the reference.)
These are not equivalent. That scientific investigation of the world is possible is a contingent and not a necessary fact. If there is a being which can read our minds with complete accuracy and alter our cognitions in arbitrary ways, it cannot be investigated scientifically, as there would be no way of determining whether we have remembered any observation correctly. Similarly, if we are in a simulation, which can be stopped, rewound, and restarted.
When I was quitting smoking I used nicotine patches, the kind you keep on for 24 hours. One side effect of the patches is that you can get very vivid dreams.
One dream I had involved in my being driven around the US in a Greyhound bus chasing Kent Hovind whilst being armed with a can of Raid as tall as myself.
Wow, holy fuck.
Eric Cantor is suggesting that instead of increasing taxes on the rich (those who can clearly afford to have their income taxes raised) we should increase taxes on the poor (those who do not pay income tax because they don’t make enough.)
And people will still vote Republican! Do these people have some brain parasite that refuses to let them think? How can they think that’s a good idea? “Well, clearly we need to make the very poor pay taxes because Mr. Reginald S Weatherthorpe can’t buy another Bentley this year.”
I don’t think you need to, but there’s nothing (as far as I know) which entails this claim about “any possible evidence…” So where did that come from? How do you know? It’s just an assertion, which could be false, and it’s definitely fallacious if you use it in an argument that there isn’t a god or no reason to believe in one.
Finally, a scientific answer to the most perplexing question in human history: What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
Because it has the form of a fact claim, but it is clearly not subject to empirical proof or disproof, since you have stated that no possible evidence could count against it (and thus none could count for it either). Unless you can give a logical proof of it from generally accepted premises, there is thus no reason at all to accept it.
Yes.
Conservative fundamentalist Christianity in its varied and frightening forms. The GOP made a decision to court the religious right for the specific purpose of convincing people to vote against their economic interest.
Thinking about this discussion on proving God.
What is “god”? How do we define it? I think the usual criteria are omnipotence and omniscience.
So, like, how does one demonstrate omnipotence? Not just extremely powerful, but all-powerful? The only criteria I can think of that would work is destruction and/or creation of the universe, but demonstrating that would seem to leave no one to observe such a demonstration beyond another god.
Similar problem with omniscience – the only one who can accurately judge omniscience is someone else who is also omniscient; anyone else isn’t qualified to measure such knowledge across a broad enough “field”.
Anything less than omnipotent and omniscient is likely to simply be an advanced race rather than a deity just by mathematical likelihood.
Further, demonstration of either of these capabilities would have to also somehow discount the possibility of perceptual awareness being affected rather than the actual universe and telepathy rather than omniscience – both of which are more likely than god-like powers.
I’m doubt this constitutes a proof, but it might be a path to one. However – am I missing something?
… Actually, it doesn’t constitute a proof that god doesn’t exist, but it may constitute a proof that it is impossible to prove the existence of a god-like being because all such proofs necessitate another god-like being to validate them.
But it’s way too early for left-coast USA to think about this.
It’s not an assertion, it’s defining the problem differently. If I am presented with evidence of “god”, then that evidence is simply evidence of something which I have heretofore not understood or comprehended. I don’t need to accept it as evidence of god, whom I must fall on my knees in front of and worship. Any other alternate definition of god not covered by that implicit above is equally ill defined & therefore, the hypothesis cannot be proved. That’s not agnostic, that’s just acknowledging that the whole concept is not defined.
Equally, I cannot prove or disprove mawuhg. Why? Because its a meaningless word. There is no hypothesis to disprove. It’s foolish to even go looking or evidence of mawuhg, because it’s not defined.
Perhaps we are talking at cross purposes. My point is that even if evidence could be provided for god, I would not be worshiping it anyway. I’d either study it or fear it, depending on my situation. So I’m disinclined to call the hypothetical entity (formerly known as god) for which we now have hypothetical evidence for a god, since it can be defined as something else. God can’t be proved to exist, because if it was, it would cease to be god. Therefore it is a meaningless concept & not worthy of being sought.
KG, I’m aware those two items are not the same. The statements of mine you quoted were severable. Your point about us all living in the matrix-like system with overarching omnipotent entity, whilst possible, is just solipsism. So what if we are? We can’t tell the difference, so it is irrelevant & still gives no reason to entertain the flawed god hypothesis. It’s still just another entity. Evidence fo it? Probably not possible, but if it became possible, entity is still just an entity . Not a god.
Final item before off to bed. I’d prefer to move this discussion out of this thread & back to the Sunday thread, if it is to continue. I’m off to sleep now & this thread will be way to long to be able to respond to any follow up points.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/04/15/sunday-sacrilege-sacking-the-city-of-god/comment-page-2
Katherine
People of the Eric Cantor ilk always ignore the fact that poor people are paying taxes even if they make so little money that they don’t send a check to the IRS.
They pay sales tax and probably pay into social security/medicare etc. Poor people pay a fairly large percentage of their income in taxes.
Cantor is an arrogant asshat with a narrow perspective.
Ah, but the meme for “bitch, please” is anything but a positive descriptor. Which is the way I use it. You can google “bitch please meme” to get an idea of it. It’s kind of like, “Bitch, please, I’m way better than you” or used like “bitches, please form a line in that direction to suck my dick”. A common one is gf/mom says to do something for the household like cleaning etc, and the response is “bitch, please”.
Yet I can’t stop using it. Ugh.
I think the term bitch can sometimes be used appropriately.
My mother is part of a group of 6 women who get together to do some quilting and needlework type stuff. They refer these as their “bitch and stitch sessions”. It is acceptable when they that term about themselves, especially since they do tend to spend a lot of time gossiping. It would be inappropriate of me to do so though.
Oh yes, I think so too. I just can’t seem to use it that way. That’s my own personal issue. Maybe I need to more up from mentally slapping myself to physically slapping myself to stop it.
I do, but I’m not a neonazi.
Sili:
Wrong reference.
There is another.
JAL:
Sorry, I don’t think I’ve ever used “bitch, please” so I guess I was responding to only the word bitch itself. I see what you mean now. I have, in the past, been known to say “science! It works, bitches!” but I don’t use it anymore.
*I actually really hate the word now and have hesitated a little every time I typed it.
David:
Again, wrong reference. Geez Louise, it’s 420. Smoke if you’ve got it.
Catnip,
But “god” is not a meaningless word, and it won’t do to pretend that it is. That it doesn’t have a single, generally agreed definition is neither here nor there: nor does “chair”. The word “god” can be defined in various ways that are in accordance with widespread usage. For example: “Being that deliberately created the universe”. That’s a good enough definition. Of course it is not the case that you “must” worship such a being if it existed, if “must” is taken to have the force of either logical entailment or moral obligation.
No, it’s not solipsism – that’s the belief that nothing but onself exists. Nor is it obvious that we could not tell the difference. We can never be justifiably certain that we do not live in a simulation, but we might find reason to believe that we do.
1) You have given no reason for the assertion that if god was proved to exist, it would cease to be god.
2) Even if you had, that would not make the concept “meaningless” – a word that is thrown about far too carelessly. The idea that something that cannot be proved/disproved is “meaningless” is the central claim of logical positivism – a philosophical position that has the great virtue of being clear enough to be abandoned as clearly wrong by all its original proponents.
Sorry for the HuffPo link, but this article and video detailing Martin Bashir’s condemnation of Mitt Romney is priceless. “Mitt the mendacious.”
Bashir uses the Book of Mormon to condemn Mitt for his “hat trick of falsehoods.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/20/martin-bashir-mitt-romney_n_1440129.html
Mitt coming out with the “vast left-wing conspiracy” line just makes me laugh every time.
As with some other derogatory names, the targets of the denigrating language are “taking the word back and making it their own”‘, if you will. At least, that is what my wife is doing with “bitch”.
It could also mean that your worship was physically determined. If a god had such powers and wanted you to worship it, it could force you to do so, though from its point of view that seems less like worship and more like puppetry. Doesn’t really matter. Maybe gods are easily amused.
I would have the song I used would have clarified the meaning. (Illegal Smile, by John Prine)
+++++++++++++
Panama Red
That Acapulco Gold
Bad Ass Weed
Let’s make a deal
Mitt Romney seems to be trying to shore up his anti-gay credentials with the rabid Right by accepting a gig to give the commencement address at Liberty University.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#47110582
Liberty University posts a “Notice of Nondiscrimination” that includes the helpful information that “…the School of Law does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, but does discriminate on the basis of homosexual conduct.” I can see why a mormon would feel some kinship with these doofuses.
The University has a sideline in high school education, Liberty Christian Academy, which specifies in the handbook that “LCA does not employ teachers or accept students who are homosexual.”
There are lots more examples of Liberty University’s utter lack of the traits one usually associates with institutions of higher learning, but I’m already a little down-in-the-mouth today, so I’m not going to list them. Yuck, I say.
Happy 420, everybody.
I think you missed the point (havn’t read response yet). Mine at least was that I didn’t see value in even hypothesizing a category called “supernatural”. I didn’t even find the example you gave compelling. I think it does the opposite of what it intends and isn’t how people use it in common speech.
I actually can, funny enough. If the gods are benevolent, share my goals, and work like prayer batteries like some fiction has them then worshiping them is a good idea for the practical reasons. I played a D&D Paladin Ing The Atheist (back when I was a believer actually) whose gimmick was specifically around this. Not that he didn’t believe the gods existed…just that they weren’t necessarily as great as they said they were (I mean they could just be powerful celestials, ascended humans, powerful wizards whatever) but as long as his god had goals in line with his he’d accept the powers.
*confetti* & *champagne*
Many happy returns to the Misters Mattir!
–
Totally squee-worthy!
–
Ms. Daisy Cutter, the Add a Monster thing looks like something I’d like to try, as soon as my right thumb comes back. And I can think of several of my friends who’d apppreciate receiving such value-added works as presents, too!
:D
–
And there was much rejoicing!
–
Why was this associated with a FB ad for monoclonal antibodies? Why?
Cicely:
Hee. Thank you. ♥.
I just ordered some Benton’s Bacon.
So there.
No idea. That’s odd.
And it makes me wonder why so few people on earth grok the difference between a bazooka and an RPG? Yes, they are meant to do the same thing, but that does not mean they are the same thing!
Sorry.
I’ll try to turn my pedant down.
Um… a bazooka’s where you load the projectile into the back of a big tube, right? <_<
/heteropedantic
Pteryxx: Yeah, basically.
raucus?
Well, some, but not all, RPGs allow for the use of bazookas, and supply appropriate stats. In any case, RPG bazookas cause entirely imaginary damage, which I understand is not the case with the free-range variety of bazooka.
–
A bazooka is a big gun for blowing shit up.
An RPG is a game where you play as another character, usually with levels, experience points, and lots of story.
:D
Case in point—“I” once (inadvertently) used an RPG bazooka to make ugly divots in Rockefeller Plaza, and the damage was figmentary; though it was the occasion of a hasty decampment to Toledo, Ohio, for a quick change of costumes and identities. If I had done it with a free-range bazooka, Your Tax Dollars would have had to go to work, and the decampment would have been to some squalid cell. It would have been a fate far worse than being in Toledo.
–
Is there some rule that requires the little flavor-packet in 3-minute ramen to taste like toxic waste?
“chicken”
It is to laff.
Caine, Fleur du mal
*pbrrrrrtthhh*
I have learned that Crazy Catholic Neighbor has warned his children, explicitly, not to associate with me because I have some dangerous, disturbing ideas and am “so smart it’s scary.” So the 10 years of trying to identify common ground and shared values and working together on various community projects is right out the window because I don’t want Rick Santorum monitoring my uterus and am not the right kind of Jew for him. (He once gave my humanist son a lecture on how to be a good Jew, even though as a wackaloon Opus Dei type, he knows less than nothing about being a conventional theistic Jew, let alone one of the humanistic variety.)
I don’t know whether to be stabby or flattered or both. Mainly, I’m just sad.
The other thing that probably drives CCN up a tree with worry for his children is that I used to be Catholic and am way more knowledgeable about and well read in Catholic theology than he is. And since I fell into apostasy despite all this sincere belief, daily mass attendance, and consideration of becoming a nun, and became an atheist Jew to boot (better holidays and rituals consisting of food and arguments – what’s not to like?), I guess I’m basically spiritual botulinum toxin or something.
Sili:
:Tokes: hmmmmmmmm? :Tokes:
And sometimes blow stuff up.
Mattir
You’re a Catholic who became a Jew?
CCN wants his kids to avoid you so they won’t be collaterally damaged in the lightening strike!
Atheist Jew.
@Mattir
*shiver* Catholic mass, the most boring event on Earth.
It reminds me of my favorite Woody Allen line: “To the Klan, Zelig, a Jew who could become a Negro and an American Indian, was a triple threat.”
@Mattir
Makes me wonder, if the folks at the Korean catholic church finds out I am an atheist, will they discriminate me and my parents too? At first glance, they seem so nice, but who knows.
RPG is an Indian business group. A bouzouki is a stringed instrument similar to the mandolin.
I’m hip, man. I hope the fuzz hasn’t caught on yet.
You can try “Child, please”, but I think they’re both rooted in the sassy black woman stereotype.
I hear that Mormon masses are thrice the length.
Correct. With an RPG (reaktivnaya protivotankovaya granata (a “hand-held anti-tank rocket launcher”)) you load the projectile in the front of the launch tube (much like a panzerfaust).
RPG is not a role playing game.
Well, it can be, but only if you persist in persnickitiness.
It’s all fun and games until somebody loses an eye. And a leg. And also an arm or two. And a dwarf.
Why would the fuzz not grok 4/20 which is 1/5 which is 20%?
Jewish services can be very very long, but since there’s generally not the assumption that you will sit there quietly the whole time and stay on the same page as everyone else, it’s much more like visiting one’s imaginary friend, reading what one likes (I always read the last Lemony Snicket book and For the Time Being, by Annie Dillard, on Yom Kippur, while the other Mr. Mattir rereads Sand County Almanac), and occasionally sneaking out to have a chat with one’s real friends. In terms of boredom, though, nothing beats being trapped as a female guest at an Orthodox seder, seated so as to be unable to get up and go into the kitchen and gossip with the women, and having to remain between a work colleague (and superior) who is deaf in the ear on your side and his 14 year old nephew who’s busy talking to the guy next to him about how women were made to serve men. With food that fulfills one’s worst expectations about eastern european Jewish food.
True story.
ibyea – your example may be one of those situations where staying IN the closet until one is independent of the community is a very good idea. I do not trust religious believers further than I can throw them, and generally trust them considerably less than that.
Somewhat like a one-eyed, nigger, Jew dwarf.
Y’know, re 4 20, I really never had much of an opinion on drug policy.
Oh, okay… that’s only half true. As, thinking about it for like half a second, I’d have to agree emphatically that the war on drugs is a ruinous multi-decade boondoggle under which endless civil liberties violations have occurred. Y’know… Kinda like the war on terror, only longer, and with fewer Arabs, specifically, getting the shaft…
Or the cluster bomb. Whichever.
That said, I never really put it in my top priorities, y’know? Partly, maybe, because I always kinda figured sooner or later, if actual sanity didn’t prevail, the governments involved would at least finally realize they couldn’t actually afford it, anyway, and we’d get to something a little less stubbornly, bloody-mindedly brain-dead, for policy, here…
Anyway. That’s a digression. Today’s meat is: I think I really have to say a few kind words about 4 20…
Purely on the basis that a CBC radio piece I heard this morning on the subject quoted some sleazeball from Scientology-backed Narconon’s criticism thereof, citing them as a ‘drug prevention expert’.
I often do this, I must confess. I take hints toward what I should be for by who’s agin’ it.
(/And yes, I commented on that thing, and even pointed ’em towards some of their own links on what utter quacks these jerks be, in the hope the reporter will be a mite more alert next time.)
@mattir
Well, it is mostly my parents who interact with them. Personally, I don’t care if they hate me or whatever. But I do care if my parents gets it. While my parents are catholic (the soft variety), they do tell me that whatever stupid thing I do will be reflected back onto them. So they might hate my parents by association.
So yeah, good idea to not go out of the closet.
Because I’ve finally got the spare time on my hands, I was happy for the TV Tropes timesuck. For Science!
Squeeeeee! at the duckie!
I’m back to being in love with my copyediting job. Ah, the difference a good project manager makes.
Happy anniversary, Mattir & Co.!
Sorry about CCN. Sometimes our best efforts are not enough to overwhelm the stupid. A woman I used to babysit for told me that she regretted ever letting me into her house and around her children when she found out I was an atheist.
I’d helped her extensively for the better part of 4 years when she was single and broke and raising 3 kids alone. I helped practically raise her youngest from ages 1 to 3.
When I reminded her that I’m the same person I was before she knew, she said she didn’t care and wished I’d never been left alone with her kids.
People can suck.
Here’s hoping that somehow you actually managed to indeed drive God out of the poor kids in what little time you had.
Hoping to see you again come October. What kinda booze do you like? (In case I can’t get any more frogs.)
@Jules
Another thing I hate about discrimination, people become ungreatful bastards.
It’s on my Cannot Miss™ agenda. I’m going to try to extend the trip a bit this time and hang out in the city some. Of course, all of this depends on about a million other things falling into place, but we’ll see.
I’ve been toying with the idea of spending my summer abroad. Just fyi. Of course, that also depends on about a million things falling into place as well*.
Obviously, my wanderlust is hitting me with full force. All I ever wanted in life was to drift about from place to place. I got myself all anchored down and lost a decade, but I think I’ll be able to start roaming far and wide again soon. At least for short periods of time.
My favorite booze of late has been any spicy dry white wine. But I’m a huge fan of scotch. I like my scotch how I like my men: smoky and burning the back of my throat.
*I really wish that I had a more definitive answer on the Awful News. But we’re still in limbo. Although, if it ends up being the worst case scenario, I’ll probably long for the days of uncertainty. Stupid cruel and thoughtless universe.
Oh great, looks like Hungary has its own secret police: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/the-new-hungarian-secret-police/#
Sephardi dishes tend to be much better than Ashkenazi cuisine.
katherine @410
Mitt Romney not only has religious and right-wing parasites, he is a parasite. At least according to the Dallas News.
http://www.dallasobserver.com/2012-04-19/news/mitt-romney-american-parasite/
Excerpt:
It amazes me when people for some reason think it’s a virtue to acknowledge someone is more likely than them to be right and still hold onto their view anyway. It’s like in a video game where the useless escort quest NPC insists on charging forward into combat instead of staying behind you.
HINT HINT CCN! HINT HINT!
There’s smoke coming out my ears* after reading about Mattir’s CCN and the charmingly grateful woman who has now so effusively thanked you… That get me anywhere?
(But now’s bad. Have to go to the yard now to find the garden hose and extinguish my hair. Toodles, I guess.)
(*/Nor is this particularly likely to help with folk ’round here who seemed already to be assuming I’m in league with the devil or something quite without any smoking skull effects, I guess. But what can ya do.)
TRUTH.
I have a close friend who just discovered xe has progressive hearing loss, probably genetically linked*.
Xe is an atheist who is basically estranged from hir fundie family, but hir sibling is really only estranged because xe lives with the parents (not that they’ve ever had a good relationship, but there’s no hate from my friend’s end).
So, xe decides to break hir silence and tell sibling (via text), just in case sibling wants to get checked out (or decides to procreate).
Sibling’s response to the news was simply, “Ok.”
Friend decides a few days later to suggest disability insurance. For hir work, it’s not necessary because she can still work even with total hearing loss. Not so with sibling.
Sibling’s response? “I don’t have it! STOP texting me about this!” It had been two texts total.
As best as we can figure, sibling’s world view is so dependent on friend being evil (xe’s an atheist!), so xe can only imagine that friend is doing this to be awful in some way. Otherwise, hir whole concept of reality is shaken.
It’s seriously fucked up. Hir own sibling is trying to help give a means of financially surviving if it turns out xe has a disability, and hir reaction is to freak out and tell hir sibling to just drop it already.
(I know sibling as well. In fact, I know sibling as well as I know friend. So I’m pretty familiar with what’s happening here.)
*No insurance means xe is just treating symptoms, not trying to get to the root of the problem, so xe does not have a definitive diagnosis.
Bad things worth knowing:
Two years after the BP oil spill, severe under-recognized effects persist. Health damage to humans:
http://www.thenation.com/article/167461/investigation-two-years-after-bp-spill-hidden-health-crisis-festers
Sick and mutated wildlife:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/04/201241682318260912.html
You don’t have to tell us.
You’re in luck! I have friends who love smokey Scotch – last time we met for happy hour(s), her choice stank for fireplace across the table. I’ll ask her just what the fuck it was she ordered, and see what I can do. (I’m still only a teacher, so I may not be able to afford it – no matter how much sex you seem to offer).
Silly Sili. My offers are independent of the booze proffered ;-)
</being a lady>
Jules dear, I love you, but this rampant use of UU-Bornstein pronouns really makes me want to smack you.
Lynna, OM #477
Bain is one of the more notorious raider companies. They’d take over a company, strip everything valuable they could, fire lots of employees (especially folks on the floor, supervisors and middle management), skimp on maintenance, and, when the emaciated husk was wheezing its last, file for bankruptcy.
Aw, thanks! *kisskiss*
I’ll abstain from interpreting this in the manner of the sexist joke:
If a diplomat says “yes”, he means “mayby”.
If a diplomat says “maybe”, he means “no”.
If a diplomat says “no”, he’s not a diplomat.
If a lady says “no”, she means “maybe”.
If a lady says “maybe”, she means “yes”.
If a lady says “yes”, she’s not a lady.
Anyway, I’m fairly sure that our lovely hosts will ensure gendersegregated accommodation, so even if you do in fact offer, I won’t be able to take you up on that.
I really should spend more time talking to A Ray anyway.
Christopher Hitchens’ wit and warmth remembered as New York pays tribute
Salman Rushdie and Martin Amis among those at Cooper Union to celebrate life and work of ‘pioneer at the frontier’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/20/christopher-hitchens-memorial-new-york
You do realize you’re talking to a woman who went to university in a school with such highly gender-segregated dorms that we had 24/7 security guards posted in our lobbies, right?
It’s almost as if you’ve never heard of having sex in wildly inappropriate places.
I somehow managed to spend 10 Mins, 22 Secs on Set, despite the last one being obvious-ish in retrospect.
If Kat doesn’t bring the cards next time, I’ll kill her.
–o–
Figuratively, of course.
Heard of, yes.
But we’re atheists. Does such a thing as “inappropriate” exist outwith the Dungeon?
Anyway, it’s kind of you to stroke my ego this way, but let’s face it, you’d much rather bed the , wouldn’t you?
Incidentally, drunken typing of “Marjanović” brings him pretty close to “Narwhal”.
Which just emphasises my claim that he’s a sexy, sexy beast.
I’ll bring my cards as well. Then we can play Super Set!
(Which is really just Set, only you get to play longer.)
He has his own series (“Chronicling Mitt’s Mendacity”) on the Maddow blog, currently up to Episode XIV:
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/20/11309846-chronicling-mitts-mendacity-vol-xiv
“Inappropriate” isn’t by my standards, of course. I’m just channeling what the poor church ladies at the festival might think.
I’d rather bed the Marjanović? I don’t think I see the need to rank things in a hierarchy here. Pharynguorgy sounds pretty good to me.
Mmmmmm…narwhals…
I couldn’t handly an orgy. I’d be much too selfconcious.
We’ll just have to get your evil on some other way, then.
Although I can hardly believe an atheist could be self-conscious. We’re supposed to be pure evil, and I’m pretty sure that entails reckless disregard for how we appear to others.
Does this make me the athiest?
*The Pharyngula Saloon and Spanking Parlor (Patricia, Princess of Pullets, Proprietor), is more than happy to cater any Pharynguorgy. All grog and swill at maximum strength, and the Pullet Patrol to provide service if shy around strange humans. Be sure to call 1-800-555-trebuchet for reservation (20 minutes warning minimum). {/ad}*
Happy anniversary to the Mattirarchy (think I’m a bit late, but ::waves hands:: hey look, time zones! Or something)
And ffs I can hardly believe the freakout shunning neighbour and the mother Jules helped for so long. How the fuck can people be so steeped in poison. We all know it’s possible to be religious and a decent person (wrong, but decent in spite of it). Yet because of the poison in their brains these people are prepared to shun someone they know from personal experience is so much more than decent! Argh.
That said, re Narconon, in the good news on sleazeball-cultists-formerly-taking-advantage-of-the-vulnerable dept., out fresh this week:
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/04/david_edgar_love_scientology_by_the_balls.php
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2012/04/17/narconon-trois-rivieres.html
… and this is apparently a pretty big deal. Actually getting one of these nasty little pieces of work actually closed down is apparently very, very rare. Never mind seeing it happen with this kind of gratifying dispatch.
Kinda makes me wonder what the hell the reporters in that latest were doing quoting them. Don’t read the news ’emselves, perhaps?
(/All the same, I hereby raise a glass to Anonymous and to David Edgar Love. Big Damn Heroes, all.)
I ws wondering about this…
…because, people kinda *have to* be prepared to quickly shun someone who seemed trustworthy for years if certain things happen. For instance, a trusted figure such as a teacher, coach, or relative who turns out to be abusive. There *are* red flags that absolutely should not be discounted in favor of personal experience; but being an atheist shouldn’t be one of them.