This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly. Man, it’s hard to find an insect picture tagged with “cute” and “baby”.
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
And ouch, but this semester is kicking my ass. I’m on an overload (12 instead of 10credits) and the bulk of my classwork is a new course, so I’m up all night working on new lectures. There may be times when I drop off the internet for whole hours at a stretch.
SLACKER.
Did anyone see the two-headed snake out of South Carolina? Which has two heads, but not bifurcated, it has one head at each end? That means if you try to pick it up, all the ends will bite you. Argh.
carlie,
this sounds as impossible as the “octoshark”.
— — — — — — — — —
Lithopanspermia: Slow-moving rocks better odds that life crashed to Earth from space http://phys.org/news/2012-09-slow-moving-odds-life-earth-space.html
Obama May Do Social Security Reform During Lame Duck Session, Senate Democrats Worry http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/24/obama-and-social-security_n_1910498.html
University of Gothenburg: New IVF breakthrough http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-ivf-breakthrough.html
Fly neurons could reveal the root of Alzheimer’s disease http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-neurons-reveal-root-alzheimer-disease.html
Treatment for alcoholism dramatically reduces the financial burden of addiction on families http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-treatment-alcoholism-financial-burden-addiction.html
Yay baby insect is so cute!!
Good morning everyone. I’m moving desks here at work, but they moved my phone before moving my cube, and I’m now sitting at a desk with a phone number that’s not my own. Oh yea, and I can’t forward calls cause someone else is sitting at that desk with their phone calls being forwarded to THAT phone.
Yay!! *grumblegrumble*
(The Onion) Gallup Poll: Rural Whites Prefer Ahmadinejad To Obama
http://www.theonion.com/articles/gallup-poll-rural-whites-prefer-ahmadinejad-to-oba,29677/
Large bacterial population colonized land 2.75 billion years ago http://phys.org/news/2012-09-large-bacterial-population-colonized-billion.html
Scientists reverse Alzheimer’s-like memory loss in animal models by blocking EGFR signaling http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-scientists-reverse-alzheimer-like-memory-loss.html
And ouch, but this semester is kicking my ass.
Crap! I just remembered, I’m supposed to give a lecture…sometime on…something. Maybe I’d better fill in those unknowns.
Giliell:
Check your emails, lady!
Oh, yeah,and somewhere in here today I’m supposed to call my editor (yes, the book is happening, finally), go to the courthouse and tell them no way I can do jury duty, finish up my Free Inquiry column, grade 50 exams, and put together my lecture for tomorrow. And then I fly to Florida on Friday.
At least I’m looking forward to Christmas.
Poor PZ. :(
*hugs and brownies!*
Nope. Most likely bad embryo fusion video.
Damn. Look, is there any way we can keep this on the down low? The snakes here in The Land ‘O the Poisonous and the Pouchy don’t need to be getting any ideas, mmmkay?
I notice that the dungeon is coming close to having its 100th resident. (It’s up to 95 by my count.) Will the 100th person to be banned win any kind of prize?
Could I suggest solid gold shackles?
Is it just me, or is it a little unusual for the Guardian to publish something that seems to get it?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2012/sep/22/creepshots-revenge-porn-paparazzi-women
Oh hey, how about a DarkFetus update?
I’m just about finished with the last of my prenatal classes– I had the first (of two) “all about infants” class last night. A couple of things struck me:
1) It was actually fun. The pediatric RN that teaches it loveslovesloves babies. Like, whoa lady, did you ever find the right field!
and
2) There is a complete absence of woo. Everything so far has been sound medical knowledge and she hasn’t hesitated to tell us when there’s more than one proper way to do something*. I think it helps that not only is she a nurse with 30+ years of experience, but she also teaches pediatric nursing at one of the local colleges.
So, yeah. I’ve been really pleasantly surprised with all of the classes that I’ve taken (breastfeeding, prepared childbirth, and new parents classes) and I’m feeling a lot more… in control now. It’s a good feeling. :)
*For instance, the issue of co-sleeping came up. We were told that there is no wrong way to handle sleeping (co-, in the room with us, or in the nursery) and we should choose what works best for our family. Genius!
Just realised that that two headed snake video has gone viral. Just the image I needed before bed: viral snakes. Gah.
Jury duty.
The SO’s parent was just called.
Said parent has been dead for 10 years.
I reckon that’s a good excuse for not going.
Still catching up, but yay Audley for legitimately helpful and informative classes! I’m so glad it’s going well for you.
My belated but emphatic sympathies, Terryg. I’m so glad that the hospice care was so top-notch.
PZ would you like coffee? chocolate?
FossilFishy – to my knowledge of the law it is only compulsory to turn up at the polling booth and get your name signed off I don’t think it’s actually compulsory to vote, but I may be wrong. It’s interesting to hear your opinion as someone who didn’t grow up with it. Goodluck for the citizenship test. Are there genuinely questions about cricket? because if so maybe my citizenship should be revoked.
Audley – it sounds like your RN needs to be cloned :), some of the nonsense my sister had to put up when she had her twins was unbelievable. I’m glad you have such good people helping you.
So… BossNurse update!
The last time I went into any detail the options were as follows:
– Homelessness
– My wife taking interim consulting jobs around the country, leaving me at home to take care of the four-legged kids
– My wife taking a permanent job in Florida working for her old boss, who she likes personally but had weird co-dependent work issues with
– My wife taking a permanent job in New Mexico if they offer it to her at the end of the ridiculously long interview process.
Since she’s started the first interim job, she’s realized that she can’t live without me in her life daily and this is probably going to be the last interim job she ever does. Which is fine, because the company offered her a permanent position at one of a couple of different facilities that they own. At the same time, the New Mexico company is flying her in for a weekend to have a face-to-face interview and a tour of the building. The New Mexico building is better and the cost of living is not bad but it isn’t a sure thing. The company she’s with now is a sure thing, but the buildings they want her to run are all in need of serious fixing.
So… decisions, decisions. Probably New Mexico, if they offer anything reasonable as far as pay, bonus, and relocation package. And then I guess I apply to UNM?
Joe,
I’m glad to hear that things are shaping up for the two of you.
Audley, that’s cool that you enjoyed your classes! Even when I think I know stuff because I read a book or looked it up, it always makes me feel a little more assured when there’s an in-person expert reinforcing things and adding new stuff.
I assume someone’s posted about Tuxedo Stan already, but just in case.
Joe – awesome! Would you be applying to UNM as a student, or as staff, or faculty?
lexie: Yup, I’m reliably informed there’s a question who’s answer is Donald Bradman. According to Alethea it was added by John Howard, or at least at his government’s behest. I vaguely remember reading about an attempt to remove it from the test and Howard stopped it. I think he was pandering to closet racists in his power base.
Over and above that, my problem with that question, and others like it, is that you cannot encapsulate a culture in any meaningful way with such things. Australia, like it or not, is a multi-cultural country. I live in a small town that is predominately filled with people of Italian origin for instance. It’s not uncommon to be in the grocery store and have the customer in front of you conduct their transaction entirely in Italian. I’m not sure if Australia is suppose to be officially multi-cultural the way Canada is, but I haven’t heard any sort of “melting pot” rhetoric a la the USA here.
My feeling is that the test should be about things that are universal to all who live here. The system of government, laws, rights and responsibilities and that sort of thing. It should be culturally secular as it were.
Esteleth – It’s five years today! I raise a glass in your direction.
carlie,
Student… remember, I’m not currently allowed to have opinions about things written by Very Important People. Maybe someday though, when I have a degree and more money. Still won’t be white or raised in the upper-middle class culture that imparts importance to one’s every utterance, but nobody’s perfect.
Obama is giving quite a good speech to the UN now (Aussie ABC news-24 TV) Touching on the issues of free speech, the video and Islamists violence in response,religious extremism and Jihadism, Iran and more.
Just saw the report on Maddow’s Monday show about the Scott Brown v. Elizabeth Warren debate where he basically said “she’s too white to be Native American.”
That just angers the hell out of me. People who know me and have seen me IRL can tell you, I’m as white as a sheet. I’ve clearly taken after the German-Irish heritage of my father. Yet I am 1/8th Pamunkey Indian. My great-grandmother was full-blooded, there’s a picture of her in the Smithsonian Archives as a little girl on her father’s front porch.
I mean seriously, skin color has jack to do with heritage. I can go back and see ‘oh yes, my Nana was a Native American.’
Beatrice, Thanks a bunch!
Hey, remember when we were talking about depression, and how when you’re coming out of it you get active and you reverse the cause and effect? Yesterday was one of those days for me. I got up and did a bunch of stuff and felt super-hopeful about the future because this time I am totally going to do this every day and I will never be so ridiculously depressed again. Then I realized that it was the same old shit, and that super-hopeful thingy more or less vanished. Fuck.
Yeah mostly very good.
A few things I didn’t like on the free speech side of things regarding being overly concerned with the religiously thin skinned. But some good things on the other side as far as how those who are offended react.
SC, Thanks for that. I highly approve of Tuxedo Stan. I did doorknocking for The Rhinoceros Party in my teens. Fun stuff. The candidate’s name was Richard the Troll*, and he promised to create better East/West unity by levelling the Rockies and tipping the country up to slide Toronto up next to Vancouver. Fun stuff.
*Nope, not that kind. This was 1979, he claimed to live under the Lion’s Gate Bridge in Vancouver.
Audley,
Yay for reasonable physicians and adjacent professionals!
I came up with the coolest (in my mind) darkfetus gift, but I have to wait until next payday, so you can’t give birth for at least another couple of weeks. NO BABYTIMES.
Yes, I definitely remember Howard proposing it and the campaign to get rid of it I just never managed to remember the outcome. I think I may be partly due do the pandering to the racists thing but Howard was genuinely cricket mad and probably does think that somehow cricket is somehow intrinsic to Australian culture (I’ve grown up here my entire life and hate the sport and know almost nothing about it so clearly it’s not all that important).
I totally agree with you about what the test should be (if indeed there should be one, it seems to hark back to the ‘White Australia Policy’ a bit too much for my liking, also in my admittedly limited experience migrants seem to know how the government works better than my friends who have grown up here).
I have always been puzzled when people talk about ‘Australian culture’ as I just don’t know what they mean. Australian isn’t a race, so there are no racial or ethic traditions binding us all together. Since the invasion of white people there have always been a mix of people here (I met someone recently whose great-great grandparents were camel herders who came out from Afghanistan in the mid 1800s) here much to the disgust of the white people.
But even if this wasn’t the case historically (which I suppose could be argued since even though there were a mix of people it was kept to a minimum by the ‘White Australia Policy’) it definitely is now, I think most people have at least one grandparent born overseas and so it is a diverse country and to talk of some unified Australian culture seems weird to me. I don’t even know what could reasonably be defined as Australian (providing this is defined as something that is reasonable unique to us and which most or all of the population engage in or claim some sort of traditional link to), I suppose lots of people seem to like beaches but I don’t think that’s amazingly unique to us also my perception of this could well be skewed by living next to one.
In most cases what the people who talk about it seem to mean is the culture of at the Anglo-Australians and a lot of the time it does seem to be racially motivated.
I’ve finally written up a piece on Sophisticated Theology, the history of the phrase as it’s used:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Sophisticated_theology
Critique from people who were there at the time is most urgently needed!
Yup, Lexie. That mirrors my admittedly poorly informed view of the culture here. I’ve only been here 4-5 years depending on how you count it, and most of that time has been in one small area.
Must go to bed now. Night.
I just went and did the practice questions on the government website for the citizenship test (curiosity) and I tentatively retract my allusion to “White Australia Policy”, awaiting further evidence. I found just sensible questions about how government works, who enforces the law, the function of the judiciary etc and best of all I found no questions about cricket (stupid sport). I sincerely hope it did in the end get cut. I did find one question about equality of men and women before the law which I think may be aimed at migrants coming from misogynistic societies but I think anyone could learn the answer without changing behaviours putting one question about it is not going to help.
If the test is similar to the practice questions then it seems it is genuinely just looking at whether people understand how the Australian government works but if my experience in having to tutor fellow university students on the political system before the last election is anything to go by I think it would be valuable to have everyone registering for the electoral role sit it, as firstly it would be fairer as it’s not a test for migrants simply a test for everyone to ensure that before you can vote you know how the government works, and secondly, I DO NOT WANT TO WASTE ANY MORE LUNCH TIMES EXPLAINING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE UPPER AND LOWER HOUSES OF PARLIMENT! (Sorry but I seriously got annoyed at having to explain these things to my fellow uni students)
Katherine
I am listening to that episode now as a podcast…and I share your rage. It’s so preposterous to hear someone really say this. “As you can see, she’s not.” Honestly. Playing to the bullshit trope that being not-white is helpful in this culture is really getting fucking old. Arg. Need moar tea.
My BiL is one-quarter Cherokee. He is blond and blue-eyed, just like my nephew. But they are still recognized by the tribe.
Oh good she has Melissa Harris-Perry to set the jackwagons straight. I love love love her.
—-
{warning: rant ahead}
Late to the party on RMoney’s ER health plan discussion, but I just have to add a bit. Last night I responded to a medical call involving a woman who was having an asthma attack and waited to use her breathing treatment until it was too late. The sort of cold callousness that assumes there is treatment for everybody if they just call 911 is literally killing people. And I wish there was a way to impress that on these assholes. I have seen many, many people who suffer because their only source of healthcare is the ER. Like the elderly man who should *not* have been home from the hospital the day after his surgery but the insurance company wouldn’t pay for adequate recovery and so we loaded him into the ambulance because that was the only way he could get back to the hospital where he belonged.
—
I’m combating the blues by completing projects and really enjoying my job. It’s successful. Yay!
@Portia:
About the only Native American I have in my appearance is that I have really dark hair and various facial features (deep-set eyes, high and prominent cheekbones, pouty lips.) I’m white-skinned, I have hazel eyes (ooh, so pretty) and I don’t tan – I burn. My brother is definitely Native American, though – he looks it, even though he and I share the same blood.
Joe,
With the start of that paragraph, I was hoping that good day of yours would last at least a couple of days. Fuck.
You can take my route and just melt your brain away by reading Fan Fiction Friday (thank Janine for that recommendation). No brain= no feeling bad. OK, that’s probably not the reason I feel surprisingly well today, but I better not analyze it more deeply.
Mitt claims cold fusion is solved, they just can’t replicate it
This is what happens when you accept as truth something that people claimed has happened once and never again. In two thousand years I believe cold fusion will return to us if we don’t anger the cold fusion gods.
That courgette and mushroom bread I mentioned the day before yesterday… As delicious as I remember.
Mmm
@carlie-
Did it actually have a functioning head at each end? The (poor quality) video I saw wasn’t convincing, it appeared to be a regular snake with a mimic head on it’s tail, which is not that uncommon. Hard to imagine a functioning animal with a head on each end.
Looky.
http://www.mundoblaineo.org/blogpress/2012/05/24/did-anyone-actually-see-the-candidate-eat-the-rat/
Beatrice,
I’m going to take heart in the fact that today is the day that the first new expansion pack for Darksiders 2 is available, and even though I am flat broke I can still get it because I got the game new and it came with a code to get the expansion for free… FREE!!!!!
As a matter of fact, I don’t think I even paid any money for the game itself. I think I got it all with trades and coupons. Double free!
Carlie:
:D
No problem! I’m in week 35 now and (although I know this shit can be unpredictable) there’s no reason to suspect that I’ll go into labor any time soon. I’ve also told the DF that she has to wait until after my birthday (October 14) to make her appearance or else I’ll be very disappointed in her. :)
Audley, wouldn’t it awesome if you and the DarkFetus shared a birthday? And by “awesome” I mean “really really really terrible”!
Why am I listening to a BBC reporter do P90x workout…it’s very awkward. If we want to understand Paul Ryan through physical exercise, shouldn’t this reporter be doing a marathon in 4 hours? ZING.
Does anybody have a tasty cinnamon roll recipe? I would like to use white wheat flour and all this sucanat, so extra points for including those or tips for substitutions.
I’ve found out what “goats on fire” means.
Joe
Hugs for you and bossnurse
Portia
Not sure if that’s what you had in mind, but…
500g flour
250 g butter
200-250 ml milk
100 g sugar
1 cube of yeast
Mix yeast, warm milk and a bit of sugar
Make a well in the flour and pour into it.
Cover and keep warm for 15 min
mix in butter and sugar and knead well
Let rest for about an hour
Half the dough
roll out pretty thin into a rectangle that’s about 10″ long and as wide as it goes.
Melt some butter and cover dough with it.
Mix sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle generously onto dough.
Roll, cut into slices, put them on a baking tray and bake at about 180° C
*whisper* You can also add raisins.
Audley – ooo, that is also my son’s birthday!
My husband and his mother share a birthday. Makes it easy to remember.
*whisper* or nuts
Thank you Giliell! That seems refreshingly simple…I was sort of drowning myself in searching various recipes. I have a jar of yeast though, how much is in a cube?
I’m thinking cream cheese frosting sprinkled with almonds :)
Portia
Cube is 42g
More or less…
Joe:
Nearly everyone in my family has an October birthday– my Asshole Sister and I have bdays that are 2 days apart, my mom’s is a week after mine, dad’s is the following week, and DF’s due date is on my dad’s birthday. :)
Funny story, Mr Darkheart and his younger brother are exactly two years apart in age. He hates sharing his birthday.
Audley: I spent February 29 (of a leap year duh) in gentle prodromal labor and repeatedly admonishing the Hurricane that she would not be born until the day was over. She must have listened, because in the event she didn’t actually make an appearance until early on March 3.
So it turned out that as of yesterday, the first day of the quarter, when classes actually start, the exact class I wanted still had spaces and no one on the wait list. When does that happen at an underfunded community college?
The instructor is a gigantic nerd who gets so excited about literature he jumps up and down and dances around at the front of the room. I think we’ll get along fine.
One of our topics of discussion was “What makes a work great and/or classic?” Out of curiosity this morning I asked that question of my 8-year-old. She promptly replied, “It’s bloody.” Then I told her about Hamlet, and she was very impressed and wanted to know if we had a copy.
Oh, but the first works we’re examining are Shakespeare sonnets, one of which is “My mistress’ eyes”, and the only thing I can think of is the Comic Relief sketch with Catherine Tate and David Tennant.
FACETH! BOVVERED? BOVVERED, FACETH?
Kristin:
So what you’re saying is that the only time she’ll listen to me is when she’s in utero?
HalloweenbabyHalloweenbabyHalloweenbaby!
GirlChild’s birthday is 2 days after mine. I was absolutely miserable on my birthday.
Well, now she’s 8 … and yes, my experience suggests that is the case.
Mind you she didn’t always listen in utero either. Polite requests to stop pressing her feet up into my fundus and her head down onto my cervix were usually ignored.
Approximately 20% of my students are Indian.
I can’t tell with most of them. Not by skin color, not by name.
Honestly, my biggest birth-related gripe is that squirting them out in January and early March, respectively, made birthday parties a lot more work than they strictly have to be. I could have had babies in the late spring or summer and thrown charming and carefree parties at the park, but nooooo, due to my poor planning they celebrate birthdays at the time of year when all the little snots have to be indoors.
lexie:
(last thread)
Squash has the redeeming quality of being dog food though. Seriously, I love pumpkin seeds, so I’ll buy squash and dig out the seeds for me, and chop up the rest for the doggies. They looooooooove it. Occasionally I’ll cook some up with some salt, cayenne, brown sugar and EVOO…
****
carlie:
I wound up buying it last night along with The Avengers. I’m about to listen to it now.
Out of curiosity, do you have certain things you’re looking for when deciding if an album is good/bad?
I ask because I don’t think I have a specific set of things I look for or judge when I hear music. All I can say is whether a song works for me or not. That doesn’t really specific *why* it doesn’t work for me. For the life of me though, I’m not certain how to figure out what I do or don’t like about music.
****
Audley @15:
How do you feel about your overall pregnancy at this point? From many of your comments, it seems like it’s been positive…?
Oh, and *no* woo? Wow.
BTW, how long has your sister been an ass to you? Just through the pregnancy, or has she been this way to you for years?
Total threadrupt, but lofgren has given me my first title! Look at it, it’s so shiny!
I like good, well-flavored tomatoes. Unfortunately, most of the ones available at the store seem to be Murlynd’s Tomatoes; cardboard as to flavor, mealy and yuck!!! as to texture. I blame the Search for the Tomato of Infinite Shelf-life.
The ones I raised year before last (?) (which didn’t wilt and die in any way!) were good.
I don’t eat eggplant. Texture issues. Shame; they’re pretty.
Squash are not food. Except for pumpkins.
–
Walton!
*pouncehug*
–
–
Joe, hurray for improvement of options!
–
…or jerky, or ball bearings; but whyever would you want to do anything like that when pecans exist?
–
And so are sweet potatos.
–
Kristin:
DF doesn’t always listen to me either– she likes pressing against my diaphragm and tap dancing on my bladder. Oh, she’s breach, too, despite the fact that I’ve asked her several times to flip around and even promised her chocolate pudding.
Tony:
My pregnancy has progressed rather well and all of my gripes are minor. That being said, I highly doubt I’ll be putting my body through this again any time soon– as relatively worry free as I’ve been, I’ve been in pain/discomfort pretty much the entire time (sciatic nerve pain and heartburn mostly, and goddamn, I’m fucking itchy).
And I haven’t had a totally woo free experience, but I am surrounded by medical professionals that don’t buy into that shit, thank goodness. Makes me feel pretty good about this last month and my labor.
As far as my Asshole Sister goes… she’s always been a critical person, but she’s gotten worse over the course of my pregnancy. She’s pregnant herself (about to start her 3rd trimester in early October) and the prevaling theory is that because she’s not handling her own pregnancy very well (she is irrationally convinced that she’s going to have a stillbirth, even though as far as anyone is aware, she and her fetus are perfectly healthy), so when she sees me herp a derpin’ along seemingly without a care in the world, she gets angry and lashes out because it’s just not fair.
This also (partially) explains why she’s latched onto things like my weight gain to point out and criticize every time she sees me– she needs something to be wrong with me, even if it’s something that’s not actually wrong. I just can’t be perfect.
Anyway, I haven’t spoken to her in over a week. She did attend brunch with me and the rest of the family last Sunday, but she barely said two words to me. And that’s reeally okay by me.
FossilFishy – wow. just wow. thank you so much.
Amblebury – yep. see above.
thanks to the Horde for your caring words. elleventy-seven virtual hugs later, I’m in a pretty good way. very sad of course, but thats a good thing – Sadness = k*love^m, m>1
I really do love Pharyngula and the Horde (that was redundant). And here’s just one reason why:
Pharyngula has pretty much achieved the impossible – I no longer allow myself to use slurs, only insults. hoo boy, thats a hard habit to break. especially when ones favourite swear word was “cunt”. Its taking a while to stop, but whenever I catch myself doing it (getting better – almost always catch it now) I give myself a stern rebuke – which invariably turns into a lecture with whichever hapless person is within earshot as to why slurs are wrong but insults are OK.
I cant recall whether or not I’ve been slapped down here for doing it, but by FSM it became apparent real fast that I better watch what I type. That morphed into actually reading the links (shock, horror) the Horde so graciously (for certain values of gracious) and frequently provide, but grokking proved elusive. Ultimately of course its all Rebecca Watsons fault – it takes a special kind of stupid to miss the central thesis of that (neverending) story. Toss in Schrodingers Rapist and voila – my journey to the dark side (OK, A+) was irreversible.
next can you please make me taller and better looking? I dont need modesty though – thats my greatest virtue.
And now a question or two:
– should I continue talking about some of the things I’ve learned from Ruths death? No is an acceptable answer. I think they’re interesting, but then I’m easily impressed, and have a tendency to ramble incessantly.
– why do Americans call Coriander Cilantro? This confused me when living in Boston, and trying to cook out of a book “it says coriander – do you have that?”
– do instant noodles count as cooking? or even food?
Bah.
Threadrupt because work work work work work
But!
Today is the official five years no cancer date!
*confetti*
Am bummed and pissed at labmates. There’s a very active social circle, and I invited the lab to the party I had this weekend for the cancer-free stuff. Two people (out of 20 or 25) showed up. Another 8 or 9 sent nicely worded “sorry, can’t make it, but congrats” messages.
Then I find out that another dozen or so were out getting “totally hammered” that night. And thought it was okay to talk about this in front of me. >_<
Terryg, my deepest sympathies.
You know, I have been wanting to serve on jury since I was 12. In my entire adult life, I’ve gotten a jury summons once (17 years ago) and it turned out there were no trials scheduled that week so they called everyone and told us not to bother driving down. *sigh*
—
Audley:
That sounds great! How nice not to get “this is what you should do and anything else is EBILLLLL” lectures.
—
FossilFishy:
Compulsory voting?
Without knowing any details, I already like the sound of it. I’m for anything that increases voter turnout. I personally think that, on election day in the US, all businesses, schools, and gov’t offices should be closed, except essential services, and all employees should receive a paid holiday.
—
Improbable Joe:
I’m glad to hear things are getting better. Best of luck choosing the most personally satisfying option for you and bossnurse!
—
Katherine
I just…I..but— Fuck, I have no words, just sounds leaking out of my mouth.
I’m 1/16 Iroquois (Oneida) and you can sorta see (maybe, if you squinted hard and tilted your head a bit) my Native ancestry — if only that I have the cheekbones, dark hair, and dark eyes. My siblings are all curly-haired blonds with blue eyes. Only one of my full-blooded great-great-grandmother’s children looked Native, the rest having mostly taken after their Irish and Scots father.
—
lexie:
I feel your pain. I nearly lost my mind last week explaining to classmates that the system of checks and balances (such as originally envisioned, not the weak tea we have now) between the presidency, Congress, and Supreme Court was actually a GOOD THING.
Of course, in my group, none of those in support of the President or Congress telling the USSC what to do are actually registered to vote, so hopefully they can’t do much harm with their ignorance.
—
barbyou:
I think I saw that movie. Set in Russia with Val Kilmer as the lead, maybe?
—
Audley:
That’s my family in September. (Christmas is apparently a very special time…) Almost all the males in the immediate family have Sept birthdays — my brothers (baby bro is 33 today!), my son, my step-dad, my step-nephew, my sister’s SO, the other sister’s husband. For the women, June is the big month — which implies that birthday parties also make for happysexytimes.
—
kristinc:
That’s awesome!
re: birthdays.
I’m the only winter baby in my family and I hated it because there was just no point in planning a party. At the end of January, you have to expect there will be a blizzard or an ice storm. When I was 16, my mom came up with the idea to celebrate my half-birthday just so I could have one normal birthday celebration.
My oldest has a February birthday, so his parties were usually sledding/skating/hockey affairs. Nothing spells fun like sitting outside for an hour watching young boys try to kill themselves and each other….
The other two were born in August and September respectively, so much easier in terms of planning and holding a party. Which is only fair considering I was humongously pregnant through the worst of summer with both of them. (I all but lived in the pool and the walk-in cooler at work during those two summers.)
Why the fuck am I in moderation over at the Crommunist?
I can’t even remember when I commented there the last time…
Terryg:
1) Of course you should share! This may sound… wrong, but reading about you and Ruth and Hospice and her organ donation has been… I don’t want to say “enjoyable” or “fascinating”, but definitely positive.
Um. You get what I’m saying, yes? I’m trying not to be callous, but I just don’t have the right vocab.
2) No idea. I avoid cilantro in the first place ‘cos it tastes like soap to Mr Darkheart.
3) I ♥ dried noodles (egg and rice, especially)– is that what you’re talking about? ‘Cos as much as I like to cook and bake, making my own noodles seems like a daunting task.
My answer to that is, yes, you can and should continue to write about your feelings and your personal education when it comes to death. All of us have, or will, deal with the death of a loved one. Each one of us will do it in a different way, of course, but knowing what someone else went through, the similarities and the differences, may be helpful – to you and to me. Hell, I use this place as a very informal way to deal with my PTSD (undiagnosed) and it seems to have helped me in ways I do not understand but am willing to accept. These are wonderful people here and their different life histories means that you are seldom alone.
Worse than that. In the USA, coriander is the seed, cilantro is the leaf. And it is sometimes called Chinese Parsley in older recipes.
We ‘Merkuns exist to annoy.
Mitt thinks he’s funny because someone laughed at a joke once.
My misstress’ eyes are nothing like the sun…
As read by Alan Rickman.
You’re welcome.
I do p90x and I can assure you I’m a much different person than Ryan.
*happy sigh*
terryg
Talk all you want.
In my vocabulary (western Canadian) the seeds are coriander and the leaves are cilantro.
The plant is also coriander.
—-
Esteleth
Congrats on 5 years!
Some of your work-mates are butt-heads.
Threadrupt, so *wave* hi everybody!
Cilantro is the Spanish word for coriander. Cilantro usually refers to the fresh leaf, and coriander to the seed. The ground seed has a sweet citrus smell, and is very different in flavour to the fresh leaf.
I love cinnamon/coriander/sugar on toast.
terryg, if you’re worried about talking about it upsetting people, you can always post a DEATH-TALK WARNING, and anyone who thinks it will be a problem for them, can scroll past.
–
@carlie:
*sigh*
One of the nicest things is getting to know old folks. People who have lived long and become icons. *waves to Nobe and Ina Harrison*
How I would love to meet this dear lady. I’d ask her to take me for a ride in her car, that’s for sure.
http://www.ohio.com/news/local/her-car-is-82-she-s-102-both-still-going-strong-1.334973
She’s not only older than her old car, she’s its chief mechanic!
What’s not to love?
Improbable Joe,
If you don’t want to talk about it, it would make sense for you to stop talking about it.
I know you’re snowed right now. Nevertheless, the why I’m an atheist section has been missing for two days. If you can, try to key one in each day. It’s one of my favorites, and I look for it every morning.
terryg – My husband of thirty five years died October 13th 2009. I’m in therapy finally, which was the hardest step to admit needed taking. The VA offered me counseling by a priest or chaplain “for free”. Which is bullshit! I still talk about his death at least once a week, so don’t be surprised if it takes a long time to work through the loss.
(I missed seeing who Ruth was to you. Sorry.)
You remember Ralph Reed, right? The guy who was called “the right hand of God” and who headed the Christian Coalition? He fell from grace by, among other things running a religious-themed anti-gambling campaign in league with Jack Abramoff, (yes, that Jack Abramoff). The goal of Reed’s anti-gambling campaign was to prevent one Native American tribe from opening a competitor casino, while raking in mucho moola from Native American tribes who already were running evil dens of gambling iniquity.
Reed fell so far and fast that many counted him out. No more politic for Reed. But they underestimated the talent for forgetfulness inherent in the Christian Coalition.
Reed is once more playing the part of the right hand of god, intent on handing the election to Romney. To do so, Reed is sending out mailers from his new Faith and Freedom Coalition. These mailers compare President Obama’s policies to those of Nazi Germany. The mailers also claim that Obama has “Communist beliefs.”
The disgusting mailers are disguised as a “Voter Registration Confirmation Survey.” Cost? About $10 to $12 million.
Scroll down to see reproductions of the actual mailer here:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/ralph-reed-obama-mailer-nazi-communist
I know you’re snowed right now. Nevertheless, the why I’m an atheist section has been missing for two days. If you can, try to key one in each day. It’s one of my favorites, and I look for it every morning.
Ah, it makes sense that even new atheists would need a regular dose (or quick fix?) of moral certitude so as to reaffirm their faith and harden their hearts :-)
Hey, peterooke.
I asked you a question in the Around FtB thread.
Speaking of certitude, why are you telling atheists what atheists think instead of asking?
Oh, yeah: your belief in god has made you reprehensible.
On a more serious note, TerryG, please don’t ever shy away from telling Ruth’s story. X
Brownian – to be fair I was joking (kind of…).
Ha, ha…
Anyway, I don’t speak for all Christians but when I asked God to bless that brave warrior I meant it quite literally. I fervently hope that God’s love will grace his life!
Oy, pete:
Get the fuck out of the [Lounge].
Lynna:
Fidel Castro, really? Not to snark, but is anyone even sure if he’s still alive?
Wait a minute, is this our old pal, ?
“You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly.”
Good grief, the hostility of some is enough to make me wonder why I even bother sometimes!
peterooke,
You don’t have to leave, but it is advised that you don’t bait people in this thread.
Yeah. Pete. What I’m saying is, this doesn’t come off as kind:
So, don’t do that.
peterooke,
Brownian’s question was here, or you can go to Thunderdome.
Patricia, let’s not drag up the past but I seem to remember we eventually came to grudgingly respect each other :-)
You should move to Baltimore. I’ve been on three jury panels in the past eight years. I must look really trustworthy or somethin’.
And I’ve just read The New Rules, I’ll be mindful of them.
Should I not comment on the Lounge threads in the style I have been (fair and light-hearted, no?) or at all?
I think it would be advisable for you to avoid talking about religion or atheism in here at all. Talk about your human or nonhuman animal companions.
PeteRooke village nitwit:
As usual you get it backwards. Folks like you who believe in imaginary unevidenced deities must have faith. Atheists have evidenced conclusion, based on the lack of conclusive physical evidence for your imaginary deity. Try telling the truth for a change.
And if I were you I would try to refrain from responding to Nerd.
PeteRooke, presuppositional evidenceless godbot:
The place for you is the Thunderdome, where your factless opinions will be properly exposed with the required rigor.
peterooke,
If you are sincerely seeking advice, my hunch is that a lot of people would rather you didn’t comment in The Lounge at all. There are plenty of other threads.
wow, the real pete rooke?
I thought of him just the other day. I was riding the bus and a woman got on wearing a skirt to her knee-roll. It was made of human skin.
Grudging respect?! For a sick, godbotting nitwit? Not a chance.
And as for your past sick remarks get your god to forgive you. Scamper off to thunderdome where your sort are tolerated.
Hmm, I’ll get me coat and be on my way as they say … Quick, quick — to the Thunderdome!
How the heck did pete get out of the dungeon?
I’ll start the chainsaw…..
Ah, so there is a history with this person.
…
*remembers to google the name*
OMG
just checking, but thanks. I cheated with Cilantro – I asked someone who “looked Indian” if it was coriander. Hmm, thats an interesting sentence. they were in fact from India (the Sari was a dead giveaway), but its still an interesting sentence.
Chigau, so coriander = coriander + cilantro. cool!
OK, I should be in bed, but sleep eludes me.
1. I regard being there for Ruths death as both an honour and a
privilegegift. I’m not entirely sure why though – because its about as intimate as anything ever gets?I think of her death as the cessation of the emergent property that was my darling, but thats just me – I’m the guy who told the Tissue Team Co-ordinator that yes they could have her eyes, as I couldnt think of anything useful to do with them that wouldnt end up smelling bad [it got a laugh].
2. It seems to me that the act of death itself may be partly responsible for the concept of “spirit” (soul, essence, whatever). Because it was absolutely unmistakeable as the life and colour drained out of Ruth. I could clearly see her “leave” her body, and afterwards she was most definitely gone. almost as if her “spirit” had been XORed with her body all along (OK, superposed, but how often do you get to use XOR in a non-engineering sentence), and at the end it was XORed off (urgh – just like a TV channel logo. analogy fail).
It would take almost no imagination at all to convince yourself you “saw” the spirit float free – a claim that has been made many times. Hell, if I’d have even had that thought then, betcha I would have “seen” it too. interesting.
3. this is a biggy. we all deal with grief differently. I’ve learned that its totally OK to curl up into a ball and sob uncontrollably. And anyone who manages to do more than that is worthy of respect. Oh FSM it hurts so bad, exacerbated by the total and utter lack of control. The point I’m dawdling towards is well known to feminists and espoused here a lot – the worst thing to do is tell someone how they should be feeling/grieving/reacting.
I’ve just seen half a dozen different people doing this at once. and wow, did the reactions vary. I ran away 5 minutes after making sure Ruth was dead (not with a rifle, but checking pulse, respiration and heartbeat) because I cant cry out loud in front of others – so I drove home (hint: dont do that, you’re a menace in this state) and howled my lungs out for a good 45 minutes. Then got someone else to take me back to the Hospice.
There was crying, hysterical laughter and stony faced silence. One person almost immediately started harping on incessantly about utterly irrelevant details of the wake. That really pissed me off, until I realised what was actually happening (that took a while), shut my mouth and let him get on with it.
The opportunities for strife are almost unlimited at this time, so if you can, try to de-escalate potential discord – the “everyone grieves in their own way” approach, apart from being true, is also non-judgmental. which is probably a good thing.
4. I console myself with this thought: 6 billion people have far, far shittier lives than I do – and they have to watch their loved ones die too. dunno why, but now seems like a good time to remind myself of this.
So Audley – I saw your email, should I start a hat for the proud daddy? Orange, strawberry or eggplant flavor? (That hat is size four to ten months.)
This seems to be getting harder and harder lately. Is there some specific something that I don’t know about that is driving this, or is there nothing specific bad going on and that’s the problem?
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I need more cute baby animal videos.
Howdy, folks!
Just skimming through, but congrats to Esteleth on the official 5-year mark! I’m sorry that some of your labmates are assholes, but they don’t sound like the kind of people I would want present if it were my party.
I was missing my ratlet fix, so I went over to Rattitude to see what’s new. Caine, I love the picture of Mallory climbing, and all the pics of ratlets nibbling corn. Please give Mallory some suitably tasty treat on my behalf.
I have had a day and a half of research awesomeness so far this week. Yesterday I finished optimizing some primers, which was a reasonably successful end to a tedious job. And today I managed to detect a process that I was sure was occurring but I didn’t know how to find. Did I mention that it’s a fucking cool process with interesting implications and I’m pretty pumped about it? Off to find more of it now.
(Oh, and I swam for 45 minutes this morning without my elbows bothering me. I may be slightly high on endorphins and the wonderful smell of the pool.)
Esteleth,
Sorry that I almost missed your anniversary! Congrats!
Patricia:
:D
Mr Darkheart would totally wear it with pride. I didn’t think he’d ever be jealous of a baby girl’s clothes, but then again, I never thought she’d get an eggplant hat, either. ;)
Ohhellyes.
–
[Death Talk Warning]
cicely, thanks. I should refresh before hitting submit though.
Patricia – 35 years. wow, thats truly worthy of respect. no wonder it hurts so much *hugs*. Ruth was my wife, my love, my friend and the best thing that ever happened to me. we had our 6th anniversary one week before she died, which was 3 days and one month shy of her 46th birthday. This is the very last thing she heard (my vows):
I love you darling Ruthy
you’re the one for me
You’re beautiful, kind and funny,
and make great things for tea.
I want to be your husband,
I want you for my wife.
So turn off the television,
and we’ll have a happy life.
I wont go on at great length;
my speech will end quite soon.
So lets get married, darling,
and go on honeymoon.
cicely,
I’ve read the wiki page. Oh my.
Yes.
It’s beneficial to you, and probably others as well. Patricia, 35 years. Wow. I hope the therapy’s proving valuable.
terryg, I love your vows :) What were Ruth’s?
Patricia:
If you’re serious about the offer, eggplant flavor. :)
oh, terryg
I can only hold your hand for a moment and then only virtually
Poor comfort, I know
Just know that your sadness is shared
As is the joy you hold within
What a strange mixture of happiness and grief it is that sustains us all
Peace and courage and love to you
Beatrice – Yep, now you see why he asked me not to drag up his past. *spits*
terryg – I’m so sorry for your loss. I was with my husband at the veterans hospital when he died, and I experienced much the same as you did in the last moments. Survival mode has been the hardest level for me to climb out of. The people here have been really kind and helpful, even though we have a reputation for being the most vicious horde in the blogosphere. *grins*
Audley – Woo-hoo! New project. :D
Oh, that’s me all over. Details, someone has to take care of the details, we have to get all the details right, if I think about the details I can be calm and in charge and take care of things because we have to take care of things and most importantly I don’t have to think about what just happened becasue I’m too busy with the details. It takes a lot of effort not to do that out loud. *hugs*
It’s the aftereffect of the huge blowup of a month or two ago. I interpret it as the general idea is that if the conversation is at the point where, if it were in person, everyone else at the table would start nervously staring at their drinks and twirling them in their hands and starting side conversations with the person directly next to them so they don’t have to look around, that’s the time to take it over to Thunderdome.
Let me retract the last line of my comment number 92. That wasn’t nice to peterooke at all.
Sorry peterooke, and sorry thread.
Amblebury – The therapy is making things better, having a sympathetic companion also helps. When my therapist officially diagnosed PTSD it made me able to forgive myself for some of the really bad symptoms that crop up. My fight with the VA makes the death stay current, and that just isn’t helping at all. Some of the other widows where I work have had to fight more than seven years for their benefits!
So, the MittBot attended NBC’s Education Nation forum in New York. Here’s an excerpt from a longer interview:
So, let’s see. Corporations can give unlimited amounts to Romney. His national energy advisor, Oklahoma oil billionaire Harold Hamm can make political contributions that exceed federal limits and still represent Romney at bargaining tables that are supposed to represent the interests of the people of the good old USA. But teachers? Nah, got to put a leash on teachers. No political participation for them. In fact, better yet, no teachers’ unions allowed at all, no way, nowhere.
Absolutely fabulous ad for marriage equality in Maine. Link.
Excerpt: “The brotherhood that we have is not the straight fireman’s brotherhood. It’s the fireman’s brotherhood.”
I just googled “cute baby woodlouse” and got some good results. Same with “cute baby millipede”. Don’t try it with “cute baby ladybird though, yikes! Real babies!
Of course not, because of conflict of interest, see? Because elected officials have to negotiate with teachers’ unions, therefore they might be unduly influenced to tilt legislation and government resources towards those unions on account of the donations. Not like corporations and elected officials AT ALL.
Bill Nye’s anti-creationism video goes viral. Scroll down (via the “continue reading” link) to view the video:
http://www.salon.com/2012/09/25/bill_nye_creationism_is_not_science/
I’ll agree to banning union contributions to political campaigns. As long as all contributions from companies with active contracts or bidding for contracts with the federal government are banned as well. Not to mention, all contributions from people who own stock in companies that do business with the federal government. Fair?
Yikes! This full-page anti-Obama ad from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune is massively scary.
According to the ad, Barack Hussein Obama will move America to …
Force Christian organizations to pay for abortions
Force Christian schools to hire non-Christian teachers
Force military chaplains to perform same-sex marriages
Force doctors to assist homosexuals in buying surrogate babies
Force employers to give illegal immigrants the jobs of U.S. citizens
….. etc.
The ad was also run in Iowa, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The Government Is Not God Political Action Committee created the ad.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/09/see-new-full-page-seriously-ugly-and-false-anti-obama-ad
Watch Paul Ryan’s face as Romney admits Obama hasn’t raised taxes.
Moments of Mormon Political Madness in Utah. Yes, it is possible to be a mormon far nuttier than Mitt Romney. Behold GOP congressional candidate Chris Stewart.
For one think, he is endorsed by Glenn Beck.
Excerpt:
Not exactly, since that’d allow contributions from other companies that don’t do business with the government, but would still disallow contributions from unions who don’t do business with the government.
It’s easy to modify that to make it appear fairer, but if any organization of any type is allowed to make political contributions, it’s hard to come up with a reason why unions should not be allowed.
Here’s an idea – every candidate gets equal amounts of money when running in a race (with different amounts for different levels of race). This money is taken from taxes that are imposed somehow equally and fairly among all interest groups.
Or, take the money out of it entirely, and each candidate gets equal access to particular types of media outright (x number of television commercials, x number of radio spots, x number of half-pages in the newspaper), and those outlets do so to meet a mandate of being in the public interest, or get a tax break, or whatever.
I would so love it if all candidates simply filled out the same template of answers to specific policy/issue/their own political record questions, and we all voted on that basis.
Esteleth, congratulations on your wonderful anniversary! Totally a confetti and champagne occasion (with {{hugs}}!)
It’s not an Alien Trilogy boxed set, is it? ;)
It doesn’t remain a boxed set. Damn things keep eating holes in the box. And the people, of course.
Azkyroth,
I hate to ruin the rest of the year for you, but there were FOUR Alien movies. And the box set is like $40 on Amazon… maybe I’ll get it for my birthday? *hint hint*
Is it bad when you start working on Christmas Dinner in late September? Anyway, the Black Walnut extract I need for my cake recipe consists of crushed Black Walnuts (that I collect and crack myself) extracted in very old cognac.
A. R,
Not when you’re doing what you’re doing. I’m a little distressed this year that I might be moving before Xmas and therefore can’t commit to making festive holiday beer for the whole family.
Sounds like it will be to “dye” for.
I once spent an entire day peeling and shelling black walnuts. My hands were oddly coloured for about a month. But they were delicious!
And, after that horrible pun, I’m off to bed. Tomorrow is, after all, Monday.
Og: I have a board with a nut shaped hole that I set the nuts on. Then I hammer the nut through with a sledgehammer. Thoroughly de-husks the nuts, which can then be sledgehammered open.
Dear Horde,
sorry about my point #3. I tried my best, and am proud to announce I have mangled grammar beyond all hope of recovery.
Esteleth – congratulations! woo hoo! Thats genuinely made my day! Up yours cancer, you cant have everyone. Sod your dozen or so lab “mates” though – empathy deprived douchemonkeys might be a more appropriate term.
this might make you laugh:
After Ruth finished chemo, we all went to a pub (Cock’n’Bull in Botany) and celebrated. We had a cake made with “Fuck Chemo” on it. A young waitress (18 or so) came to serve us, looked at the cake and said “Thats not very nice – who’s cheemo” (as in cheese). Then got all huffy when all dozen of us collapsed in gales of laughter :D
As I imagine you’re aware, Sungolds are a serious contender for “best anything ever.”
In other news, I am never buying eggs at not-a-farmer’s-market again.
FUCK I hate that. My sympathies.
I know boxed sets of the first three exist; I figured they would have disavowed the fourth, having read the novelization. >.>
That did make me laugh. ^.^
Re 145, 151;
Absolutely. There are only three Alien movies.
Repeat after me. There are only three Alien movies….
(Also, there are only two Star Control games….)
By the way, does the Horde have any opinions on what is a good new hybrid car?
Just caught up on Esteleth – Fuck them! Asshole colleagues.
I don’t have a problem with the handful who sent me messages saying that they couldn’t come – I understand, stuff happens, people are busy, etc etc etc.
It’s the group that said they were probably going to show, didn’t, then loudly laughed about how many body shots they were doing. >:(
@Amphiox
THERE! ARE! FOUR! ALIEN MOVIES! \Picard
I don’t know about “new” but I got a used Prius which I love, except when it tries to kill me (there’s a “traction control” feature that essentially cuts power to the wheels if it detects skidding – this can be dangerous when pulling out of wet driveways, especially turning left into the turn lane O.O).
Holy amazeballs. Have you all seen the “extended first look” of the Les Mis film? I am freaking out. That shit is going to be UN. REAL.
I am currently intrigued by the new Ford Fusion hybrid, but have some reservations about Ford as a company in terms of reliability and service.
If you must have Alien: Resurrection, then you probably should include Prometheus, too.
And that makes five!
@Amphiox
But then my Star Trek:TNG reference will have been for nothing. Therefore, there is only four. ;)
I have known this for three decades but it must be said.
Madonna is an idiot.
That is all.
Amphiox:
Never mind, there are only three. As far as Prometheus is concerned, I think I can limit my comment to three words: Worst. Scientists. Ever.
Hello,
As this fine collective is my only contact with those studying in the biological/evolutionary world, can I ask a question? I am teaching budding surgeons on the autonomic nervous system and one of them has asked why the parasympathetic nervous system outflow is discontinuous (craniosacral) and the sympathetic ns is continuous (thoracolumbar).
Do any of you smart cookies either know, know someone who knows, or know where I can find an answer to this?
I feel a teeny bit guilty that my first ever post is demanding something. It’s all me me me…
Cheers
Dan
Improbable Joe;
The greater challenge, in Prometheus, is deciding which single one of the scientists is the worst of all.
The best is a no brainer. It’s the Engineer in the first the scene. He’s the only one not shown completely screwing up some aspect of the scientific method, because he dies within seconds. (And he’s the only one whose experiment actually produced a result….)
Oh, now I am tempted to watch Prometheus to see how badly the scientists screw up.
Joe:
6 if you count the Alien/Predator movies… :)
In case you have now seen this.
Voices Carry-‘Til Tuesday
Labrador-Aimee Mann
I love Aimee Mann but I can still do without ‘Til Tuesday. Still, a funny concept well executed.
(Gack! Rattails! Why did anyone think it was a good idea?)
Ok, show of hands:
I’m bored tonight.
Should I watch pull up Netflix and watch Prometheus (haven’t seen in yet, but I do recall more than a few you folks weren’t too pleased with it)?
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart@15,
Thanks for the update! Very glad things are going well.
I remember when the rude-spouse and I did those classes about 15 or so years ago. Good times! I think a lounge iteration or two ago you mentioned getting the nursery done. I remember rushing to get ours done before the due date, then we had rude-son in a bassinet in our bedroom for the first 3 months or so anyway. Oy.
(Hope this isn’t a repeat comment, been busy and lost track)
Tony, if you are going to watch a Ridley Scott produced science fiction movie, at least make it Bladerunner. And make it the version that was released about five years ago, without Dekker’s voice over.
Wake up! It’s time to die!
Sociogen – I’m not surprised that you haven’t heard of cumpolsary voting Australia is one of very few countries which have it and one of even fewer which enforce it. Australian law states that it is the duty of each citizen to vote in elections. All citizens over the age of 18 must be enrolled on the electoral roll and you can be fined for failing to enroll. All enrolled members are expected to turn up at the polling station and have their name crossed off, I am not sure if once you have done that you are actually obligated to take the voting papers but most people just fill them out anyway and those who don’t care often just return them blank. After the election, all enrolled members who did not get their name crossed off are followed up on and if you don’t have valid excuse (illness, religious prohibition etc) then you are fined. Our elections are typically held on Saturday as it is convinient for most people, obviously if you can’t vote then you can submit a postal vote. Currently someone is challenging cumpolsary voting in the high court, so the system may change.
Tony – American squash have seeds?
Terryg – as everyone else has said this is a space where you can discuss anything and we will listen, lots of people unload burdens here. If it would help you even a little to talk about Ruth, please do.
Esteleth – Congratulations!
Yeah, but she’s fabulous.
And a Material Girl.
Okay, I’ll try this one last time. I love Cthulhu and this one covers Cthulhu and evolution. Here’s a quick link. It’s long, but worth it. http://www.arseniclullabies.com/tbscthulhufull.html
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart,
I gotcha. I try to wax eloquent, but often wane profane. other times I bumble around aimlessly, slaughtering syntax, garroting grammar and mispronouning words. Most complaints are that my prose is a bit brutal – I’d blame my Aspy lack of social skills but I havent sexually harassed Rebecca Watson, so it cant be that. I’m happy with “positive” though!
Why does Mr. Darkheart eat soap? is it supposed to be applied internally?
yeah, dried egg noodles. with a sachet of fat, chilli, carbon tet & paraquat (I suspect). I got out of the habit of cooking (read as: precisely following instructions in cookbooks) 9 years ago, as Ruth was mad keen on it, and loved spending hours fiddling with food (when it was my turn we went out). She spent the last 6 months teaching me how to cook though, which came in handy when I switched to caregiver. It was worth it to see how happy it made her when I cooked dinner. partly because she liked not doing it herself, but mostly I think because it meant I could cope without her.
Ogvorbis,
that was very well said. And I second it – this place has helped me immensely in dealing with my childhood sexual abuse. hear hear.
Crudely Wrott,
that was beautiful – thank you so very much. may I give it to Ruth? We’ve got her a plain MDF coffin and a bunch of permanent markers, instead of a book for people to write in.
Patricia,
this vicious ravening horde cant help themselves, and ruthlessly foist a wonderful caring supportive environment on all who fall prey to the twin evils of human rights and the scientific method. its clearly too late for us.
Thats not just unfair about the VA – its downright cruel. Its great that the therapy is working though. hang in there.
Carlie,
thank you for making it grokkable. *hugged* *grin*
Amblebury, these are Ruths vows:
I picked you up in a bar,
as you do.
You said you couldn’t dance,
which was true.
But that didnt stop me
from falling in love with you.
I’d like you as my husband,
And I’d like to be your wife.
Just divorce the computer,
and we’ll have a happy life.
Tall, dark and handsome,
and intelligent too.
What more could I want,
but to hear you say I do.
Tony, you do know the idiotic thing she said.
Hi all. I wish I had time to read through all your comments and actually talk to you. I’m supposed to be doing homework. How are you all doing? I hope you are well and that you are less busy than poor PZ.
I did want to comment on that adorable baby grasshopper though. I’ve recently been watching the documentary series Life in the Undergrowth by David Attenborough, and I wanted to let you all know that it is totally awesome. I really like insects and other crawly things (arachnids are my favorite) and these documentaries have made me really happy. So, if you’re bored and you don’t want to watch movies with bad science like Prometheus, you should totally watch some awesome bugs instead.
Esteleth,
Fucking empathy, how does that work?
Terryg, some people have a condition that makes cilantro taste like soap. Mr Darkheart is one of those people. Think of it as an odd thing that some people inherit. Like the ability to roll one’s tongue.
Tony: I agree with Janine. If you’re going to watch Ridley Scott, watch Blade Runner.
Lynna: I think my favorite part of that Bill Nye video is hearing him talk about Carl Sagan being his teacher. It’s like two of my childhood heroes at the same time!
Ok, seriously though, I’m going to go do some school work. I have an exam on Shakespeare tomorrow that I’d like to do well on.
You’re Still Standing There-Steve Earle & Lucinda Williams
Tony @169;
For what it’s worth, I liked Prometheus. But my standards for movies are ridiculously low. I’ve never actually watched a movie that I didn’t manage to like to some extent, even that rerun of Lady in the Water I accidentally flipped to while bored on night.
You just have accept the fact that all the scientist characters are completely incompetent. Even the alien ones by implication, even if you never actually see any of them.
Goodbye-Spyboy
Janine,
wow. thats really interesting. I’d never have thunked that!
Ooh! Blade Runner! I have the “complete” Blu-ray set with like 4-5 discs or whatever, cost me $15 at Target. I should watch that again.
Prometheus Spoiler Warning!!!
Just mild spoilers, not really plot details or anything, but you’ve been warned!
If I were going to send a team of scientists to another planet to search for life, I would send more than a dozen people on one ship. The experiments would be conducted in a field lab off of and away from the ship. Samples would be kept in triple-sealed containers of the toughest stuff possible, and manipulated by waldos behind blast shields. Everything would be equipped with thermite for biohazard containment. You send in infantry with flamethrowers on general principle, with an orbiting nuke ready to deal with things if necessary. It is the only way to be sure.
No one who said “hey, the air seems good according to my readings, I’m opening my suit” would be allowed back on the ship ever; LV-223 is your new home now. You don’t let anyone wander off on their own, you don’t let them sneak things onto the ship because you don’t let ANYTHING get onto the ship. You don’t leave the comms unattended while there are people outside of the ship, no matter how much you want to have sex with Charlize Theron.
Just the whole thing… fuck. I was in the Marines, and we treated training exercises behind the headquarters building more seriously than this crew treats the single most important event in their lives, if not in the history of humanity. These folks are barely a step above “looks neat, let’s poke it with a stick!”
Ray:
Yep, the nursery is all done, the baby clothes are all washed and all we’ve got left to do install the car seats. It feels good, considering we’ve only got about a month to go now.
Terry,
:) Mr Darkheart doesn’t eat soap (that I know of!), but he cannot stand cilantro. *shrugs*
23andme just published a paper they say identifies two variant genes which give people the “soapy-cilantro” association. But 23andme’s result apparently is not the same as previous papers, according to this Nature article. Okay, that’s science in action.
Interestingly, they include a recipe for cilantro “pesto” – which sounds great to me!
@Amphiox
Basically, the movie is fun because you get to watch the scientist characters be a bunch of idiots. I think I am going to watch it.
@Improbable Joe
Wait, so someone left the comms unattended because that person wanted to have sex. *facepalm*
For a minute there I thought you guys were describing the original Star Trek series.
On compulsory voting: I’m for it.
For a number of reasons, one being that disenfranchising groups that you don’t like is a whoooole lot harder. Not that the conservatives don’t try – announce an election with a very short lead time and students often get no chance to register.
Also, I see it as a kind of duty of citizenship. It’s not difficult; there are all sorts of ways to vote if you can’t get to your local primary school that Saturday. Postal votes, early voting and so on. And if you really don’t want to vote, it’s secret, you can ruin your ballot paper and no-one will know.
Alethea, do you think it would help to have regularly scheduled elections, like ours every November?
Thank Alethea. I asked everyone here because I was brought up an conservative Christian and was still largely surrounded by conservatives and lots of them are in favour of abolishing compulsory voting (though they don’t say so I think that they think the Liberal party would be more likely to get elected if voting was non-compulsory) and I was curious if small “l” liberals (it is so annoying that the conservative party stole that word) felt similarly. I tried to find some polls but I couldn’t find any decent polls showing how Australians felt about the issue.
SGBM – I think there are definite advantages to have regularly scheduled elections, the opposition here is normally on the back foot because the government decides when the election will be so they do announce the date normally directly after a popular piece of legislation or after a screw-up from the opposition, which I think is slightly unfair. However, if the date were fixed then sometimes it would be a better time for the opposition and sometimes better for the government.
Too bad about the harmonica on that song. I’ve been a fan of Steve Earle since his first song. And Lucinda Williams is so under-appreciated. How do idiots like whichever glossy starlet is today’s sensation make it big, and Lucinda is not a household name?
Maybe the most perfect country song ever:
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
Steve Earle, one of the co-producers of her Car Wheels album (not a vocalist on any of the tracks) said it was the “least amount of fun I’ve had working on a record”. I guess it didn’t ruin his relationship with her forever, though.
Esteleth:
Congrats on being cancer free for five years!
terryg:
Your posts about Ruth remind me of the people that I’ve lost over the years. Please do keep posting.
Trigger Warning – song lyrics are about suicide
Seeing Black, youtube
sgbm ॐ, as an Aussie with enough interests in common with Alethea, I hope you don’t mind me offering my A$0.02?
I think scheduling elections as the US does entrenches the political/media cycle far too much: for your house and senate elections it’s like every other year, and every four for the Presidential elections? Here in Australia the elections for the house of reps can only extend to a maximum of three years, and even so we have a sort of attenuated election cycle where the incumbent government will try to execute all of its desired hatchet jobs, imposition of taxes, and hard budgetary measures in the first two years, and then sweeten the electorate in the third year with tax cuts, a soft budget, new spending programs etc to try to buy their way out of the hole they’ve dug. (Our senate functions rather differently to yours, as most terms are six years and most elections tend to replace half of the senate rather than a full replacement of the senators.)
Oh I think I interpreted SGBM incorrectly, oops. If you meant would I like elections once a year then I absolutely agree with Xanthe, I also like the six year senate terms. I however do think that fixing the terms at three years to the nearest Saturday for the House of Representatives, not anytime the current government chooses to call an election, depending on whose looking good in the polls at the moment would be a good idea. Also I hate watching the news in the run up to elections (for many reasons) but one of them is the weeks of “oh it’s nearly three years, I wonder when the Prime Minister will call the election”.
That is no excuse for chewing off all your fingernails, young man!
–
I was not aware. I’ll have to look into it.
–
lexie, thanks! I think you got me the first time. I was just asking about regular scheduling in general. (Local elections are typically held in odd numbered years, which functionally means the outcomes are more conservative than the electorate at large. I think I’d rather they be held on even years, actually.)
Xanthë, I didn’t mean necessarily the same lengths. I really have no idea what the best lengths of terms would be.
It’s similar. Our senate terms are six years. Every two years, one third of the senate seats are up for challenge.
Well, it’s a mix. It depends a lot on where you are, I guess. Some state-level elections are also in odd numbered years, and some local-level are in even.
We get the most liberal downballot outcomes in those years which have presidential elections, though, so I wouldn’t mind having all elections in those years.
terryg, I am so sorry for your loss. Thank you for sharing your thoughts about Ruth.
***
I’ve been wanting to ask the Horde about this for a while, and maybe now is a good time. Do any of you have traditions to acknowledge loss and remember the hard times? It seems like so many of the customary forms of mourning are better suited to those who believe in an afterlife. We atheists can have memorial services and celebrate the lives of those we have lost, but I don’t know what we can do after that.
I ask because in a couple of weeks it will be the five-year anniversary of a traumatic event in my own life. I’ve alluded to that event here before, and I might write more about the details in the next few weeks. It was terrible and very difficult to deal with, and to me it seems to mark the moment I became an adult. I feel like I want to do something to acknowledge what happened, and maybe because of my Anglican background, my mind goes to traditions. But of course there’s no point in me saying a prayer for the others who were affected. Apart from making a small donation to a suitable organization, I’m not sure what else to do.
Any thoughts or experiences to share?
Nutmeg – sorry for your loss. I don’t have a brilliant answer for you but I do know different people that do different things to remember those who they’ve lost. I have a broach from my Grandmother and wear it on occasions when I want to acknowledge her life (her birthday and the anniversary of her death). It reminds me how important she was in my life and as broaches aren’t terribly common any more and it’s quite pretty, I do get asked about it and this gives me a chance if I want to to tell them about her. My friends all know it and if they see it they normally just give me a hug, nothing needs to be said they know what it means and it’s an acknowledgement from them that I’m a sad today and that they are sorry for my loss. When my family see it, it often prompts stories and discussion about her life which I think is a good way to respect the impact she had on all of us.
The other really important person I’ve lost in my life was my best friend in primary school. When I wish to remember her I typically drive all the way across town to the park where our old guide hall is. I can just sit there in the park for a while remembering a spot which was important to both of us, as we were both mirthlessly bullied at school and guides was an escape from that. I sit and remember how we used to play wide games outdoors at night and cooking on fires in the carpark. I can remember her anywhere but somehow it feels more special to go to somewhere that was special to both of us.
I’m not sure if either of them are possible for you. I hope you do come up with something which can help you to remember your loved one and celebrate their life.
Nutmeg, I’m fond of lighting a candle for an anniversary or event, or something I want to be mindful of. I used to do it because woo woo universal energies bullshit, but now I do it because it keeps me reminded of something I want to be thinking of. I leave the lit candle and go about my daily business in the house, but every time the light catches my eye I automatically pause while my mind goes to that person or event.
In this way if it’s an existing person who’s ill or in need, I end up more often thinking of something constructive I can do for them (because I think of them more often full stop), and if it’s a painful topic I seek closure on I am reminded to turn it over in my head and process it instead of pushing it away.
lexie:
It’s an interesting method of getting people to the polls. I used to work elections in PA and the turnout was just depressing. In 2010’s general election, of the voters in my precinct who showed up (only 289 out of 1539 registered — which was better than the primary turnout of 192) probably 70% were over age 50. We had 6 people between the ages of 18-25, and only one first-time voter in that age group (my daughter). And it’s the largest precinct in the county.
When I asked people I knew were registered why they didn’t turn out, their excuses were pathetic. “It was raining, I couldn’t find parking near the door, I had to work (polls are open 7am – 8pm), I was too tired after work, I don’t pay attention to politics, I didn’t want to wait in a line,” etc.
It makes me so mad — there are people who dodge bullets or walk for miles in order to cast a ballot, but we’re supposed to be a “shining light of democracy” for the rest of the world?
—
terryg:
My sorrow for your loss is even deeper after reading yours and Ruth’s vows. What a love story you two must have shared in the time you had together.
Nutmeg:
Dinner with friends, if it’s a social thing of the nature that there’s others who’d be comfortable sharing stories?
Create something in memoriam? Picture? Pottery? Written work? Music? Garden? Plant a tree? Monuments and markers, they have their places.
If it’s someone you knew, now gone, tell someone who didn’t know them–and who might have liked them–about them? And/or give them something that once belonged to the deceased, with an explanation.
Visit a place they went, or once went with you, or didn’t get a chance to go but wanted to?
Pass on something they told you that you think the world may still need to hear? Take a stand for that thing, on their behalf and your own.
I think what we mostly need is time set aside expressly to reflect and remember, gather up loose ends, fit things back together, find their new places and put them there, alone or with anyone else who might understand. That’s the point of the rituals, anyway.
@ terryg who so kindly replied: “may I give it to Ruth?”
Yes. Please do.
And thank you for honoring me so.
I’m now shedding tears of two kinds.
Can you give Godless Teen (who has been a Bad Boy) some advice and love in dealing with a religious English teacher … in a science and math school? http://www.godlessteens.com
http://www.godlessteens.com/2012/09/ive-been-a-bad-boy/
I’m not going to make an account there, but I’d say check local laws about making surreptitious audio recordings. Some states don’t allow it. If that’s not legal, see if it’s possible to openly make recordings with the consent of the teacher. The discussion about the ark is ridiculous, and if it becomes part of a consistent pattern, may add up to unconstitutionality. So, document.
… may add up to unconstitutionality if that’s a public school in the USA.
At certain hours of the diurnal, that Recent Comment thing on the side bar gets … creepy.
HI there
So, I’m right with my thyroxin being too low. But I’m begining to suspect that there are some vampires hiding in my GP’s office, why else would they always need that much blood?
Oh, and my liver values are still off the charts, so I’ve been ordered not to drink or eat (you want to lose weight anyway) or I’m in for more tests in three months.
Ultrasound looks good.
*sigh*
terryg
Your accounts of Ruth are wonderful. I can see the impact she left on your life and the love she left.
birthdays
Mine’s in January and yeah, I hated it. No garden parties.
Clearly you should move to Australia. Although January may be too hot for garden parties.
As to election cycles: I’m generally in favour of a fixed term over the current PM’s call system – but it’s not something I have thought much about. One other good thing about our elections, though, is that we have a thoroughly neutral and professional electoral commission. No party partisans run elections.
I always hated my August birthday because there was no one to celebrate it with.
I used to go to Slovenia with my grandmother in the summer, and I never had any friends there. Here at least I would have had a person or two to invite, despite most kids being at the seaside.
terryg,
I’m not very regular in The Lounge, so I don’t feel I know you at all, but your tributes to Ruth are very moving; how terrible to lose her at such a young age.
Do Australian universities have working computer systems?
I just tried to pick classes for next semester. Looking them up online (where I’m actually supposed to sign up for them) I was told that I should look at the winter 11/12 term. There I was told to look at the summer 11 term. There I was told to look for summer 10. There is was still told to look for summer 10.
WTF????
Guess I’ll have to shoot them a mail…
There’s a discussion about libel laws at Ophelia’s. She mentioned libel tourism, so I googled it.
I stumbled upon this article (link) and one particular part pissed me off:
*spits*
terryg Those vows would make anyone smile. That’s lovely. And I loved the “FUCK CHEMO” cake too. Your description of how people behaved immediately after Ruth died, and Carlie’s understanding of it, helped me understand the behaviour of someone immediately after my father’s death. Not accept, but I do understand more now.
Nutmeg I hadn’t thought about memorials to the dead, and ritual. But I will. Lighting a candle for focus, as kristinc suggested sounds right for me. I suspect this is associated with the fire you mention? It sounded…very, very bad.
Patricia I’m glad it’s helping. But what, how many years arguing with the VA? Do these people have heartdectomys or something? Seriously, in my I-have-a-superpower fantasy, I magically make every bureaucrat on earth a decent human being.
Madonna – never understood what people saw in her. She does work her arse off I grudgingly admit.
Prometheus — the science isn’t bad. It’s excrutiatingly bad. Pretty to gaze upon, though.
BTW the behaviour I’m thinking of just after my father died is nothing like the behaviour terryg and carlie described. The description just helped me think about why people behave they way they do.
I know that bragging parents are a nuissance, but let me say that it’s nice when your kids’ teachers agree with you on them bring pretty bright.
Also, when I just picked up the little one the was a guy who’s from the city council or something like that who had talked to the headteacher and was leaving. She’s 3 years old (almost) and immediately spotted that there’s something odd: A man in the kindergarten who was not picking up a kid. Men have no place there.
Audley Z Darkheart,
If you expose Darkfetus to radiation from the screen while reading Pharyngula maybe she will become a female version of Stewie Griffin. Dibs for hitch-hiking with the time machine!
— —- — —
Ctulhudammit, are no people interested in life possibly drifting *between fu£$€ng star systems*?
Lithopanspermia: Slow-moving rocks better odds that life crashed to Earth from space http://phys.org/news/2012-09-slow-moving-odds-life-earth-space.html
Good morning, everyone!
It is a strangely freeing feeling to throw out one’s entire pantry and start fresh. You can get rid of all those things that you kind of know you’ll never use, but can’t bear to get rid of because of the waste.
However, it is also a somewhat expensive thing to do.
Stupid grain moths.
I was at a memorial in Bhutan a while ago. We went to a favourite place of the deceased, a tiny Buddhist temple in a forest, and launched a candle on a paper boat down a stream. There were some quietly chanted prayers, but I am not a Buddhist and do not speak Bhutanese so I just stood silently. A poem should work for secular occasions.
(Random fire potential would *not* work in Australian summer.)
Alethea – that sounds beautiful. We have a fairly large Bhutanese refugee population where I live, and they’re having a big cultural/educational event next month that I’d like to go to.
Is anyone else having problems with killfile? I don’t have the option to block people anymore. I was going to live with it, but then I saw Pete Rooke had returned.
carlie, good morning!:
Stupid power outages, too.
There’s nothing that says “clean out your fridge” like not having power for a week. I was in Florida for the awesome hurricane season of 2004 where 4 pretty serious storms hit within the space of less than two months. Then this summer and the derechos… and for some reason the power company couldn’t tell that my power was out, so they kept sending trucks into my neighborhood and not doing anything for me. I called and called, and finally had to grab a worker and drag him over to behind my house and show him where the lightning blew up the equipment on the pole behind my house.
Yeah, freeing but expensive. At least I don’t have to pretend I’m ever going to reheat that frozen chili in the back of the freezer anymore. :)
Does anyone know any good retorts to people who say “it’s just a joke” or “you don’t have a sense of humour” or “stop being so serious” to basically any complaint about their behaviour, I have just had this argument made to me twice in the last 15 minutes from my parents
The first one was my dad who constantly makes a joke about my feelings for my pet fish (I do get that not everyone likes fish but they are smarter than people think and there are definite differences between the way my two act one is much more shy. Also all I was saying is that they seem to be having a little trouble with the new food I wasn’t overly anthropomorphising them and was told that “they’re just fish, who cares, just chuck the food in and walk away”). The second was a complaint about gay stereotyping (e.g. gays are all rich and have pet dogs, gays are good at interior design (for Aussies this was brought up by Gruen Transfer))
I do have ways of responding to these silly “it’s just a joke” arguments with people I don’t care about but I don’t want to use them on my parents. Does anyone know are more polite way of responding to this.
lexie,
Maybe you ask your parents if they think that you are a joke. If not, then why are they treating the things you care about like a joke?
Birger:
I suppose if anyone’s gonna pop out an evil genius, it’s me. Here’s hoping her head isn’t football shaped, though. :)
Carlie and Joe:
Oh, I’ve been there. My fridge shit the bed not that long ago and the problem wasn’t tossing food I’d never use, but tossing food that should still be good.
Lexie:
I wish I could help (both my dad and my Asshole Sister use the excuse when they’re being assholes) and all I can tell you is that they probably recognize that what they said was wrong/hurtful, otherwise they wouldn’t be defensive about it. But stopping the behavior? No clue how to help out there. I’ve just dealt with it for the past 30 years by ignoring them (which I know may not be an option for you).
But I’m begining to suspect that there are some vampires hiding in my GP’s office, why else would they always need that much blood?
Vampire robots. If you don’t keep feeding the lab machines blood…they’ll just take it from you!
Well, ok, that’s not true, but the real answer is boring.
lexie, are you under 18 or otherwise dependent on your parents? My parents didn’t do that to me, but various relatives did it quite frequently when I was younger. When I was no longer forced to interact with them, I simply stopped doing so. It’s the best response I know to that sort of “joke”. I realize you probably won’t want to completely distance yourself from your parents, like I did from various asshole cousins, but a little distance might put things in perspective for them and give you an opportunity to not have that sort of crap raining on you continually.
To strange gods before me
Here is an email I just got back from Godless Teen’s (www.godlessteens.com) teacher : “I was researching the great flood issue and even requested assistance from our science department. The Language A department teachers all agreed that there was/is scientific proof of a great flood. The science department, however, explained that scientific proof does not exist in regards to a worldwide flood, but that very significant flooding is evident in the Mesopotamian region…flooding that could have lead to the various narratives from different cultures that mention the flood”
!!!
We may have some fun with this!
Lexie,
I have no good advice. Just a “I know what you mean” and *hugs* if you want them.
Joe – I like the idea but dread the outcome that would result
Audley – Ignoring it/shutting up is actually what is expected. My father is very much a person who expects either real or superficial agreement from his family. I am just supposed to sit mute and listen to things I disagree with.
Dianne – You sound like my university friends (who are the first people I have ever met who were not brought up in conservative Christian families, one of them is a liberal Christian the others aren’t). They are constantly trying to disabuse me of notions which I still stupidly hold despite letting go of lots of the nonsense I was bought up with. I still seem to believe the ‘respect your elders’ thing even though I know that respect should be earned not simply given to people who have survived for a long time. I still seem to bend over backwards for my family as I was brought up to make sacrifices and that my role was to care for them. I am 23, they do help me at the moment while I’m studying but I think that the major problem is that I haven’t managed to figure out that I’m not their subordinate or their slave and I’m not owned by them. I don’t know what to do as I do love them (sometimes I’m not sure why as they do cause me pain, for more reasons than I brought up here) and I want to be loved in return. I worry why the consequences would be if I stop being the dutiful daughter. I know I shouldn’t but I feel totally conflicted between myself and my family.
Beatrice – thanks for the hugs
lexie
Big hugs
Maybe tell them that it bothers you indeed and that jokes should be funny for all and that not hurting their child should be more important than a cheap laugh?
If the relationship is such that you can do that…
Do any of you have traditions to acknowledge loss and remember the hard times?
My example is a tad on the specialized side, but maybe it would be helpful to you anyway…On my father-in-law’s 90th birthday (about 5 years after he died), my sister-in-law directed and performed in a dance based on a poem cycle of his. Some of the other dancers were people who had worked with him when he was alive. It was a nice acknowledgement of his life and work, including the loss of the work that he might have done had he lived longer.
Lexie, I’m sorry! Both for what you’re going through and for giving not helpful and probably hurtful advice. Part of the horror of child abuse is that everyone loves their parents, no matter what. Bad enough abuse can make you hate them, but somehow doesn’t take away the love. Hugs, if you want them!
Giliell – The weird thing is tonight’s thing it didn’t even seem to be for a cheap laugh, no one laughed they weren’t even smiling. I have previously done the don’t poke fun at me thing. They did do the cheap laugh thing at the expense of my vegetarianism (I have been a vegetarian for years but I’m not particularly pushy, I do discuss animal welfare issues but this involves suggesting people consider buying more ethically produced products not telling people to be vegetarian). After years of not eating meat I can’t really stand the smell any more and even though I am not trying to convert people they know that I don’t want to handle meat and try to ignore it on a table but they regularly passed the meat platter right under my nose and jokingly offered me meat. This did seem to be a joke to them. I complained and it took almost a year of constant argument and being told to shut up and get back in my place for them to accept that I wasn’t giving in and give up doing it though it has happened since occasionally. So I suppose I could, I’m just not sure whether I’m up for the fight (I am a bit of a coward when it comes to this).
Lexie:
Holy crap, my dad’s the same way! He. Is. Always. Right. Even when he’s not, you’re supposed to act like he is.
As my dad gotten older (and my sisters and I are all adults now), he does the “joking” thing a lot less, but he’s still a stubborn ass. If your dad ever gets to the point where he treats you like (more of an) adult, being able to calmly and intelligently articulate your position might help. But until then, feel free to rant and cuss here– I’ll always listen and sympathize.
As an aside, the last argument that my dad and I had was about the bible of all things. Now, my dad hasn’t been a practicing Christian since he was in college, but he still subscribes to the “if Christians just followed Jesus’ example, they’d be better people” bullshit. I was able to calmly explain to him that his hippy Jesus has little to nothing to do with the Jesus of the Gospels and, although I can’t say that I won the argument (he didn’t change his mind), I did get him to drop the subject without it turning into a screaming match.
Lexie:
Personal question: how old are you? Is it feasible to leave (if only for a few days for your own peace of mind)?
lexie,
I wouldn’t call that cowardice, but weariness. It’s difficult enough in the “outside” world, one shouldn’t have to fight for every little piece of respect from their own family.
(I am a bit of a coward when it comes to this).
I probably should just shut up already but couldn’t let this one go. No. Just no. Your behavior is in no way suggestive of cowardice. It’s clear that you’ve shown quite a lot of bravery in dealing with your parents! Don’t beat yourself up for not being ready to fight with them 24/7. Everyone gets tired and needs a break once in a while.
Audley – thanks for saying that hugs and chocolate for you if you want them. I don’t think I have any hope of him ever taking my ideas seriously as while he does somewhat listen to his brother and will discuss things with him, he treats his adult sister who is only three years younger than him exactly the same as he does me, we are just wrong and not to be considered.
Congratulations on basically winning the argument with your father. Just getting him to back down is (IMHO) basically the equivalent of winning.
I totally agree with trying to destroy the hippy Jesus bullshit, I occasionally tell my sister (even though she is a fundie at least due to the family heirachy thing we are on the same level so I can be less of the “seen and not heard” “dutiful daughter” persona) that she needs to kill me due to Luke 19:27 (my friends seem to think that this isn’t a good idea) but basically I’m just trying to demonstrate the bullshit in the babble.
Dianne – you had no way of knowing that I am continuing to hold these stupid ideas, so your suggestion was fine. It’s something I hear from my few friends who know about my family and don’t believe in the system, the “you don’t have to submit to that” “why don’t you stand up for yourself/leave”, I don’t take it badly as the people who say it are normally genuinely concerned about my well being. I also suppose that in a part of my brain I think that they are right, I don’t have to be a dutiful daughter but I’ve been taught “the rules” since I was a child and somehow despite the fact that I now consider myself a “freethinker” I can’t seem to get rid of these ideas and behaviours.
Beatrice & Dianne – thanks, for telling me I’m not a coward, I do feel it sometimes as I am not game to stand up for what I do believe and even for myself, I just shut up and put on the dutiful daughter persona and feel guilty for ridiculous things (Like putting letters back in envelopes or any of the other ridiculous things that irritate my dad).
Audley – I’m 23 so I could technically leave, but I am currently at university and they are helping me financially while I’m studying but most of the problem is just that I still hold ridiculous ideas in my head. Even though I gave up the religion I still seem to think that I should respect my parent’s views, that I owe my family service and that I should be a dutiful daughter. I suppose it is partly that part of my brain still thinks these things, that partly I am worried about what would happen if I rebel and partly I just think that I will get love by being the dutiful daughter.
Lexie:
Oof, that’s a toughie. Still, even if you can spend a weekend with friends or make yourself scarce during the week (eat dinner when you want to eat dinner, plan to go to the library/lab/work when you know they are going to be home, take some night classes) might help you put a little distance between you and your family without completely “abandoning” them. You don’t have to exercise all of your independence at once, small steps might help you feel better.
Trigger warning for death of an abusive parent.
My father died in winter. I remember it was cold. December 1979, January 1980? I’m not entirely sure. I know that it was on the weekend because I came home from playing D&D to find him on the couch, apparently passed out. He was a functional alcoholic and passing out after dinner was a weekend behaviour.
He didn’t look right. I moved closer, quietly, cautiously, waking him was unthinkable.
“Mom…..Mom!? I don’t think Dad’s breathing.”
And all hell broke loose. My brother and I were corralled into my bedroom. Paramedics came. I overheard “Christ. He’s cold. How long has he been here?” Hours it would seem. Unthinkable in some homes perhaps, that someone could lay dead on the couch for that long. Not in ours.
It was a sledgehammer of a heart attack, though the autopsy revealed that his liver was all but ready to fail. I was 13, he was 49.
Death, human death, personal death, has been a concrete reality to me for as long as I can reliably remember. Not that that’s saying much. My memories from before my father’s death are vague from a deliberate effort on my part.
My teenaged nihilism was an informed one, and I have to admit that I was pretty insufferable with it. But as with many things the passing of time has moderated my beliefs and behaviour. These days when acquaintances stumble into being friends they no longer express surprised that I wear colours other than black and occasionally enjoy music in a major key. I took the long way out of that nihilism. Can’t say I recommend that route, but I suppose it had some interesting stops along the way.
I was raised in an a-religious household. My father was an atheist but we never talked about it. Religion was a forbidden subject even in the negation of it. And yet the culture of which I was a part, Western Canada in the Seventies, seeped in around the edges. It got into me a drip at at time, a little hippie woo here, a little milquetoast Christianity there, and I found myself talking to my Dad after he died. I told him that I forgave him, that he was a fucking asshole, that I hoped he felt better now, that I hoped he was being devoured slowly from the inside out. There was no rhyme or rhythm to those shifts of mood. I was helpless in the face of a storm of chaotic hormones and guilt laden grief.
I continued to talk to my Dad until one grey and rainy spring day. It was cold and miserable, and the newspapers I was delivering were most likely a soppy mass to be shoveled off the doorstep rather than read. The bag was heavy with wet newsprint and I couldn’t find the will to do anything about it. I was walking into the wind, head down, soaked, shivering in a mindless struggle to complete a task I didn’t care about.
And suddenly I realised that I’d forgotten that my father was dead. I stood there, tears lost in the rain, a scene that from Hollywood to Bollywood is trite and cliched to the point that open ridicule in the theater is not beyond the pale. But there it is, sometimes reality is ridiculous.
It was ridiculous that I felt guilty. Guilty that I forgot. Guilty that one of my first conscious reactions to his death was relief. It was ridiculous that I felt totally alone. My mother and brother were not dead after all, they had been through the same events as I. And it was grindingly ridiculous that I talked to a dead man because: He. Never. Fucking. Answered.
So that was that. I put aside the notion that he might be watching over me somehow. I stopped talking to the dead.
In the years since, I’ve tried on occasion to help those who are grieving. I’ve tried to find a way to pass on what I’ve learned. I’ve failed every single time. Subjective is too weak a word to describe bereavement, unique is really the only one to come close. It took me a long time to stop trying so hard to help, and my atheism was in a large part responsible for my vain and flailing attempts at meaningful condolence.
You see, for the life of me I cannot force myself to not react emotionally to another’s grief. Empathy is fine, but in myself it comes on full, in a rush and a roar that I can’t hold back. And because there’s no god to magic it all better I want to do something real, something tangible, when the world turns grim and desperate for folks. It’s not healthy this taking on of other’s grief, so sayeth the therapists. Revealed wisdom perhaps, but it jibes with my experiences. Ah well, at least it harms no one but me.
But what do you do when you can’t talk to the dead and the effect of talking to the living is blunted by a subjective gap that stretches off into a vanishing point perspective?
I don’t know.
I try and say something that is true about how I feel. That way I’m not telling them how they should feel. And I give some money to an appropriate charity, I have a credit card that I only use for that and to buy my wife gifts so she won’t see the receipt before she gets the present.
That donation is perhaps the only tangible, real, demonstrable good that I can do in the face of another’s grief. It’s a tiny pebble that I place in the sea of misfortune that surrounds and defines what it means to be alive and aware. I will not live to see the shore spread and overtake that ocean. Such is the minuteness of what I can contribute and the overwhelming vastness of all the potential grief that threatens to wash over us. But I can look down between my feet and see my pebble there amid the others, tiny and shining against the spume, and know that I tried.
Shit lexie, sorry to interrupt with my stupid threadrupt teal deer. More hugs if you want them.
sigh
Um what the fuck.
I just got an announcement that my blog was deleted by blogger for violating terms…no details given no way to appeal, no information on what I did wrong. What the fuck happened?
I’m sorry it was removed for Spam…I didn’t spam! And there’s no person to contact to get it restored
Lexie,
This bit about wanting to be loved in return: this is normal, of course, but it’s not yours to control. Your obedience will not generate love from your parents, but I must say this took me many years to understand.
Apparently blogger gets a complaint, claims to review the blog but just deletes it and then doesn’t advertise how to appeal, and doesn’t tell you there’s a problem at all. Fuck. There were some of the few blog posts I made that I wanted to save and now have no chance to even get the material back.
Ugh found an automatic appeal on Blogger. Apparently Blogger deletes blogs now due to an automated Spam detector
Your guinea pig has an office?
oops
Wrong thread.
Ing,
This place seems to be the only place where you can get support for blogger:
http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/blogger
Maybe this particular post will be helpful (if nothing else, it links to some other seemingly relevant posts):
http://productforums.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fromgroups=#!category-topic/blogger/G-9KjSNtNWw
Ah, you’ve already found a way to solve the problem.
blogofmyself @180
What I keep wondering is this: why didn’t some of my incompetent high school teachers just give up and show Bill Nye and Carl Sagan videos instead?
I know some people got to see those videos during class time, but I was not so lucky. I think the religious fanatics in my communities put the kibosh on such things.
Ogvorbis @136:
Until the Supreme Court changes its mind about money being speech I don’t think there is a solution to the problem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBO7_XvCeMs
http://current.com/shows/the-war-room/videos/money-equals-speech-billionaires-and-corporations-drown-everything-out
Thanks Giliell, Audley, Beatrice and Dianne, for the sympathy, suggestions, helping me feel a bit better and slightly less stupid, guilty and cowardly. Chocolate for all of you. It’s past midnight here and I’m tired mentally and physically so I’m going to bed.
.
FossilFishy, thanks for the hugs. There’s no need to apologise it’s part of this thread that sometimes threadrupts are bound to come straight after someone else’s bad news. I found what you wrote very interesting so please don’t apologise for writing it.
.
Ing, that totally sucks, I hope there is some way you can get it restored.
.
Echidna, thanks for the advice. It’s weird, intellectually I understand what people say and I know you are right in the same way that I know that I should be respected, I don’t have to be meek or submissive or that it’s ok to put read letters back into envelopes but something in my mind still stops me from fully accepting this. I also do not want to be able to compel love, and I think if I had a magic want wouldn’t make them do it, but I wish they would love me unconditionally. I suppose it’s not even love that I gain from obedience but I do gain acceptance and an easier life. By being the dutiful daughter I am accepted by my parents even doted upon for being a good child. I do not have to endure their wrath, scorn or disappointment, all of which hurt me deeply. I know that this isn’t real love but even so acceptance and lack of scorn is often something I want and do often choose over standing up for myself, which is why I often feel like a coward as I meekly choose subservience.
Yay payday!
Well, three days worth of payday, which is enough for me to eat someone else’s cooking for lunch. And of course, it will be ALL YOU CAN EAT CHINESE BUFFET! because by Odin if I only get to eat out once in the next two weeks I should sit down and eat two weeks worth of food!
I’m not optimistic. message tells me to expect 20 days before response. Time to play with Wayback machine to see what I can salvage.
And I’m not important to archive….shit in a champagne glass
Is it just me or has Audley’s blog disappeared too? Maybe someone is targeting atheist bloggers? It may not just be you Ing (I know that doesn’t make it better). I really hope that you can get it back.
@lexxie
I doubt I warrent personal attention and a look at forums sugests its google playing with a autodetector and of course being asses about it because they trust scripts more than people
Lexie:
Jesus Christ! That explains why my phone has been unable to log onto that email account today– everything’s gone that was connected to my blog. Fuck you, Google.
Anyway, if anyone has been trying to get a hold of me via the darkhearts.blog addy, sorry if I missed that message.
(Thank goodness I had an email account that was dedicated to that blog and I wasn’t using my personal email address.)
Oh, man. I hope there’s enough blowback from this to shred a few political careers:
The thing is, Todd Akin did not just misspeak or make a stupid comment or let loose a gaffe. He revealed a world view that is deeply disturbing. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” — Todd Akin
In the 90s, Akin said that he was concerned that women were going to lie and say their husbands had raped them in order to gain advantage in divorce settlements.
He also wants to rescind the Civil Rights acts of the 1960s, including the Voting Rights Act.
No abortions allowed for rape victims. That’s Todd Akin. All the people backing him should be excoriated — verbally. No violence.
Wait, what? They don’t just delete the blog but gmail that you used there too?
Google has gone totally evil.
I like how I was supposed to get an email informing me of the deletion, but they shit canned my email address and G+ profile, too. SWIFT THINKING, ASSHOLES.
Now the question is, if I contact support using my remaining valid email address, am I at risk of losing that, too?
Beatrice:
Yep, everything I used under that account is totally gone.
I’ve been a loyal Google user for years– email, blog, G+, hell even my fucking phone— and BAM!, no head’s up or anything, just deleted accounts.
Sam Harris writes On the Freedom to Offend an Imaginary God.
Excerpt:
?!
If they boot you for spam, why delete G+ profile too?
Fossilfishy – hugs if you want ’em.
Holy crap, it does sound like someone set the Google deletebot from stun to kill, and they haven’t noticed it yet.
lexie – the only thing I can think of is to fight snarky bites with snarky bites, but that isn’t an approach everyone can take. I’d just start countering every one of those comments with something like “That’s another mark in the ‘put you in the cheapest nursing home I can find when you’re old’ column”, said deadpan with a straight face. But if it would then make them angry, it might not be worth it.
*mutters about evil corporations*
Or my email address. I have no idea why everything’s gone.
I just sent a question about recently deleted blogs to Blogger via twitter – don’t know if I’ll get a response.
Ing – I just pulled yours up in my reader and the posts are still there. I don’t know how far back it goes, but I can start copying and saving as far back as I can if you like.
I feel incredibly stupid.
I met a guy online, through a mutual circle of online friends, and we corresponded for a long time. We eventually met in person, and I realized (or more accurately, confirmed to myself) that we weren’t going to work as a couple.
Now I find out that he’s creeped on our mutual female friends, taking pics from their Facebook profiles and making a “collection” that he keeps on his Tumblr account, which also contains a lot of NSFW images and pornographic material. I suspect that he was even creeping on others while he and I were in an online relationship.
I feel like he had some kind of neon sign above his head flashing “WARNING: MAJOR CREEP”, and that I was somehow completely oblivious to it. A lot of little things or comments that slightly bothered me now seem like huge fucking red flags in hindsight.
You never know that someone is going to creep on you until it happens. My friends and I are having a discussion about it, and obviously most of us are going to cut ties with him completely. But there is the one person who’s saying “If you didn’t want those pics to be ‘used’, you shouldn’t have posted them.” She used to work in the military, and I think that her perspective is “anything short of sexual assault is up to you to prevent”, which is really frustrating.
I’m trying to put this in perspective and make myself feel better by thinking “This isn’t that bad. There are a lot of people who have been through much worse.” And that is completely true.
But it doesn’t help.
Ing – I now have a 9 mb document containing badly formatted versions of, I think, all of your posts. If you can’t get anywhere with Blogger, we’ll figure out how to get them from me to you.
Ing, go to the Blogger help forum and request that your blog be reviewed.
About their automated spam detector:
http://support.google.com/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=42639&topic=1697702&ctx=topic
The Something Is Broken discussion forum where you should report your case:
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!categories/blogger/something-is-broken
Be sure to make the title of the posting clear. I suggest searching around in there first before you post to see how Google handled false positives for spam with other people before making your post.
I’m not seeing any threads on fark or slashdot about Google doing any kind of mass deletes in the last few days, so I’m not sure how wide-spread this might be.
Audley – I can’t get to your blog, but if anyone else has it in a reader, they might to be able to do the same thing.
I found I can get my posts by viewing my old deleted “locked” blog in google reader. Time to respawn
I sent a tweet to Matt Cutts(he’s Google’s SEO/Spam guy) about the automated spam bot deleting the wrong stuff. Hopefully he’ll pick up on it and send the complaint to the right people.
Carlie,
Thanks. I did manage to get my email address back (which means I could actually sign into Blogger). I’ll see if I can get my blog reinstated.
@Audley
You jmay be able to view posts from deleted blog by viewing it in the google viewer thing
I wondered about that. Yeah, mine’s gone too.
President Obama Says We “must” Condemn “those who slander the prophet of Islam,” Among Others
Thanks, Ing.
I sent the request in to have my blog reinstated and the automated message said that I’ll receive an email in two business days.
For fuck’s sake, the last couple of posts were pics that I took of cute behbeh things. Yeah, that’s exactly what a link spammer would do. *eyeroll*
Ok I’m not sure what long list of triggers might accompany this but…
This is why we as a species deserve to be invaded by aliens and kept as food cattle and pets.
I do not much like this Sam Harris person’s opinions on religion.
… and Obama isn’t much better, from a different direction.
Erick Erickson claims Obama attacked Christianity in UN speech
…continues at linky
REV. BDC: NSFW Link Warning please. Gah.
And fuck Google. My email address was suspended because of “unusual activity on the account”, but the last email received was from fucking Google and the last email that was sent out was to Patricia, OM.
Jesus fucking Christ.
200,000 people march against austerity measures as part of a Greek general strike.
Why the fuck does it happen in Greece and Spain, but not here?
Grading exams is SUCKING MY WILL TO LIVE! Ahhhh!
http://youtu.be/AioVDsXidh0
Thanks to lexie, kristinc, AJ Milne, Amblebury, Alethea, dianne, FossilFishy, and anyone I missed, for your thoughts. It’s helpful to hear from people I respect about what kinds of things they do to acknowledge death.
Amblebury: Yes, it was that event. It wasn’t my own loss, but someone else’s loss that I was witness to. Even so…yes, very bad. But I’ve gotten a lot better at dealing with it over time. It’s always a bit more tough at this time of year, but that will pass.
I think that I will probably make a small donation in the next few days. Right around the anniversary, I like the idea of lighting a candle. And I think I’ll take some time that weekend to make some food for a friend that could use it, because it will make me feel better to do some small thing to improve the world.
***
mythbri: I’m sorry that that happened to you and your friends. You have every right to feel creeped out and violated, regardless of how big or small the violation was. Please try not to obsess over whether or not you could have predicted this. It’s not your fault.
HUmm I guess my trigger warning wasn’t good enough. Sorry.
Huh I thought my request said 20…
The bad formatting is probably because of bad formatting in the source material :-p
Setár, actions like that used to happen regularly in the US. But that was roughly from the 1860’s through the 1930’s. Before social welfare became commonplace and the distinction between the upper and working classes was stark.
Now, most people in the US are so disconnected from economic realities that many seem to think that a small business owner is somehow in the same class as the Buffets and the Kochs. Working class jobs and small businesses are being squeezed out by the likes of the Kochs and yet, they seem to believe that the “job providers” are also going through the same turmoil. And they harbor the illusion that they can also be like the upper class.
Rather simplistic, I know. But there was great labor unrest in the US. But that is in the past. Why do you think that Thomas Franks wrote the book, Whats The Matter With Kansas?? The labor movement in the US died out decades ago.
Ing,
You have 20 days to challenge the deletion, I think. I guess we’ll find out if we get emails on Friday or not.
Audley
I clicked on one of your still-linky ‘nyms from further upthread and got to your blog-page dated September 19 with the cute baby clothes pictures.
I don’t know what that means in terms of your problems with goggle…
And in the “holy crap the internet is awesome” files, there is now a tumblr that takes quotes by Mitt Romney and puts them on photos of Lucille Bluth. here
Oh, no fucking way, chigau. I clicked my own linky and my shit’s back! Woo hoo!
Something else with Ing.
Farther upthread links to the Ing blog but more recent ones link to random wordpress blogs.
I don’t understand.
Setár@296,
Has a lot to do with the rate at which conditions for the mass of the population have deteriorated in Greece and Spain.
And there’s the email confirming the reinstatement. Chigau, you’re faster than Google!
@Chigau
I put in a blog I like who I know the writer of as a place holder till mine comes back for giggles.
Blog is back. Google is stupid but at least quick at fixing. They SHOULD however put a link to the appeal form in the email as well as in the blogger alert.
Audley, that is the difference between dealing with a person who cares and a corporation where you are just one more detail to be taken care of.
Oh. Wait.
Corporations are people, my friend.
Still:
Fuck Google. If they want to drive me right into the waiting arms of an iPhone, they can go ahead and keep fucking with my accounts.
Janine,
Too true. I’ll take one chigau over a thousand Googles on any day of the week.
Discuss anything I want? OK, The Toilet Incident then.
Well.
It’s all good, then.
If corporations were really people, we could put out a contract on them.
(kidding)
(sort of)
gorsh.
You’re making me blush.
Chigau, try taking a corporation to trial for murder and give it the death penalty. Like what should happen to BP.
Oh, wait, we have US senators who claim that BP was unfairly picked on.
@Janine
well they’re technically right…we should have totally bashed Halliburton to
Redistricting is yet another means of subverting democratic principles (adding this to previous discussion of voter suppression). Fresh Air recently interviewed Robert Draper on this subject.
Podcast and some text available here:
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/24/161685998/redistricting-a-story-of-divisive-politics-funny-shapes
Excerpt:
And Blackwater, Xe or what ever the fuck it is called now.
And is that not a corporation that is run on christian principles, like Chick-Fil-A?
shripathikamath #314
That is a very funny story :)
Catholic League blowhard responds to new showing of Piss Christ by making a Shit Obama.
Cut to the three minute mark if you do not want to hear him whine that they are not violent like the Muslims.
Holy fuck this Mitt Romney speech is ridiculously bad.
I swear he just essentially said
we need to be in two conflicts at once
so that we can keep the military industrial complex in business
War is a great job maker.
(That is really fucking dark, even for me.)
Janine: so its an expression of the shit that’s thrown at Obama, and that he has to struggle through, with the worries he may lower himself morally and ethically to their level by becoming literal shit?
/toomanyartfriends
Rev. BDC at 323, did you mean to include a link to Romney’s speech?
You know what always occurs to me when I see some American right-wing Christian asshole talk about how Muslims are so terribly violent? America, this so-called “Christian nation” has the world’s most expensive, far-flung, active military in the whole goddamned world. Which is the violent culture again?
No sorry. It was just live on the intertoobs. They’ll be a transcript soon enough I’m sure. It was during the Q&A at the end.
Rumors that can not be proven one way or the other purport that Thomas S. Monson, current head cheese and profit (deliberate misspelling) of the LDS Church, is suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. The next old white guy in line for the throne is Boyd K. Packer.
Packer has said a lot of dumb things. Here is one of them:
I saw today on Space.com that NASA has published a new extreme deep-field picture of a spot in the first deep-field picture showing even more galaxies 13.2 billion light-years away.
It started me thinking about how far away they all were and how many there were and the likelihood of all stages of life including advanced life all around us in the distance. I was thinking of what we could communicate if and when we ever do make contact. I have thought before that we would have artistic expressions that would be novel and particular to our experience that we could share.
Then I wondered of all he artistic expressions we have the most difficult to translate into other cultures and probably the most important for those far off cultures would need to understand us would be our humor. Would they get our sense of humor would they even have a sense of humor?
It sure is seems needed for us to survive and thrive.
uncle frogy
In the LDS mind, we didn’t evolve from “slime”.
In my mind the LDS has devolved into slimey motherfuckers.
Romney is now lying about lying.
Video and text at the link:
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/09/26/14112721-romney-becomes-mendacious-about-mendacity
Romney claims that his campaign ads have been “spot on,” and then he proceeded to lie about one of the most obviously mendacious ads, the one featuring the lie that Obama stripped the work requirements out of welfare law.
Romney went on to claim, “And any time there’s anything that’s been a miss we correct it or remove it.” Small problem: there are no instances of his campaign correcting or removing misleading ads.
unclefroggy, what we’ll discover is that the most valuable thing we have to trade to any advanced civilization will be our culture; our music, shows, art pieces, plays, letters, etc, are all filtered through the prism of our reality. This prism is unique, and so our culture is unique.
And we’ve been beaming it off for free.
Faux News has put up yet another dishonest graph, proving that no one at Fox News understands statistics … nor arithmetic, nor the simple injunction that it’s best not to compare apples to oranges.
MediaMatters link.
As a special, added irony treat, the source Fox News cited makes their mistake perfectly clear.
I dunno about “fu£$€ng” star systems, but I’d be interested in the possibility of life drifting between/among star systems in general. How could we find out? Sterile sampling of asteroids in situ, relaying the analysis home, is the only thing that comes to my mind. And that only works for inside this solar system, and leaves out the “drifting” question altogether.
–
Also, stupid socket failures. The worst stink I have ever smelled was when we opened a freezer in which we had been storing meat in preparation for the Summer Grillin’ Season, to find, by opening said freezer, that at some time the socket it was plugged into had died.
–
“No; ’cause jokes are funny. That wasn’t funny.”
“I do have a sense of humour…and it detected no humour. Seriously. The needle was flat.”
“You don’t want to make me funny. You wouldn’t like me when I’m funny.”
(‘Course, this kinda requires the target audience to be familiar with Famous Lines by the Incredible Hulk.)
–
Good evening
whining ahead
Today was one of those days I could really do without.
I spent never more than 90 min at home at once and went from kindergarten to appointment to kindergarten to home to kindergarten to home to work to home, the fucking university website doesn’t work for Spanish, the linguistics lecture is 4-6pm and I’m still suffering from “no, can’t ask people for help”.
I’m glad this day is over.
mythbri
Stop kicking yourself. Predators are clever and we really don’t want to think badly of people whom we somehow like.
People end up in abusive relationships all the time and it’s not because they’re stupid.
lexie
Really big big hugs.
I think you weren’t around here yet for the Big Giliell Breakdown™ followed by the Big Giliell Fallout with Mum™
My mother is very overbearing, dominant and abusive. Her stick is to worry about me and my children a lot. Because I can’t apparently take care of myself.
I would love to be able to speak to her, to find a solution for us, but sadly she’s drowning her brain in booze :(
Joe, bon appétit, and may you reach the Free Food! I can’t, any more.
–
mythbri, *noncreepy hugs*
If only creepsters, like rapists, came with labels….
–
Who wouldn’t?
:)
–
Problem is, corporations typically have parasitic contracts lawyers suctioned on.
–
:D
–
Joe, Joe, Joe! It’s alright when we do it. Cuz , and in any case, famously fights on the side of the Big Battalions.
–
trinioler we may have been emitting emf radiation for over a hundred years by now but they have not gone very far yet we’ll leave out how diffuse and attenuated they would be by now.
The question remains would they even understand our sense of humor? Without a sense of humor there is no possibility for humility or proportion everything is deadly serious
uncle frogy
I live in AZ and my AC is broke.
Fuck me.
It’s one of those old set ups where we all have AC or we all have heat. (we meaning every apartment).
We currently are all getting heat. Yeah, because that’s what we need more of.
As if I wasn’t cranky enough having a stomachache all night and not getting any sleep.
Shitty fucking landlord. Shitty fucking apartments.
Why the fuck do textbooks cost so much?
Oh bullshit.
Branko Lustig is going to apologize to the parents of students to which he said that God doesn’t exist because they were offended. Kids were at a theater at an educational showing of a movie about Holocaust and, before the movie, Lustig said that he doesn’t believe God exists because if he existed he wouldn’t have let Holocaust happen. He stands by his opinion, but he’s going to apologize.
One girl was also offended because in the movie a Christian church is shown in contrast to the crimes Christians did.
Parents were offended.
The movie won’t be shown to kids again.
*spits*
Bloated ballots are the latest tactic in the list of many tactics that the GOP is using in the war on voting.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#49172987
For news on how Republican legislators have passed laws that may disenfranchise up to 10 million Latino voters, see the the Advancement Project’s Segregating American Citizenship.
More here.
*spits* isn’t for Lustig, but everyone who was offended.
Assholes.
The man has a fucking brand on his arm to show them if they want to see what persecution looks like and there he gets criticized for not respecting religion enough.
Happy World Contraception Day!
(nope, I had no idea this existed until a couple of minutes ago)
cicely,
I ate so much lunch I will be having a small glass of water for dinner! My father, King of the Cheapskates, would be so very proud of me. And I only chose food based on what cost the most, because you have to get seven times your money’s worth! No, really… I’m mostly about the buffet because I can get a lot of variety in flavor. I’ve not been to thrilled with my own cooking lately, and it was nice to have that many different kinds of cooked veggies especially.
And as for this:
And on the atheist side of things, I’d love for one of these atheists who say “Muslims are uniquely violent as a people/culture” to explain why America
1)has the most expensive military in the world,
B)said military is being pushed by the Christian extremist political party, but also some of the purportedly liberal party as well, to commit violence on a scale that the most extreme Muslims can’t even imagine in their wildest dreams, and
Monkey)is so infiltrated by Christian extremists that the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has more work that it can ever possibly handle?
Which is the violent culture again… again?
Completely unrelated to the topic of conversation, but a friend did the “a… 2…” thing in a conversation on Saturday without realizing it. He was slightly tipsy and coming off a full day manning the bar, but I still giggled.
Richard Austin,
I’m happy to let go of my irritation and encourage changing the subject. :)
For instance, I’m exhausted but I have a pile of new books. Happy Birthday to Joe, from Sesame Street! … lots and lots and lots of cookies to eat!
… Accursed alien freeloaders! Bet they have grey-market satellite descramblers, too!
(/I. Am. Notifying. The. MPAA!)
homg this “poetry explication” is giving me fits. can’t remember the MLA cite format I used last quarter, can’t think of anything to say that isn’t mindbogglingly obvious, don’t know how to use any fancypants literary language yet and I am totally going to fail this class oneone elebenty
(probably not really going to fail)
kristinc,
“Poetry explication” sounds like something deeply, profoundly painful. I’ve taken some college Lit classes, and I’m pretty sure I hated the majority of the assignments. The whole MLA bit seems a little silly to me too, but I’m going to take the anti-libertarian position and assume that there’s the core of a good idea there and that rules are OK and exist for reasons.
MOTION 312 FAILS 91-203! HAPPY DAY!
Though, my and TLC’s MPs both voted Yea.
@mythbri, please do try to forgive yourself. Serial creepers thrive on charm and plausible deniability; there’s no shame in being fooled in the short term by someone like that.
@Rev BDC: I did not wish to know that. Holy fuck, did I not wish to know that!! I agree with your assessment of humanity, with the proviso that the pets be properly neutered.
@Setar – YAY!!! Good news.
Yay Canada!
I’ll look into it.
Is anybody’s killfile still working?
(Firefox and Greasemonkey version numbers?)
My killfile is working just fine.
Firefox 10.0.1
Greasemonky 0.9.22
Killfile works fine for me.
Mac OS 10.8.2
Firefox 15.0.1
GreaseMonkey 1.1
My killfile seems to be working.
Firefox is 15.0.1
Greasemonkey … I don’t know where it is.
but it’s working
The thing of it is, this is freakin Shakespeare sonnets. How hard are they to explain? “Well, Shakespeare feels completely down in the dumps about his entire life and his entire being, but then he thinks of his lover and he feels great”. I’m supposed to get 400 words out of that.
Also, am I supposed to write like this? because a) I can’t write like that and b) I don’t want to write like that. In fact, here and now I swear a mighty oath that even if it costs me my chance at a degree, I will never use the word “indeed” in any paper of mine.
I loved analyzing Maya Angelou in the last class I had, which was why I took this class, now I’m wondering if Argument & Persuasion would have been a better choice.
kristinc,
You said your killfile was broken. I just made a trivial update that shouldn’t have made a difference, but you can try it: http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/greasemonkey
If that doesn’t fix it, what’s your Firefox and Greasemonkey version numbers?
I guess you can get 400 words out of anything. It can be pretty frustrating when what you really want to say only requires 20-30 words, and the rest is filler. And that language! “Indeed” my pasty off-white ass!
I took a public speaking class that was the single most useful class on writing I’ve ever tooken(Judge Judy Joke) in my life. If you’re majoring in anything involving big writing assignments, maybe that’s a good direction to go in.
Threadrupt, so I don’t know if anyone heard of This movie:
Seriously?
I almost want to go see the movie. Just to see *how* they handle all the contradictions and half truths.
The Darkheart Duckie Project is finished.
Back to work.
Tony,
My money is on Russell Crowe and Rick Moranis in the Biblical buddy comedy Honey, I Shrunk Two(and/or Seven) of Each Kind?
Wow Caine, that’s pretty…ummm… I want one?
Improbable Joe:
If you get pregnant, I’ll make you one. ;)
Like the Nerd Ducky for some reason.
Misandry! Open and blatant MISANDRY!!!! What about my peepee?!?!?!?!?!
Never mind your peepee, Joe, what about the tiny miraculous sperm babies????
Wow, Caine, that is amazing!
@kristinc – can you explain not just *what* the poem says but *how* it says it? How the choice of words and rhythms makes the effect, that sort of thing.
I don’t need the cloth to be decorated for it to catch them tiny miracu- wait a minute!
kristinc:
To make students’ lives miserable.
On a more practical note, many professors say you need a textbook when you can get by without it. Or you can borrow the library copy for the relevant sections. Or buy a used copy, or an old edition that will probably be exactly the same anyway. But sometimes you get stuck buying the really expensive new textbook, and that sucks.
That looks a lot like the type of analysis I remember writing in AP English. Slightly more flowery, but more similar than I’d like to admit. It was a real struggle to learn how to write in a scientific style when I got to university.
I actually enjoyed most of AP English, but I’ve forgotten almost all of it. The part I enjoyed the most was looking at the techniques the authors used to convey their messages, both within a sentence and within a whole piece of work. But I no longer have any idea what you would call that.
Caine:
Wow! Ninja Duckie is my favourite.
Caine – that’s gorgeous!!
Lexie:
My parents fall short of being “abusive” but they’re both dysfunctional people who have been extremely damaging to me in various ways, both growing up and in my adult life. I bought this a few years ago as a random act of rebellion and eventually read it, but I don’t even remember whether I found it helpful, let alone what was in it. I might take another look at it and see if there’s anything to recommend, soonish.
This book I vaguely recall being helpful in making sense of my ex-wife, my mother’s behavior, and my mother and father’s relationship with each other (I eventually loaned it to her and don’t think I ever got it back). The details escape me now, though. :/
Nerd, Alethea, Nutmeg & Carlie, thank you!
PZ! You got name-checked in a Wonkette post! http://wonkette.com/485135/the-left-is-anti-science-because-of-hippies-says-new-dumb-book#more-485135
Caine:
♥!
Pirate Duckie is teh Awesomest part of a project made entirely out of Awesome.
–
Audley:
Right back atcha. ♥
About the Wonkette article – that dude needs some educating. I’m a for realz hippie and it’s not hippies fueling the anti-vax business and other crap. Those would be wannabe new-agers. :D
Cicely:
Thank you, thank you. Pirate Duckie is the one that gave me the most trouble – the one that made the quilt is the 3rd one.
Besides, actual hippies are nearing or at 60 years old now. They don’t have young children to vaccinate!
Azkyroth, thanks for those, I’ll try to get some time to read them hopefully it’ll help.
Audley’s, :) I’m glad your blog has been reinstated.
Caine, wow! It’s amazing (more amazing considering it is all done by hand). I like nerd duckie the most. Lots of scratches and kisses for Chester who has been a little neglected by his virtual parent recently.
Audley:
No shit! All these years later and the hippies are still getting blamed for everything.
Lexie:
Thank you. Zombie Duckie is my personal fave. :D Chester gets his lovin’ every day, the sweetie boy.
I have a question and would like some advice. I am ready to dive into the works of Nina Simone. What albums should I download first?
Thank you.
Punch The Hippie has been a favorite game of the willfully self deluded for forty five years.
Caine
I dislike the word “awesome” but the quilt really fills me with awe.
—
Just to rain on the parade:
I hope you will include washing instructions.
If I received such a thing of beauty, I would probably enshrine it somewhere.
Rather than letting a
shit-and-puke-machinebeautiful baby anywhere near it.(sorry Audley)
;) ;) ;)
Chigau,
Yeah, that totally occurred to me. I was thinking wall hanging. :)
Audley
On the other hand, think of the StreetCred™ of having that as a blankie.
and
Heirloom wall hanging, which the Offspring would receive on attaining hir majority. Framed, and behind glass.
–
Janine – totally personal preference, but when I’m immersing myself in a particular artist, I like to work backwards. That way I get all the most polished, most mature stuff first, then go back to see how their style formed and how they started.
I know you already know her main songs, but this video is a really nice visualization of Feeling Good.
I think I might have first heard of Nina Simone here, now that I think about it. Probably from Josh?
Oh
FFS
Nina Simone is dead?
2003?
Why am I always a decade behind?
mythbri:
Please don’t feel bad. Even with red flags around, it’s not like you can magically cut off your emotions.
As for this:
Does she realize that she’s defending this guy? She’s actually trying to make creepy guy out to be in the right. WTF?
Chigau, thank you.
It’s washable (cold water) – everything has been pre-washed and the duckies have all been washed after being completed. In the case of Audley not wanting to cram it in a washer, it should be okay if used with a Bounce 15 Minute Dry Cleaner in the dryer.
Caine, I would have thought a little glass cleaner, and maybe a bit of polish on the frame….
:)
–
Cicely:
:D Well, I’ll leave it to the Darkheart family to figure out. Although I do think once Darkinfant becomes Darkling, she should have the ultimate say.
FUCK. Mike Rowe apparently did a Mittens campaign. FUCK EVERYTHING
Shilling for Mittens, needless to say it is a Dirty Job
Think of the fee fee’s and the fetuses and the embryos.
I feel dirty. Like I entered the mind of an anti-choicer.
This reminds me of a recent post PZ made:
Vampiric animals anyone? :)
Threadrupt, but I wanna throw this question out there before it gets later…
Does anyone have any practical advice on how to separate what you actually WANT – out of life in general, and in regards to relationships in particular – from what you expect to want, or what you think you should covet and cling to because it might be good enough?
Well, Rebecca Watson wasn’t even around back then…
“Vampiric animals anyone?”
Someone posted this link.
Azkyroth.
When I became interested in atheism and skepticism I found myself needing someone to talk with about those issues. Mrs. Fishy was most decidedly not interested. So I had to decide if it had to her specifically that fulfilled that need. And I found that the on-line communities were enough to satisfy that need. So while I wanted my wife to be interested, I didn’t need her to be because fulfilling that need elsewhere was perfectly acceptable for both of us.
That realisation of the distinction between wants and needs and the fact that no one person is likely to be able to fulfil every need really helped me.
Er, I have no idea if that’s even addressing the question you asked.
PSA announcement: Never call a small business via Skype. All the telemarketers use it and when I hear that Skype pause at the beginning I’m likely to simply hang up.
Telemarketers might use Skype now, but the pause is older. Telemarketers have long used predictive dialing to make as many calls as possible. The machine calls you, listens to see if you pick up, and if you do then it routes your line to a salesperson.
Good morning
Caine
The quilt is amazing. And reminds me that I need to get started on one, too, but mine won’t take 708 hours to complete.
kristinc
What technique are you supposed to use.
I learned writing about poetry the hard way. When I took everything literal that was meant metaphorical and vice versa and ended up in a cottage in a lonely landscape when the poem was about a plane…
Can you talk about the structure first? That’s about 100 words already, or how the final part usually turns around the poem.
The scientist people always think that literary criticism is just making shit up as you go along, but they’re wrong.
+++
I need some nerves. Today pictures are taken at the kindergarten and #1 goes on about being the prettiest. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!
Interesting SG, thanks for that.
Giliell:
Thank you and I’m jealous! I do wish I could get along with a sewing machine. Mister wants me to make a winter quilt – that could take around one to two years, I think, given the size.
Yeah, then the person says “Hello? Helllllo?” during the pause and gets really irritated when you finally get the call and say “Hello, may I speak to so-and-so?”
I had people ask me if I was a creeper listening to them breathe and stuff.
Damn, I hate that job but it was a job at least.
Random wondering: Isn’t it quite suspicious how we see that artificial limits on the money supply in the Eurozone are forcing screw-everyone-but-the-rich austerity policy, and over here there is quite a loud lobby to return to the gold standard?
FIFY
Caine
Oh, it was meant as a compliment. I don’t have the stamina to work 708 hours on a piece. That’s why I never had the urge to learn knitting: too much time.
Actually, quilting with a normal sewing machine is annoying as fuck because you just. can’t. get. everything. in. the. opening.
I’ll give quilting piece by piece a chance this time, especially since I want to try some free motion quilting as well.
Last quilt I made already drove me up the was and that was like 4 feet wide and high, this one’s going to be a bit larger.
+++
I’m really glad that there are some rules about telemarketing here now. Doesn’t mean some bugger won’t call you, but reminding them that they can actually get fined 500.000€ because I didn’t consent to being called and can’t see their number on my display usually makes them remove you from their lists quickly.
KG #409: Well, yes. And it’s not like it’s much different over here, where we have all this wailing about interest on the debt and needing to make cuts because of that. No one, not even on MSNBC, has the sense to ask why we’re paying so much goddamn interest in the first place if the government controls the Federal Reserve — instead we hear calls to go the opposite way, return to a gold standard.
And people say that the rich capitalists don’t control the media to the point where they effectively control the public discourse. Bullshit I say — the criticisms of neoliberal dogma are mind-bogglingly simple and yet the media in large part falls utterly flat when it comes to criticising neoliberals.
Gah. I meant to add that economists also do a horrific job of debunking austerity for the common person. I love DeLong and Krugman to death but for the love of fucking FSM it would be a godsend for ONE OF THEM to post an Anti-Austerity 101 primer/meta-post taking apart the common neoliberal myths about why we need to cut everything (except of course the war budget and corporate subsidies). And, for that matter, to start off at the level of what the politicians say, then link it to all of the sophisticated theology of Hayek, von Mises et al and then explain what’s wrong with it.
Setár
It’s even worse than that.
In many places interest rates are ridiculously low. They are artificially high for those “countries in trouble” like Greece and Spain and it is a vicious circle: they pay high rates therefore they need more money therefore they pay higher rates.
And here’s the “best”thing about this: Quite a huge amount of the bonds are actually held by other European countries and the Eucropean Central Bank. So, Germany is giving Greece money to pay the interest on the bonds that are held by Germany and at the same time forces them to cut their own throat, ignoring the actual laws and civil rights of the Greek people.
In Germany, collective bargaining is held as a right while they are at the same time denying this to the Greek people because the Troika decides the wages.
The Darkheart Duckie project is absolutely staggering. Inventive, witty, executed with amazing skill – Darkfetus will love it for the bright! And faces! when she becomes a baby, for the cool! when she is older and for the blindingly awesome! when she is old enough to really grasp how much hard work and creativity have gone into making this.
I have a dinosaur costume stashed away that my late mother made for DaughterSpawn when the latter was about 4, consisting of a dark green headdress with big eyes and teeth and the beginning of spines/small dorsal plates, a matching poloneck top with the dorsal spines continuing all down the back and a detachable stuffed tail with the remaining spines. It’s nothing like as professionally executed as the Darkheart Duckie Project, but having something invented and made specially for you is … well there’s nothing quite like it. In fact I still have the stuffed cat my mother made for me when I was a kid.
The future Darkchild will treasure this so much!
unholy, thank you
Nutmeg,thank you. and especially thank you for posing your question @203. *hugs* and virtual support – I too am interested in and by the Hordes response.
Socio-gen,
Ruth was the first person I have ever truly loved, and been loved by in return. A priceless gift, worth the suffering a thousand times over.
Crudely Wrott, *hugs* I’ll write it on her coffin during the celebration *tearful hugs*
Giliell, Impact – a perfect description. Its so weird – I am oscillating between feeling like I’ve been hit in the face with a brick, and the most amazing feeling of being loved. its painful yet beautiful.
Nick Gotts, yep. life aint fair. but we had each other, so all up I’m winning by a country mile.
Amblebury,we roared with laughter – it really was the perfect antidote after some nasty treatment. Carlies observation was spot on.
FossilFishy,OMFSM thats rough. [snip – this needs its own post, and some serious thought]
lexie you are not cowardly – they are. isnt that behaviour pretty much the definition of punching down? you can see what you are doing, which is the first, and hardest, part of the process. well done indeed (puts hat on) I take my hat off to you.
mythbri, thats shitty. schrodingers
creepPredator, backed up by a PRA. *support* you are right about others, but the effect upon victims isn’t ratiometric, it’s absolute.Giliell #413: And what is the neoliberal justification for this horrible ass-backwards system where the powerful countries prosper — literally — on the backs of the poor?
Setár
Oh, it’s because the Greek are lazy. And we’ll all suffer terribly if we don’t do exactly that. Think about the children! They need a debt-free country, where the debts were paid by cutting their education…
They also keep spreading the myth that the reason countries like Spain and Greece are in trouble was because of debt and welfare. In reality, out of the like 5 countries in debt, only Greece had significant amount of debt before this whole crisis started due to global financial disaster.
Giliell #417: Really? Because whenever I ask an austerian why we need to be paying so much interest on debt from a bank we supposedly control, there’s some mumbling about inflation or something like that. I don’t even know if there is any justification that makes any sense; it’s not like they ever really need to pull one out, since the mainstream media is their ivory tower where they never get questioned. Because, conveniently, on both the “liberal” and “conservative” sides is always an austerian, on the screen and in the voting booth.
Liberalism of any sort, beyond the “social” justice issues that mean absolutely nothing when neoliberal classism is ignored, is under a chilly climate. Full stop. Anti-neoliberals are only heard on the pages and airwaves of alternative media, and there they get dismissively lumped in as “far-left radicals” when their positions were mainstream left not very long ago. Actual leftist policy, whenever it tries to rear its head, is dismissed as outdated — even though neoliberalism has been the law of the land since 1980. Nations that dare to take up actual leftist measures are vilified where possible, otherwise they are ignored, because the only options are eggs and austerity, bacon and austerity, eggs bacon and austerity, eggs austerity bacon and austerity, austerity eggs austerity bacon and austerity…
They’re a bit in trouble over explaining Spain, because Spain was like the model student before this and the one thing that got them into trouble was the housing bubble and the bailout.
What’s never mentioned is that Greece, Italy and Ireland were not collecting taxes. They were low-tax, many loopholes and shitty control countries. People driving a Frerrari would claim an income of 30.000€/year, always a bit above welfare line (because then you need to dig up their garden in case they’re hiding a jar of pennies). At the end of last year business-people in the rich holiday-town Cortina complained bitterly that tax-auditors on, I think, December 30th were ruining their holiday business, to which the minister of finances replied that this can’t be true. According to his revenue data they had sold 300% more than the same day the year before…
You could base a bad film on this: “Buddhist statue, discovered by Nazi expedition, is made of meteorite, new study reveals” http://phys.org/news/2012-09-buddhist-statue-nazi-meteorite-reveals.html
— — — — — — —
Men on the mind: Study finds male DNA in women’s brains http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-men-mind-male-dna-women.html When Lush Rimbaugh hears this, he will jump to all kinds of conclusions
— — — — — — — — — — —
Biologist discovers mammal with salamander-like regenerative abilities: African spiny mouse http://phys.org/news/2012-09-biologist-mammal-salamander-like-regenerative-abilities.html
Does it work on silver bullet wounds?
— — — — — — — — — — —
Researchers make old muscles young again in attempt to combat aging http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-muscles-young-combat-aging.html
— — — — — — — — — — —
LIFR protein suppresses breast cancer metastasis http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-lifr-protein-suppresses-breast-cancer.html#ajTabs
I assume “discovered” means “looted by”?
I’ve finally watched last week’s episode of Doctor Who.
Nice, but whoa that loose end a giant plot hole.
WTF is that?
Since when is everybody keen scheduling lectures and stuff a 4-6pm, and what’s more on a Friday?
FFS, I have 2 small children, that’s out of the question. Family-friendly university? You’re kidding me…
I would suggest they were trying to accommodate working people, but for them a 4pm class would probably be too early.
I’ll go with *idiots*.
I’m sorry, Giliell. Any chance that it’s a small class and you and other students could negotiate another time? If there are other people with children or students from out the of the town, they’ll probably be keen on rescheduling too.
Oh joy, an MRA thread. I think I’ll go to the bookstore instead. I finally got that paycheck that was more than a month late. The amount is small enough not to mean anything in my parents-dependant life anyway, so I might as well spend it on books.
OK, not spend the whole thing. I’m already feeling guilty. Some.
Maybe one Discworld book and that’s all.
[checks the google machine] Dammit, books should have their own mention in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. I’d definitely put them in the “safety” layer as they’re essential to my mental health.
Enjoy the bookstore Beatrice, and if you’re seduced by the coy turn of more than one comely volume’s cover I hope you don’t feel too guilty. :)
Beatrice, ALL THE DISCWORLD BOOKS! When you run out of money, you start shoving them up your shirt!
That MRA thread is weird, because that MRA guy describes a situation I was in with an ex pretty closely. I’m sure some of you have heard this before. I did all of the work, she took care of her kid. Except that I worked second shift, and when I would leave her mom and/or sister would come over and take care of the kid, and then when I would get home at night I was on baby duty if the kid woke up, and then kind of on baby duty most of the day too. I did all the house cleaning, all the laundry, all the cooking, made all the bottles of formula, did plenty of diaper changing and feeding and bathing of her kid. Six months before we officially broke up she started seeing her baby’s daddy again and her mom was sometimes babysitting while they went on dates while I was at work.
Two things though: I blame myself almost as much as I blame her(she gets extra blame for cheating on me), because it wasn’t a healthy situation for either one of us. And somehow that bad experience didn’t turn me into an MRA. Odd.
Pie’s in the oven.
I’m out as soon as I eat.
—
Ah, books. I already have (counts…) six of Discworld novels.
One day… One day I will have them all. ALL!
8, I forgot that other shelf
Beatrice,
I’ve got most of them Discworld books. Somehow, they keep getting better as it goes on. There’s some books I like more than others, but none of them are flat-out bad and if you don’t like one there’s always the next one… at least until you run out!
I was
started on the addictiongiven my first few Discworld books by my nephew. Then I became a[n EVEN MORE] habitual frequenter of charity shops and hunted down almost all the ones I was missing, at about £1 each (some down to about 50p, a couple as much as £2 and one might even have been £3 – it was a charity shop in a posh neighbourhood). Eventually I cracked and bought the final missing 2 or 3 books second-hand on Amazon (for pence-plus-postage, so I presume the modest profit’s in the postage).What are the chances of finding Pterry’s books in charity shops in the Horde’s various necks of the woods? Here in Blighty most of them seem to have at least a couple.
37.
I have 37 Discworld books.
“I’m 37, I’m not old!”
“37! My girlfriend sucked 37 dicks!”
37 (number)
Joe,
I’m not reading them in any particular order. I usually buy whichever strikes my fancy at the moment, so I’ve read some from the beginning of the series but also some of the last ones (Unseen Academicals is beyond brilliant).
… and to those who have ’em, which ones do you re-read most often? It’s the Watch cycle for me (though I pretty much love ’em all (the very latest ones a little less, I confess. Though I still like ’em)).
And a Hordely question: to me it reads that Pterry is generally better on race and class and social in-groups/out-groups than he is on gender. And of course I wonder if this is wholly or partly because I am white. Sadly he’s not much cop on sexuality; there’s scarcely a named gay character anywhere on the discworld, for example, and no 3D characters who are canonically so (even Tonker and Lofty in Monstrous Regiment aren’t actually out to anyone else).
Am I losing what little is left of my memory, or did this come up in conversation already? Or am I thinking of a conversation somewhere else on the net maybe.
If you want to sort out how the the books relate: a Discworld reading guide. Might not be completely up to date.
Beatrice,
There’s maybe an order you SHOULD read them in, especially the later ones… or rather there’s a couple of ways to read them. You can read straight chronological, or you can group them by witches, Death, City Watch, whatever. There are some that are more stand-alone than others. When I started I read them sort of out of order, and it maybe enhanced my enjoyment because when I had a sufficient number of them I went back and read them in chronological order and got that rare “second bite at the apple” when reading books. Usually books are only new and exciting once. In this case, the second read-through with the context added by having read all of them in order made them new and exciting twice.
I’m getting green with envy (for both of yours collections).
Hmm. I might visit a used books store or two, but I doubt I’ll find anything. At least not in the right language. I generally like to read books in the language they were written in (if possible), but for Discworld novels that is essential.
Yeah, I have that link where they are grouped by different characters, I was just being rebellious. ;)
I was planning to reread them by various character storylines. Maybe I should think of that while buying the next batch.
It was here that I first heard about Pratchett and since then I value any book advice given here.
Beatrice – have you read any of the ones that focus on Dwarves? Those are pretty good on gender.
I actually owned (I can’t find it now, but it’s in my stack somewhere) the first US-printed edition of “The Colour of Magic”. I got it for like 25 cents at a library book sale in the mid-80s. It wasn’t until the early 90s I found out there were more books in the series. At this point, I’m reasonably sure I have every single Discworld book (including “The Science Of…” books).
Beatrice, I sympathise. You’re in Germany, is that right? Does second-hand on Amazon work for you, maybe? (when I say pence-plus-postage, I mean sometimes literally 1p plus about, um, £2.80 is the UK delivery charge now. But it’ll be the higher delivery charge that makes it not work, I suppose, anywhere else :( )
Yes! I would always do that if it’s a language I can read (some Romance ones). (I’ve even struggled a couple of times with a book in German in one hand and a dictionary in the other – and my German is rubbish, I’m very sad to say). Funnily enough I was thinking about this exact problem yesterday. Puns are a bastard to translate (“Nobby would rust even irony” was the sentence, I think, that I’d just read, and I was feeling for the impossibly-tasked translators around the world :-D )
opposablethumbs,
I really like the Death books, and the Vimes stuff is good and dark. As far as gender/sexuality… it is glaring in its absence? He doesn’t seem eager to tackle it explicitly, and maybe he’s tried and been terrible at it, and shredded the results?
Those who like that sort of thing may want to augment RationalWiki’s page on A+
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Atheism_Plus
+++++
ftfkdad, good luck to you.
+++++
Cosmic Teapot and kristinc, I can’t get the killfile to break; so without more information, I can’t figure out what needs fixing on your end. You could try uninstalling and reinstalling Greasemonkey, as well as the killfile script itself, I guess: http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/greasemonkey
There and back again
beatrice
I take the sympathy.
I’ll just try again next semester. I have already booked one class that’s 4-6 on Thursdays. My mum in law will collect the kids at kindergarten, take #1 to her ballet and then I’ll collect them there. Things would be much easier if I weren’t part-time single mum, but that still wouldn’t be possible if Mr. worked here.
But it seems like I have no excuse and must book a class with somebody I don’t particularly like and would have preferred not to meet him first semester back there. *sigh*
Discworld
I unfortunately have them all. Unfortunately because that means there are no more left for me to read the first time.
As a fast talker* who finds the normal speed of conversation with many people a bit of a gear change, that annoying pause in the telemarketing system is like…
I dunno. How do I put this? I truly, truly, truly hate it. And it’s not the creeper thing.
It’s more like: godfuckingdammit,you’restallingthecore. Isaidhello,thisisjustincrediblyfuckingrudewherethehellareyoufinehangingupnowbyenowwherewasI?
(*/Yes, in many senses. Whatever.)
opposablethumbs,
Croatia, so I would probably order from German Amazon.
—
I like Death. And The Guard. Dwarves are pretty awesome wherever they appear. And the witches! Oh hell, I love everyone.
—
Pie was awesome (recipe— I used chard instead of spinach) and I’m out to do some book-hunting now.
Agreed re Death. Made of awesome.
The bit where he was trying to stand in for the Hogfather is one of those things that can set me to giggling completely out of the blue, the book not even in sight, and years later.
Azkyroth,
I’m not sure exactly what you mean, but I didn’t want to let this go unanswered since I saw it at 3AM on the crapper. :)
My rule of thumb is that the things that you actually want are easy, and the stuff that’s hard is not what you really want. That sounds counter-intuitive, but it works out because when you really want to be doing something the effort isn’t any sort of weight at all, and when you don’t want something the least effort feels like a ton of bricks on your shoulders.
If you love your job, the effort feels minimal compared to the reward. If you are in a good relationship, the work you put into it feels like a small price to pay. Even the stuff you have… if you really want to own something, sacrificing and saving is easier than if it is just something you think you want.
Sorry, Beatrice, my mistake (I’m not sure why I thought Germany. My memory is lousy at the best of times. Argh).
Sometimes my favourite Discworld is sort of whichever one I’m reading at any given moment :) but the ones I come back to most often are the City Watch ones for some reason. The Science of Discworld ones are also excellent! And I’ve even got the proto-pre-Discworld Strata (from a second-hand shop again) … though I don’t love it nearly as much as the actual Discworld :-D
Croatia! My handgun was made in Croatia!
Wow, what a coincidence!
Small, violent world, eh?
Oddly, the holster was made in Israel…
So, Germany is giving Greece money to pay the interest on the bonds that are held by Germany
Stupid question of the day: Why not just say, “Forget the interest”? That seems like it would be more efficient. Probably some good reason why that makes no sense.
Unequal Rites and Monstrous Regiment are two that have a focus on that to some extent.
Okay, not sue how to “read” this article. I’ll leave the specifics up to you folks with better first-hand knowledge, but I think it may be worth a discussion if nothing else.
Why Women Should Stop Trying to Be Perfect
Probably the main point of the article:
Er, “Equal Rites” :)
This is a follow up to my comment @332 about Mitt’s Mendacity. I’ve been posting for months about this, um, skill for lying demonstrated by Mitt Romney. Then he went one step further and decided to lie, on camera, about his lying.
Rachel Maddow produced a succinct, accurate segment on this very issue. Details, context — everything you’d want to judge for yourself.
Richard Austin #457
I have a big problem with the notion that women are easily manipulated by The Media and men are totally immune.
dianne
Hey, you answered that question yourself.
Look at it like this:
Greece owes Germany money. You could just say “forget interest” and Greece might even be able to pay back the debt at some time.
Now you do the current model
Greece owes Germany money and has to pay interest, let’s say 100k
Now Germany lends Greece that money, which they get back immediately.
Now Greece’s debt has just increased by 100K.
Poor little one. She was so eager on pizza tonight and now she’s fallen asleep.
Giliell: I’ve got another idea: Germany writes off the debt that Greece owes it to allow Greece to concentrate on stabilizing its economy. Greece gets a chance to pull out of the hole its in and Germany gets a stronger, more stable neighbor and economic partner. Seems like a win-win to me.
What sort of mood does the little one wake up in? I always hated missing things because no one woke me up when I was small…
All of the things you folks are saying about Germany and Greece and the economics stuff? It all makes sense from a “hey, what is a good long-term strategy that will lead to stability and sustainable growth for everyone” perspective. Unfortunately, the only perspective that has any sway is “what is a good strategy for keeping profits high for a small number of German parasite capitalists.”
This is just objectively false.
E.g. antidiscrimination laws relatively improve people’s lives even while social services are cut. It is better to live in a neoliberal country with antidiscrimination laws than the same neoliberal country without.
As a communist, I must point out that not everything is about class.
Also not sure why social is in scare quotes there.
Oh. Yeah.
Oops.
This a follow up post to my comment #89 about the resurrection of Ralph Reed, “the right hand of God.”
Yes, Reed is making big bucks doing this, and there are questionable links between his non-profit organization and his for-profit company to which he funnels the production and distribution of these materials. More on that at the link.
The article also details the tech-savvy ways in which the voter guide is being distributed, including via text messages to 13 million cell phones of conservative christians.
Jesus effing ….
The Drudge Report posts a dog whistle racist video that is so loud it drowns out what little reason right wing fanatics may have had hiding in some corner of their mind.
http://www.salon.com/2012/09/27/drudges_latest_dog_whistle/
Scroll down to “continue reading” to view the video.
A pro-gay message from Honey Boo Boo:
http://www.towleroad.com/2012/09/a-pro-gay-message-from-honey-boo-boo-video.html
dianne
Well, in the morning she’s pure sunshine. But when she takes a nap and you wake her then it’s horrible. It was already past 6 here when she fell asleep, she had 3 small donuts and an apple before which counts as dinner once in a while and she had a hard week with starting kindergarten and everything. So I’ll just let her sleep.
@Lynna
Do these idiots have a play book?
Hello, I’ve been wondering about something for a while. How does one insert line breaks into comments here? Thank you all!
Faux News is still reporting that the polls are rigged. The polls show Obama pulling ahead of Romney bit by slow bit, so of course that must mean the polls are rigged.
Right-wing media has been pushing this meme for about a week. They are not letting up on it. Various pollsters and statisticians have proven them wrong, but as of today there are new articles, TV segments, and radio bits (Plush Limburger) reciting the lie like it was god’s truth.
Text above is excerpted from:
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/09/fox-friends-polls-rigged-conspiracy.php?ref=fpa
More on the polling discussion from Daily Kos.
~G~:
Standard carriage return (hitting the enter key as many times as you want) should work; if you’re using a tablet or other method for commenting, the “enter” key may have been redirected, but that’s how it’s done.
Romney is caught on tape … again.
Full story and video at Mother Jones.
Thank you, Richard. Maybe it doesn’t show right in the preview.
(one return)
(two)
(three)
(four)
The preview shows no breaks. I’ll post and see.
And Lynna, I didn’t know the wingnuts were suggesting conspiracies and I now realize I’ve been ignoring much news in general. We have cable but only watch HBO. I need to read more political blogs now that it’s election time. (And time to start listening to NPR in the morning again.)
Bright Yellow Gun
Yep. All you have to do is avoid mentioning “race” and you get off scot free. None of your thinly veiled racist shit can be put in the racist category if you never mentioned race.
In case you haven’t seen enough of Todd “legitimate rape” Akin’s whackadoodliness, here’s a nice roundup:
http://www.americanbridgepac.org/2012/09/wire/the-akin-files/
@ ~G~ #476:
Yep, the styling for the comment preview does not display the correct whitespace between paragraph tags. Hopefully that gets fixed when the new FtB layout is launched.
Yeah, I’m sure “Fred Sanford” doesn’t have a racist bone in his body.
You probably want to take the pie out of the oven before you try to eat it. O.o
And a little in The Fifth Elephant. Basically anything that features Cheery Littlebottom, but then again, just her, mainly. Some of the stuff with Angua, too.
Carlie said,
Next month. This month FossilFishy can start with, “Be nice to your children: they’re going to choose your nursing home.”
Terryg, *hugs*.
I mean lexie can say! Damn these rented fingers!
“Polls are rigged” is the rear-guard action to keep up morale among the troops. Don’t let that reassure you that they’re not planning to tamper with the servers again on election night to fake the result. By the way, is there any way to ensure that results don’t go through a Republican-controlled server this time?
I see it as just the opposite. The truth is that barring any major change in the universe Obama is going to be reelected, and possibly by a large margin in the Electoral College. This is damage control to maintain the lie that “conservatism” is a valid, viable political philosophy that cannot fail but only be failed, and that America is a fundamentally “conservative” country. The polling shows that the margins in several swing states are too wide to get away with tampering at the edges, and the media is not so in love with Romney(the way they were with Bush) that they can be counted on to ignore clear evidence of massive election fraud. If Republicans lose AND get caught cheating, that’s the end of the party.
Report on bookstores: Fifty Shades of Grey everywhere.
It was all over bookstores in Italy when I was there this summer, the same in Slovenia, the same here.
It’s becoming worse than Twilight
Beatrice,
Even in Croatia? WTF?!?! Do they at least have bobbleheads and board games?
Richard:
That’s never worked for me. Whether I hit enter once or 10 times, I only get one teensy line break.
IIRC, John Morales mentioned adding open/close blockquotes to create space.
Hello everyone!
Just wanted to let you all know that I work with a bunch of people who don’t know their asses from a hole in the ground. Today has been especially bad in the “not thinking things through” front. I can’t wait to quit, believe me.
The book is crap, but there is a marketing genius working on its promotion.
(Sorry to say, but I think bobbleheads are primarily an American thing.)
—
I got Wyrd Sisters!
Audley,
That sucks donkey balls, but at least there’s a light at the end, right?
Joe:
Too true. And they’re not bad guys, just… thoughtless, you know?
Bobbleheads are a HUMAN thing.
Beatrice, good call on Wyrd Sisters. So, so, so much fun.
Audley,I have no clue what you’re talking about specifically… but doesn’t that sort of make it worse? Not evil, not stupid, just haven’t given things any thought. There aren’t enough hours in the day to slowly explain everything to them from the bottom up so they have the context to understand, either.
Wyrd Sisters is one of my favorites!
It’s even funnier if you keep Macbeth in mind while reading it.
:D
–
Opposablethumbs:
Thank you so much! I received an invite to be the featured project on the Urban Threads blog today – that’s exciting! :D
Joe:
Sorry, being a little vague. Up until my pregnancy, I was the supervisor of a satellite office for a company that distributes automotive collision parts. (Since I physically can’t perform my duties, I got shifted over to sales.) Anyway, I’m still the go-to lady when anything goes wrong and today I had a driver smack into a parked car (*headdesk!* He’s still in his new hire 3 month “probationary period”) and a sales guy royally screw up a customer’s account. Of course this means I have to handle/fix these things instead of doing my own work.
And trust me, Joe, considering I had to give them all a basic math test a few months ago, I’m sick of feeling like their nanny. But on the other hand, since they are basically good guys, they do listen to me and take direction quite well.