This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly. It’s not as if you were raised by wolves.
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Starting fresh! SO threadrupt! Doing yardwork! Spring! (Is kinda cold but it’s okay)
I think the world would be a much nicer place if many people were raised by wolves
Last week we planted potatoes, beans and peas. (the peas have sprouted)
Yesterdy, parsley and basil transplants
It’s too hot here, so we’ll do some more this evening.
Glad everybody’s back.
The necklace is most exceeding glam, Giliell! Suits you beautifully.
Anti-nightmare hugs to JAL.
My mom dies a couple years ago. Now all the Mother’s Day brouhaha just gives me a sad.
Died, that is. All hail Tpyos.
I have the flu and/or an inner ear infection, and I might be failing* one of my classes. My income has been shrinking because I’m not well enough to do a lot of work. And the st00pid psychmeds I’ve been taking have been making me more crazy, not less.
I fucking hate my life right now.
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*And by failing i really mean failing, since i was too ill to attend during the final project, so that’s an automatic 20% grade-loss, and i’ve missed a lot of labs before that as well.
and on a completely unrelated and less horrible note: am i the only one who can’t see all the blogs on theFTB homepage?
I want Yemministing and Heteronormative Patriarchy for Men to be as easily accessible as e.g. Pharyngula or Almost Diamonds
I’m sorry, DonDueed. : (
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*hugs* for you, if you want ’em, Jadehawk. That’s a big pile of suck at once.
How dare you discriminate against people who were raised by wolves? I demand an apology and five pounds of raw steak for my family.
I’m hiding out in my little Hobbit Hole, avoiding family. BRB, gotta see if it’s time for food yet.
Giliell: Happy anniversary! Pretty necklace. Shiny!
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I’m sorry.
*choice of beverage*
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*hugs* for Jadehawk. Hope you are better soon.
Is dropping the failed class an option?
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Cerberus – *lots of hugs and chocolate*
JAL – *hugs*
Giliell – Happy Anniversary!
Jadehawk – *hugs and chocolate*
Hey PZ, do you think it’s possible the reason there is so much tension in the feminist/atheist discussions has to do with inequality in discussing gender roles?
Do you think if we tried to change the perception that men are expendable, we might have more productive discussions and changes? Why are men expected to die for their country, fight criminals, run into burning buildings and be Canaries in the coal mines for new methods of exploration more often than women? Because biologically, our purpose was to protect and provide for women and children. Why are men more aggressive and emotional? Because men had to be. Somebody had to be and very few actually had the choice to be.
You want sociological change between the sexes, start by pointing out we all got the short end of the stick, because the stick was short to begin with. Why continue arguing over who had or has it worse when the point of the quarrels is to try and make things better. Approach the discussion this way, and you may find more straight men to be less inflamed by the
…the conversation at hand.
No. The idea that men are “expendable” is really indistinguishable from idea that men are more powerful than women. Men are expected to do the fighting because women can’t do the fighting. This is a perfect example of how gender disparity hurts both men and women.
Men are harmed by gender roles as much as women. While the harm to women may be more immediately obvious, the harm to men is nonetheless integral to the system. This is most easily seen with respect to men who do not fit into the most common gender roles.
That is a common part of modern feminism. Feminism isn’t just about women, you know. It’ also about how gender roles harm men. If you were paying attention, you’d know that.
What people like you don’t seem to understand is that we can’t really improve the situation for men without also improving the situation for women. We’re inherently connected. Whatever happens to one, happens to the other.
Giliell
Also happy anniversary, I missed that one earlier.
Dondueed
I’m sorry to hear that. *hugs* if desired
Jadehawk
*hugs* and soothing tea and hot toddys.
*careful hugs for Jadehawk*
*happiness tea*
*bulk amounts of chocolate*
I just posted two long, devastating reviews on the soggy-ape hypothesis thread. Took me all afternoon and evening (even the computer crashed halfway through). PZ weighed in and invented the term “soggy-ape hypothesis”…
*hugs for DonDueed*
Hekuni Cat! ^_^
Stop the melodrama, the draft is being abolished in more and more countries – while Israel drafts everyone. Google for “patriarchy hurts men, too”; I have to go to bed now (it’s 20 past 1 am).
I saw this headline and I thought I must have slipped sideways in time to the retro-future:
Flying car crashes near Vernon, B.C. school
Yes, yes, ponyboy; and women are disposable breeders expected to Give Their (Literal) All for their species. Sucks to be everyone, ‘mkay? And if you’re looking to provoke a fight (as I suspect), then <Jedi Mind Trick>This Is Not The Thread You’re Looking For</Jedi Mind Trick>. Try the Thunderdome.
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Which, for reference, can be found here
Thanks, Dalillama. I meant to add a linky, but was distracted by David M’s soggy ape review.
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lol, if dropping 1 week before finals were an option, no one would ever fail a class :-p
Ow, jadehawk. that is so not good in a very large variety of ways.
I’ve been sick for about a week too. Nasty sore throat right now.
The worst part was at the beginning; randomly, nonstop chills and feeling extremely hot for 30ish minutes. And apparently, my body temperature was normal. (how is this even logically possible?)
Wow: Space Oddity, performed from the space station.
I’m really sorry, Jadehawk. Maybe your professors will give you an incomplete.
DonDueed, we’re a hot cup of tea and a shoulder to lean on if you need it.
lol
it’s almost as if we didn’t have blog dedicated to discussing PHMT issues; as if Greta’s series on PHMT didn’t exist; as if issues like the men-only military never come up; etc.
troll
fucking love this kind of bullshit. as if it weren’t the case that men were doing their very fucking best to keep women out of these jobs. Wanting their cake and eating it too, I guess: wanting these jobs to remain male-dominated, but also wanting the right to whine and moan about how women don’t have to face the danger in these jobs. figures.
Jadehawk (#23)
Your school doesn’t have an option to drop one class per year with no questions asked and no penalty? Or what about switching to pass/fail to avoid damage to your GPA?
(#26)
Right? It’s impossible to talk about how PHMT enough to satisfy the WATM whiners because they’re not actually interested in that conversation. If they were, they’d show up to those discussions and contribute meaningfully rather than showing off their ignorance of feminism, gender studies and power dynamics.
My point isn’t that this is How things should be. My point is there will be no equality until a man’s life is viewed as sacred as a woman’s and a woman’s life is viewed as expendable as a man’s. Things are changing, but not fast enough. Because men are still expected to fill their roles and woman are expected to overcome theirs.
One more time, Ponyboy. The Thunderdome. Take it there.
i’m actually no longer worried about that; if i pass, the damage will be minimal, dropping me from a 4.0 to something around 3.9 or 3.8; piddly shit. but i do still need to pass.
Jadehawk, sorry you are ill, if you need a delivery of chicken soup or anything else, cognac etc let me know since I am in the neighborhood
idiot. women’s lives are considered even more disposable than that of men: “Even though they grow weary and wear themselves out with child-bearing, that is of no consequence; let them go on bearing children till they die, that is what they are there for”
now, fuck the fuck off to the thunderdome, because stirring up shit in the lounge is against the commenting rules
Thunderdome is for uncivil discussions. Are you saying the people here cannot engage in a civil discussion about gender roles in modern society? I thought for freethinkers this would be easy. Too tempting to behave like a primate rather than a person?
“primate rather than a person” lol. biology fail.
I await your banning with glee, since you refuse to take your shitstirring where it belongs
@ponyboy
You know what’s not civil? Passive-aggressive, sniping questions. Using an open thread to lecture the host, as if you can’t be bothered to email him. Refusing to move to a different thread when asked. JAQing off.
So no, it’s not possible to engage in a civil discussion about gender roles in modern society with you. Because you wouldn’t know civility if it was welded to your face. Now shoo.
Primate and person are two separate concepts. Are we wild animals or intelligent and civilized beings that have overcome our baser animal instincts? The fact you focused on semantics to make yourself seem superior tells me you are more primate then person in terms of self-control.
ponyboy, Get Out Of The Lounge. Now.
Or you will be kicked out.
Hi all,
I don’t comment a lot, but I just wanted to say that I appreciate anteprepro, amphiox, and michaelbusch holding down the fort in the new terrorism thread. I’m not sure if cheerleading is too off topic, I’m showing my appreciation here. Now, signing off to go write my thesis like the nice social primate that I am!
I lv ssrtns f bng pssv-grssv. It tlls m y r ffndd tht I’m mkng gd pnt y dn’t wnt t dmt hs mrt. I thght t wld tk lngr fr smn t ply vctm n dscssn wtht th rqrmnt f ctlly bn ttckd.
[Out, and stay out. Or be banned. –pzm]
@Gilliell-
Omgyes! Please use something and I totally want to see it when you’re done!
http://shiari.deviantart.com/
carlie #25
That left me weeping.
Thank you.
No, ponyboy; it says that we recognize these symptoms. Take your toys elsewhere.
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ponyboy
Get out of the Lounge.
any other thread
NOT HERE
The only thing offending me is your “but what about the menz” attitude. And I’ve only just joined the new iteration of the lounge. I just had to end the day at my work with an HBC that had effectively exploded when it was hit and its guts were all over the place. I had to comfort the hysterical owners who were blaming themselves for the dog running out the front door. I fucking do NOT need you and your “poor poor men, they have it so much worse than women because my fees fees” in my relaxation zone.
So get your ass to the thunderdome.
Yep, that is what you are engaged in. So take it to the Thunderdome, where the appropriate verbiage can be thrown your way to make you realize that you are wrong.
Exactly my point. I put forth the notion that men have been getting a raw deal to, and you get offended. Why? Because you think men matter less then women. This is why change will be difficult going forward. Men will continue to be childish, aggressive and rash so long as people like yourself continue expecting them to be. Keep calling a child worthless and How will that child view itself when it grows up?
Lol. So you can’t refute me without calling me horrible names? PZ would be very disappointed to hear such a thing from an intelligent person. Maybe that’s the primate in all of us.
The Thunderdome is the appropriate venue for that discussion, because it is always a contentious one. Take it there, whether you are really JAQing-off, or not.
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Why would you state something that unevidenced? From PZ:
So, why should PZ be disappointed in anybody but YOU????
You haven’t noticed the warning above from PZ?
stay gold, ponyboy, and go to the thunderdome while you can.
What you got was this: you’re saying nothing new, and you’re wrong to suggest the problem’s with feminism. That’s being “offended”?
I also love how supposedly OUR expectations are MAKING men act a certain way. Society at large expects me, a woman, to be polite, sympathetic, emotional and physically weak. I say eff that. I’m fairly often tactless (on accident), I’m only sympathetic when sympathy is deserved (like the aforementioned owners of the hit-by-car dog), I am actually quite stoic in person and I can easily heft 100lb dogs and have picked up and walked away with humans weighing up to 300lbs. I don’t let society dictate my behaviour. Why are you insulting men by saying that they MUST act a certain way if people think they will? It’s actually incredibly rude of you to suggest that men are so easily influenced and unable to make their own choices. Why do you hate men so much?
So we had these ‘wind warnings’
so a battened and covered and garaged everything
now
dead calm
I’m scared.
O_O Please stay safe Chigau.
Best of luck, Chigau. Be safe.
rowanvt
I think we’re OK.
There were some big gusts but it’s dark now.
We almost never get Big Wind after sundown.
Dalillama, I’m sure it’s all good now.
The youngsters next door have moved their party to their deck.
TBH, i don’t want an incomplete, either. I’m not coming back for fall semester, whether I graduate or not. I’ve run out of college-spoons.
I really really wanted to graduate from something finally. :-(
Jadehawk
I got nothing but virtual hugs and virtual rum.
all yours
You know what is so fucking cool? Since I’ve been reading FreeThoughtBlogs:
1 I recognize trolls (sometimes right away).
2 I recognize when a commenter is JAQing Off.
3 I recognize the double down.
4 I have made a point about atheism in a meatspace conversation.
Thanks, Horde!
After a bit of mulling it over and reviewing past failures, I’ve decided to start blogging again.
And this time not just one blog but TWO.
Probably conjoined on the same site.
Two, so that I can have them be more targeted instead of catch-all.
Both of them of little interest to anyone. :)
That reminds me of the time I saw the news report about “silent heart attacks” that had no symptoms or pain at all but were even more deadly than the regular kind.
Which scared the crap out of me because I felt perfectly fine at the time.
ednaz
yay!
I think you also learned of virtual rum.
[have some]
Jafafa Hots
I don’t know if you mean to link to your blogs through your ‘nym but it does not currently work.
DonDueed
I’m sorry this is a sad day for you.
We’re good listeners (if you like).
Chigau, yeah that is a dead domain for the moment. For the last couple years, actually.
I’m gonna probably go with Weebly for my site because of ease and ability to have two blogs… if so it will eventually go there.
I just registered NotaArcanum.com in case I decide to make one of the blogs separate or at least forwarded to with that domain.
chigau (違う)
Thanks! May I send you some as well?
Glad the winds have died down.
Giliell
Happy Anniversary!
And very cool necklace. Do you sell them? I am very poor right now, but I will not always be.
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Sending *hugs* to Jadehawk.
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thunk
May I send you a hot toddy? It may not cure anything, but you’ll feel better.
sending a *hug*, too
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rowanvt
I’m sorry about your last patient of the day.
May I send you *hugs* and hot tea or rum?
Jafafa Hots
Please let us know when your blog is up and running. I’d like to check it out. : )
(I hope I can trust Google Translate. It told me “mysterious notes” was Nota Arcanum, but when I translate the other way, it says it means Mysterious Note (which would be OK) but it also tells me Arcanum Notae for the plural, and Notae Arcanum, and Arcanum Nota, etc.
I dunno from Latin so I dunno in which case it’s putting the cart before the horse, etc.
:/
It’s for a blog where I’ll post my research about obscure and unusual musical instruments, so the “note” has a double meaning.
Hope I didn’t fuck up and get the wrong domain.
Thanks, ednaz!
One blog will be about what I describe above, and the other will be about public transportation history of the San Francisco Bay Area – ferries, steamships, cable cars, trolleys and streetcars, railroads, the bridges, old bus lines, MUNI, BART, etc.
(I have a TON of ephemera and have done lots of research.)
I can’t think of what to call THAT blog yet. “San Francisco Bay Area Transportation History” doesn’t sound too catchy.
Wind is … not.
Cat is snoring.
I’m for bed.
*hugs* *rum* *chocolate* *bacon* *etc*
Goodnight, dear chigau.
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Sounds very cool, Jafafa Hots.
*thumbsup*
Gnite chigau
(man, the web rolls up its sidewalks early. Being a night owl/sleep disturbed person kinda sucks on the net.)
Jafafa Hots
The next crew rolls in around 2. : )
Stinkin’ oceans.
Heh.
Reading about your trolleys made me look up the Judy Garland song – The Trolley Song. I love her voice.
I had never seen the video before. It looks like they’re sailing along – then there’s a guy running to catch up. It cracked me up and I had to save it to watch later.
I ♥ the Internet.
carlie
Thanks for the space link – I ♥ Chris Hadfield. I love the way he combines his music with his astronauting (I’ve posted these combinations before), and he loves educating people about space. More people like him.
Giliell
Fantastic necklace. I was left stunned at the intricacy.
*lotsofhugs* and *evenmorehugs* for the pile, I was out all day yesterday so I’m not sure exactly who needs them, but several people come to mind (Jadehawk, Cerberus, etc.).
ednaz
I have also learned many, many things from the Horde, and while I haven’t yet had the chance (or the guts) to do so in meatspace, I have engaged in several discussions on Facebook, of which I am very proud, and it is all due to these fine people here.
[leftover rum from yesterday for everyone!!!]
opposablethumbs
I did actually have a bit of trouble getting into freethoughblogs at one point last evening. I think it was high activity or something, it happens sometimes at peak hours (for America) and if PZ has just posted super-contentious threads.
Beatrice
re: my BF and her obsession with ‘natural’
Yes, I’m pretty sure natural = good to her. And she’ll throw money at the natural foods industry because it’s better for you, but that whole global warming/pollution thing contributing to higher skin cancer rates… Eh. I wrote her a reply, sometimes she sees sense, sometimes… This is what I mean when I say I am frustrated with the disparity between the perceived intelligence and actual intelligence of many people I know.
That being said, I have discovered that one of my cousins Downunder is an outspoken feminist [and another one is an anti-antivaxxer (and outspoken)], and I have been using her wall posts to practice against her not-so-feminist friends. *giggle*
+++
So yesterday had this choir photo orienteering thing where the choir used my (still new!) backyard as a sort of base of operations (and food – hence the rum!), which means that by collective umbrella invitation, the ChoirCreep was also invited. As long as he’s there in the crowd, it’s ok. When he doesn’t follow the rules of the game (which I and another (woman) choir member set up and explained) and purposely ignores them (staring me in the face and laughing, that is), I start not liking things. When he wanders around the inside of the house taking photos of our bedrooms (it was a strictly outdoors affair, except for the kids who were allowed in for a while to play with indoor toys), I start getting bothered, and not in the good way. What’s the protocol here?
He is also one of those people who tries to take charge of the conversation, whether he knows what he’s talking about or not (the information I tried to present about our impending trip to Canada comes to mind). Thank goodness he was in the same group as one of our members’ military husband, who ended up taking awesome charge of that group, and led them to a win. Had Creep been in charge, I doubt they would have been as successful. [/whinge]
Right. Other than that, yesterday was a very fun affair. It started with rain (as I also complained with all those chat noirs yesterday morning), but by 12 the clouds were thinning and around 1PM we got actual Sun for the rest of the day. And I didn’t pray at all! (Although the other organiser did… heh heh heh! The weather forecast was spot on, that is.)
Some linkage: Guess where you are! I suck at it. Maybe someone else here will have a better time! (It’s fun, though.)
Anyone else with a theory on why barns (in NA) are predominantly red?
Generation X doesn’t want to hear it. Which leaves me confused about my generation. I feel caught in the middle of it all.
Here is a musical octopus. Lounge Band mascot?
And a podcast with which my sister helps out from time to time. Feel free.
Goddammit, chigau, that was a poem! :)
Stinking oceans, indeed.
By the way, David (and Amphiox and anthrosciguy) – for many, many reasons (including proper debate, presentation of evidence and just plain information content), that AAH thread has been one of the most educational for me on this blog. I’ve been enjoying reading it, especially since I’m learning so much about the AAH and its many failings, as well as additional information about kidneys. Thanks! *bouquet&champagne&CertificateOfAppreciation*
I’ve begun thinking of chigau as a minimalist poet. ♥
He got his poety skills by nailing comment # 666 again :)
Raised by wolves? Here is a protagonist http://www.amazon.com/Alien-Taste-Ukiah-Oregon-Book/dp/0451458370/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368427873&sr=1-1&keywords=alien+taste
Original and pretty good SF.
I second the recommendation. Wen Spencer’s other series, starting with Tinker, is also excellent.
I am also a fan of Tanya Huff’s Blood series, recently adapted to television. I meant to see the TV series, but I learned yesterday that they completely wrote out the gay character from the books. This annoys me a great deal, and I am no longer willing to watch the series.
rq
Creep taking pictures of your bedrooms? WTF??
Please take action. If you don’t feel you can do it yourself, please get back-up. Several large male friends or relatives can have a chat with the Creep and let him know his actions are unacceptable and there will be consequences if he does not stop.
Please protect yourself and your family, rq.
This is not the time to be polite.
I hope my strong words do not offend you. You are a very good person. Creep’s actions are not your fault.
ednaz
Problem is, Husband and a friend to whom I mentioned the fact seemed pretty blase about
it. So now I’m all like… I don’t know. Not comfortable with inviting him anymore, at any rate, never mind blanket invitations. You’re not wording it too strongly. I want to take action. But I’m not sur-e what kind of action, because no one else seems to see the problem with Creep’s actions. *confoozled*
You’re a gr-eat person.
“The idea that men are “expendable” is really indistinguishable from idea that men are more powerful than women.”
Wow, it’s too bad all those slaves your country had didn’t realize how powerful they were. They wouldn’t have needed a war to gain their freedom. Wait, they did try rebelling at one point before the civil war, and I’m pretty sure a lot of them were slaughtered. I’m also fairly sure most of them were men. Men fighting for freedom, while the women and children stayed behind and awaited the gift of freedom paid for by the blood of their men to be handed to them. and all for naught. What great power. I don’t know if you realize what “power” really is.
” Men are expected to do the fighting because women can’t do the fighting. This is a perfect example of how gender disparity hurts both men and women. ”
First, it’s nice to know how weak you think women are. As somebody who worked with women, I can honestly say that’s a misconception. Women are expected to be weak, and many act accordingly. Many do not and I’ve met women half my size that are physically stronger than me. And secondly, in terms of fighting, how strong do you have to be to pull a trigger? Or is it their “weak” minds that can not handle confrontation?
“That is a common part of modern feminism. Feminism isn’t just about women, you know. It’ also about how gender roles harm men. If you were paying attention, you’d know that.”
I was paying attention. All I heard was that trolls made rape threats and that meant men were evil cavemen. For a board of intellectuals, it’s amazing how easily manipulated some of you are by morons.
“Stop the melodrama, the draft is being abolished in more and more countries ”
But some countries still force men to fight, kill and be killed against their will. Maybe if they were forced to wear veils people would actually care about how their lives are being taken from them. Or if they were being raped instead of being marched to their deaths. No, wait. Men get raped in prison all the time and people think it’s funny. Yeah, men have it real good compared to women.
“and women are disposable breeders expected to Give Their (Literal) All for their species. ”
Breeders is actually a term gay people use to disparage straight people. And while their purpose was to bear children, they were not disposable. They were expected to be protected by the man and all he could provide to do so. What’s the best way to protect something? Control it. Men only controlled women because they were expected to keep them safe. If women were expected to protect themselves, men wouldn’t have wasted their time trying to control women?
“fucking love this kind of bullshit. as if it weren’t the case that men were doing their very fucking best to keep women out of these jobs.”
Not in Canada. The disparity still exists in the police force, military, fire departments, construction and just about any job that might get you hurt or killed.
rq
I’m glad you got my message.
I’ve read your @86 and I’m working on my wording.
“idiot. women’s lives are considered even more disposable than that of men: “Even though they grow weary and wear themselves out with child-bearing, that is of no consequence; let them go on bearing children till they die, that is what they are there for””
When a tragedy occurs and the news reads the number of people who died, what do they say after? “Not just men, but women and children.” Why? Because men are expected to die, but women and children, that’s a REAL tragedy. And is that quote from the bible or a religious leader? I’m talking society, not schizophrenics.
ednaz
No, your wording is fine! You don’t need to work on it. I didn’t mean to imply that your wording was wrong. Say what you want, how you want. Within the bounds of Lounge rules, that is. ;)
Am I correct in understanding that the troll is to be ignored?
rq
I’m disappointed that your Husband and Friend are not listening to your concerns.
Is there anyone in the choir who you think might listen and take charge of the problem?
@ponyboy
This is not a conversation appropriate for the Lounge. Take it to Thunderdome.
ednaz
Silly, but I think it’s a matter of waiting. He’s a new member, and he’s been doing a lot to ingratiate himself in all kinds of ways. Most people (incl. sopranos and altos) seem to think he’s just a bit odd at the moment. I have expressed my concerns to a few other friends, so we’ll see. And no, I can’t think of anyone else who might understand my issue.
What else is funny (=ironic) is that we’re constantly looking for new (men’s especially) voices, and we just got rid of one creep (of the sort who hits on all the women continuously, believes in every conspiracy out there and won’t shut up about it, and who believes that a man can’t relax unless he does so with another woman (or several)), and in his place we have… another one. You’d think that in his 40 or so years, he’d have learned the meaning of personal boundaries. *sigh*
rq
I did not see your @92 before I posted. You did not imply that my wording was wrong. We’re A-OK. I just wanted to do my best to not offend or victim-blame.
I believe this is correct. Troll was asked by several people, including PZ, to take it to Thunderdome and he refuses.
More from Chris Hadfield – his first recording from space! And I didn’t know, but apparently he’s coming back to earth soon. That makes me sad, who will post wonderful photos and compose original music on the space station now??
ednaz
Thanks for being so considerate. :)
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/05/09/thunderdome-26/comment-page-1/#comment-617962
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/05/09/thunderdome-26/comment-page-1/#comment-618249
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/05/09/thunderdome-26/comment-page-1/#comment-618259
so:
i have a slight fever (C/F)
have been having sniffles, headaches, feeling hot-and-cold
i’ve been feeling off-balance, but not actually fainty
it’s been like that for 2 days now, with no improvement.
you think it’s worth going to the doctor, or should i wait and see if it gets better by itself for a couple more days?
Jadehawk
If going to the doctor is an option for you then, yes, please go.
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Amazing, Dr. Myers. I didn’t want to admit it, but certain people were right about you. I wanted to discuss the issue that men have to deal with unwanted cultural and societal expectations, just as women do. About what can be done to bridge the divide and show both sides have a stake worth fighting for in changing cultural perceptions.
Problem is, once you take the side of men, even when you equally take the side of women, you become something that must be destroyed. |Apparently my crime is that I refuse to say women had it worse, or that men had it better. Never mind the fact that I am a bisexual male who hates gender roles, did a 40 page essay on queer theory and the bending of gender norms for my Feminism class and who adores the freedom I have gained from telling both gay and straight men and women to take their ideas of what I am supposed to be and to go fuck themselves. I must be a misogynist brute who thinks raping women is just another form of obedience training.
Why else would I think men have problems to deal with, just like women? Maybe because I have my own experiences with men and women, like when four women sexually assaulted me at a party and tried to strip me naked while ignoring the multiple times I said “No”, and “Stop”. I was barely able to keep a hold of my boxers, but that didn’t stop their hands from grabbing whatever they wanted, regardless of what I wanted.
Or when a man cornered me in a gay bar and tried to stick his hand down the front of my pants. He received a broken wrist for not heeding my requests to keep his hand to himself. Had I done that to one of the girls’ wrists or hands, I would have been in the wrong. Labeled an abuser of women, because “There’s no excuse to hurt a woman”. Another gender disparity. Maybe I could have pressed charges against the women, but then again, I’m a man, so I must have wanted it, right? RIGHT?! You try telling police officers four girls sexually assaulted you and not be laughed out of the precinct.
The point is we all suck. Collectively and as individuals, regardless of how we may like to view ourselves, we are poorly trained primates who fancy themselves Gods and it’s fucking pathetic to watch and listen to. And until we all get off our high horses, and stop wearing our scars like badges that give us credibility on issues like this(myself included), there will be no progress. Because right now it is very apparent that all anyone cares about is wining the argument about who has had it worse. And we honestly think we can all achieve equality like this? How do you make things better when the only thing being argued over is who the bigger victims are? My opinion? NOBODY! Can we get to work now?
oops. that was meant to say 37.8C/100F
ponyboy!!!
You want to discuss, discuss freely in the THUNDERDOME! You have links available to you. You are not following the rules of Dr. Myers’ blog, you are being the asshole. You have been provided with information and direction that you choose to ignore continuously. You have been pointed to a location where such discussion is welcomed.
By continuing to engage in your one-sided discussion here, you are breaking the rules of the Lounge, and you are being the asshole.
Not every single space on Pharyngula must be open to every kind of discussion just because you wish it that way. Now go to the Thunderdome, and all (and I certainly do mean all) of your concerns and questions will be dealt with accordingly. NOW.
If PZ or other interested party reads this, I want to mention a successful campaign by a fundamentalist faction to make conservatives view “conservation” as a negative word.
The background is, a bunch of influential nutters claim the apocalypse is near, so we do not have to bother with commie stuff like “conservation”. They are a nasty kind of corporate shills, combining the “no regulation” belief of the Ayn Rand cult with fundie madness.
And they are winning. Many conservatives now see claims of a product being nature-friendly as a *negative* factor!
Alas, I forgot where I found the in-depth article about them.
rq
I’m just angry and frustrated that you’re expected to just put up with this crap.
I also understand about how you’re treading lightly in your choir group. Do you think you’ll lose your place if you out the creep?
You mentioned waiting. Do you have to wait until the others see he’s a creep before something will be done about it?
You are not wrong. You have someone on your side, even if she is on the other side of the world.
If you want to talk more (now or another time) it’s fine with me.
I’ll be turning in shortly, but not just yet. : )
Jadehawk
I would recommend paracetamol, hot teas and lots of rest. And if you have the option, a visit to the doctor (or at least a phone call about symptoms). *getwellsoon*
I apologize. It was three girls who did the assaulting. The fourth girl videotaped it. She still has the video. She’s a bisexual a well, poly-amorous, and a feminist and she told me she keeps it as a reminder of what I said in the previous post. It’s not men or women that are the problem. We all suck. Some of us just suck differently than others.
Seconding what ednaz said, rq. This is NOT acceptable – in fact it’s so far beyond the pale that the more people who know about it and indicate that to Creep, the better.
Thank you for the geography game, btw – by sheer fluke I got a couple it was easy to be accurate on (language I could identify visible in shot) so I scored reasonably well (that is, I got four out of five close, one half a world away. I should have considered it’s maybe not as random as you’d think, as people in some countries have supplied more data than in others).
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/05/09/thunderdome-26/comment-page-1/#comment-618280
well, it’s an option, just a potentially expensive one. so i kinda wanna know the horde’s opinion on whether that sounds serious enough to spend money on (if i ask webMD, it’ll probably tell me I have cancer :-p )
ednaz
Seriously, thanks. A lot!
You know what else? He didn’t just take photos of the inside of the house. He took photos of everybody else’s children, too. Those who were inside (I’m pretty sure without parental permission). They were all 10 and under or so. Theoretically, if he was photographing his own son (with or without other children), it would be less of a problem. Am I wrong in having all kinds of red flags go up?
He just makes me really uncomfortable. Please tell me if I’m exaggerating.
And yes, the whole waiting bit is for others to see that/if he really is a creep. Question is, how long will it take… Previous creep spent several years in the choir before he realized people didn’t appreciate him, and he left for a different choir. All the girls/women knew about him, but nobody ever said anything out loud. I think this is what people mean when they say ‘cultural approval’.
opposablethumbs
You’re welcome for the game! I’m definitely more misses than hits, but there’s something strangely compelling about it. :)
Also, thanks for the back-up. I just don’t know how to say anything to anyone. I don’t know who to say it to, and right now it’s making me a giant bundle of nerves, of the near-tears sort. Do we change the locks? Hire security? Be wary? And that’s just ourselves – how do I go about warning others? The idea scares me. Because it’s so easy for someone (well, everyone) just to go *pish* and wave me away.
ponyboy, you can evince honesty by leaving the Lounge and going to Thunderdome.
(I don’t fancy your chances)
Sorry, missed several exchanges there, rq. Sorry others are not getting it wrt your concerns, and I hope they are able to think about it a bit more. Would it do any good to keep notes documenting Creep’s behaviour?
I may have omitted to deliver the {{hugs}} for Jadehawk. You certainly have some coming: parcel of hugsandchocolate.
.
.
ponyboy, if you actually want to talk about this (as opposed to deliberately trying to get banned just so you can run off and squeak indignantly about it), do as numerous people have already advised you and take it to the Thunderdome. You’ve had any number of pointers – and your refusal to do so is transparently rude and silly. If you do eventually get banned, here’s the thing: it won’t be because of what you’re saying. It will be because of your petulant and self-indulgent refusal to say it in the appropriate place. For the nth time: the Lounge is not the place for the discussion you want to have – but there is a place right next door where you can have this discussion to your heart’s content. Take it to the Thunderdome or shut up.
No, rq, you are not exaggerating and you are not wrong in seeing red flags. I’m with ednaz. I’m really sorry no one else seems to be taking these concerns seriously. *Hugs* to you and I’m sorry you’re having to deal with this guy. Thanks for the hugs on the previous Lounge. I needed them :)
(PS. Twice in the last few days I’ve managed to find something just before you ended up linking to it! I’m catching up! GeoGuessr is one of them and I can’t remember the other.)
*
I’m sorry you’re feeling sick, Jadehawk. I’m terrible at knowing when to go to a doctor so I don’t think I can be of any help in that regard.
*
Ooh, birgerjohansson beat me at pointing out the beauty of chigau’s final comment in the previous Lounge. I had the giggles.
Clean up in the Lounge, please.
Not my day today
#1 and I had a fight, little one begged me not to spend the whole day in college, forgot a book at home and then forgot it again in the car…
rq
The creep did what? Honestly, I wouldn’t accept that person in my house again.
Ednaz
I do special orders I used to have a little online shop, but I couldn’t put enough effort into it to really get it going and at that low level it was more a drain on my nerves than a source of money. At the moment I mostly need a hobby to unleash the creativity.
Jadehawk
Ich drueck dir die Daumen for passing
Thanks for the info, Giliell. : )
rq
I know it won’t be easy for you, but the other parents need to hear about creep’s inappropriate behavior. What they do after that is beyond your control.
Would it be easier to just talk to a few parents at a time or the whole group at once?
Say something out loud. Then others will. Then things can change. I think you will be surprised and relieved when you learn others share your concern.
I’m turning in now, but I’ll be back in the lounge later today.
Take care, rq.
ednaz
Good night, and thanks for the encouragement!
Husband actually wrote me back an email, and it turns out his blase response was not so much him not caring as thinking through his own feelings on the subject. So he asked me to write Creep with a few questions about the photos, and to say that he (Husband) specifically has issues with the fact that a stranger wandered through our private spaces. (Yes, I have to write him because it’s my choir and I organized the event and all that other crap that comes with events.)
Jadehawk – probably not serious enough for a doctor, but a doctor might be able to give you a “delay finals” excuse if you think a few more weeks might be enough to get everything done.
rq – You’re allowed to dislike someone irrationally. We all know that you dislike him rationally, but for the people who refuse to see that after it’s been explained to them? You can just say “nope, don’t like him, don’t want anything to do with him, certainly don’t want him at my house.” You don’t have to like everybody, and you don’t have to be courteous to the point of inviting someone over. You are already at the point where you can have a blanket group party and still disinvite him specifically, by means of telling him that he didn’t respect your rules last time, so he doesn’t get to come. Or when the topic of more parties comes up around you, sigh regretfully and say that you wish you could have another one, but you can’t because he’s in the group and the last time he went snooping through your house taking pictures. I mean, really. There shouldn’t be anybody who hears that and doesn’t think that’s creepy.
Parrowing (above) !!
Thanks for the hugs! Right back for you!
And also sorry for pre-emptively posting. ;) Sometimes I just can’t resist!
carlie
Hey, I hadn’t actually thought of it as being allowed to dislike someone irrationally. You’re right! I don’t need to make excuses to anyone about not liking him. Ha! That’s a nice feeling.
+++
Creep update:
I wrote him with the question of why he took the photos, and that myself and Husband didn’t like it, and we have serious reservations about such activity, and we were shocked to discover that someone from choir would behave so disrespectfully.
And to distribute the children’s photos to the parents, but if it’s too difficult for him, I could do it, too. (This was in a more polite tone of word.)
His response? Basically, *tee hee* (sun emoticons/giggly emoticons), all private photos have been deleted, calm down! *giggle emoticon*
So I wrote back saying that I see nothing humourous in somebody’s invasion of my and my family’s private space, and that I won’t take that attitude from him, considering his previous non-rule-following attitude, and that if he chooses to see it as one big joke, he can not come to the next party.
Too harsh? (I think not.)
Y’all are gonna give me a swelled head ;)
Hi all
Week two of giving up the evil cancer sticks. Probably time to address my new addiction to sucking boiled sweets instead :-(
rq
Sorry to hear about your creep problem.
I think you got the tone just right (certainly not too harsh). He certainly shouldn’t be making light of your concerns, and definitely shouldn’t be attending the next party until he realises how his actions how his actions can and have been making people uncomfortable.
I think you were absolutely right, rq.
it’s 3hrs worth of lab; i could get it done in 3 hours, just as long as i were allowed to (it was supposed to be a group project, and i’m not a group, so that’s a problem too); and I already e-mailed the prof begging for a chance to do enough work to pass, with attached letter from the health clinic about my increasingly mental health problems.
I haven’t heard back from him though. And the final is on wednesday, and then i’m leaving for WIS on thursday (or not; if he gives me the chance to do labwork on thu or fri to pass the class, i’m not going to WIS)
chigau
It would be deserved.
I aspire towards your economic use of words. aspire being a very key word here!
And thanks, y’all, for all the moral support. You make me feel like I do things right from time to time.
*drinks of choice for everyone*
Study finds political ideology impacts decision-making regarding energy-efficient products http://phys.org/news/2013-04-political-ideology-impacts-decision-making-energy-efficient.html
Nah, it’s the peas. (I seem to recall you were tricked into planting some recently.)
Or a horse trod on your head. (Those peas are tricksy buggers.)
One of the current
clownsidiots in the UK’s government is a stunning fool named Michael Gove, who is the Education Secretary. Here’s the latest example, Gove’s claims of teenagers’ ignorance harpooned by retired teacher:Strolling down the childhood lane: The Sweater. For hockey fans and French Canadians everywhere.
(I turned on the Latvia-France game purely due to superstition. The one game they managed to win this Championship (against Slovakia, of all teams – I mean that in a good way, seeing as they’re last year’s vice-champions!) was the one that we actually watched. So I’m hoping all the superior powers of the world will focus on me and my game watching (and ignore all the French fans) and… oh, hey, let’s just call this a science experiment, a test of good luck charms and superstition. I’m afraid, though, that our boys will prove Murphy (or someone) correct once again: lose when it matters, win when it don’t.)
Should I feel proud that Pony responded to everyone *except* me when I pointed out his own phrasing was incredibly belittling of men?
Here’s a headline I doubt you’d ever see on a mainstream USAlienstan news site, Boyfriend says my vagina is repulsive. That’s currently on the UK version of The Grauniad’s site (it’s a link to one of their blogs).
I don’t see in on the current USAlienstan Grauniad site, albeit there is ‘A bikini body’? Don’t bother. That is also a blog link. There was a related post on that same fashion blog last week, which made a number of good points. So does this follow-up post:
And yes, the above list really is missing item 5. The Grauniad is Tpyos’s favourite.
(The mildly deranged penguin points out that bikinis — and any form of this “clothes” thing — interferes with the long pig sundrying process on the beach.)
A one-in-a-billion dinosaur find (boldfacing mine):
rq,
You are not being too harsh with the creep. He’s crossing boundaries like whoa, and you are perfectly right to be upset about his behavior. Taking photos of your bedroom? *shudder*
In uppity women news: over the weekend parents and fans have been slamming Disney’s makeover of Merida (from “Brave”) into just another pretty-pretty princess. (Image link here) Girl empowerment site A Mighty Girl started a Change.org petition with over 50K signatures so far.
This morning, “Brave” creator and Oscar winner Brenda Chapman laid INTO Disney for prettying up the character she made specifically as a better role model for young girls:
Source (via BoingBoing)
Today’s xkcd,
–
rq: ChoirCreep needs a firm smack-down. He had no business wandering around in your house, and he emphatically had no business taking pics of your bedrooms! IMO. YMMV. Void Where Prohibited By Law. Tip Your Waiter. In Space, No One Can Hear Him Scream.
(Later)
No.
No.
(Even later)
It’s good to know that your husband is with you on this!
(Still later yet)
No, definitely not too harsh. His tee-hee-dismissive response to your concerns, alone, earned him a smack-down.
–
Tricksy and false, yes they are, precioussss.
–
rq
There seem to have been developments overnight my time. *hugs*for having to deal with that creep in the first place, and you’re absolutely not out of line in your response; if anything, you were rather restrained. He was acting like a total creeper.
Pteryxx
I am outraged, but unfortunately not surprised by this.
Jadehawk
If it will cost too much, I wouldn’t, although if you can get an extension it might be worth it.
Also, the comments on that link Pteryxx posted…argh.
I love today’s xkcd. I immediately bookmarked it.
Since you’re still here… nope, from the moment when Linnaeus first applied the word Primates to anything other than a rank in the church hierarchy, it has always included us. Here, look.
And don’t reply to me here; anything else I’ll say to you will be in the [Thunderdome].
Thanks, everyone, for all the support. I cannot speak too highly of any of you, I’m too short!
Creep Update:
He responded to my response with an apology (for his bad behaviour, not for upsetting me – and he really wasn’t actually laughing about the situation), with a request for forgiveness, and a reminder that we are all different.
So, I am of a mind to:
1) accept the apology, conditionally;
2) not forgive him, and tell him so (but does this void #1?);
3) issue a reminder that, while we may all be different, he is old enough (46!!) to know that, when it comes to private space and personal boundaries, communication is key, especially when visiting someone’s home for the first time.
I still have no firm answer about why he took such pictures, but I think I scared him. I also know that at least one of the regular oldsie basses is on my side (he also irrationally does not like the new member). This came up somewhat randomly in phone conversation about children, I’m not trolling other choir members for opinions. ;) Yet.
+++
I hate what they did to Merida. :(She is definitely not the sparkly sort of princess, and… just… *sigh* at least one without the sparkles? Is that really too much?
Today’s xkcd (thanks, cicely!) is the best. Facebooking.
blf
What an amazing fossil find! Now to start digging in my own backyard… Oh wait, it’s all seashells and limestone.
The sparkles don’t bother me nearly as much as how the dress is now off-the-shoulder. Bad enough that it’s “We have to show more skin”, but for an archer? Talk about impractical!
rq – Nope. I think he’s playing on you for sympathy now so you’ll drop your guard. My suggestion would be that at the most you can say you’re glad he seems to realize it was wrong, but that no, you still will not be inviting him over again ever. You don’t have to outright say that you refuse to accept his apology, but can still not offer any language that implies that you do.
I tragically suffered an insufferable tragedy.
I bought a 4-pack of Ommegang Hennepin.
And the top of the carton ripped.
And I dropped the 4-pack.
One broke. Shattered. On the tarmacadam. The crushing of the bottle crushed me, too.
========
In all seriousness, Hi. Other than the tragic tragedy, things are going good. Just took two racks of ribs out of the freezer for Boy’s 23d birthday dinner tomorrow (his birthday is calendarnormative Friday, but doing ribs right takes time and I calendarnormative Friday is my Thursday.
*restocks hug truck*
*pours molten chocolate over it*
Oceans open and close. Just a bit too slowly sometimes.
*smells bouquet*
^_^ ^_^ ^_^
Both of these are an American thing nowadays.
There are ways around that, you know.
Seconded.
Nope. I don’t believe for a minute that he actually deleted any photos. Don’t be afraid to call the police if he keeps behaving like that.
As expected from oil sand. :-)
Signed.
Yeah, fuck that noise. I’m with carlie; he’s sorry he got caught, and that you’re standing up to him. You’re under no obligation to accept his apology, or ever allow him in your home again. I wouldn’t do either.
Allo allo!
Badly threadrupt. But now caught up.
Opened my incubator the other day, found that the water tray was (1) cloudy and (2) having large clumps of fuzz floating in. D: D: D:
Am now preparing for my trip to WIS this weekend! ^_^
People in either the Corning-Harrisburg-Baltimore corridor or the Binghamton-Scranton-Philadelphia corridor are invited to drop me a line to discuss the possibility of me stopping by for tea/lunch/shenanigans.
rq, I’m inclined to think that carlie #143 has the right of it. You can be glad he realises the behaviour was wrong. You could, if you wanted to, acknowledge the apology in a way that makes it clear that that’s all you’re doing; that it does NOT mean all is now forgiven and forgotten; any possible change in his future status vis-a-vis ever darkening your doors again has to be earned by actions, not fine words (which as we all know, butter no parsnips (they’re better roasted, imo, but the saying says “buttered” so what can you do)). You could certainly issue that reminder, if you wanted to.
.
Happy birthday to Boy, Oggie, and commiserations on the bottle (deceased).
The way you talk about the way you cook makes me envious on a regular basis.
rq:
Perhaps provisionally accept his apology while still hitting him with your #3 at full force?
I just got spam. It’s from ‘REVEREND BEN WILLIAM’ (single quotes in the original), and the subject is: YOU NEED A LOAN. With a period.
I love it so! :-)
“LivingSocial continues to offer deals that encourage buyers to engage in a dangerous mix of alcohol and guns. In some cases, customers are even sold packages combining the shooting of assault weapons like the ones used in the Virginia Tech and Aurora, Colorado massacres, and a night of drinking beer or bourbon.” Petition to end that.
“House Republicans have passed a bill that repeals mandatory overtime pay.
Yes, you read that right. House Republicans have decided that hourly workers have it too cushy when they receive extra money for working extended hours. So, this week they passed the so-called ‘Working Families Flexibility Act’, which gives business owners the flexibility of not paying hourly workers a higher hourly rate for overtime work.”Petition to end that, too. Also, survey by UltraViolet.
“On July 1st, the interest rate on new federal student loans is set to double from 3.4% to 6.8%. That rate is nine times higher than the rate at which the government loans money to the big banks”, which is 0.75 %.” That makes Sen. Elizabeth Warren unhappy. “Become a citizen co-sponsor of her bill to give students the same ultra-low interest rates as big banks.” “Students don’t get the same Too Big to Fail guarantee as the big banks. But even though some students can’t pay their loans, overall the government is making 36 cents on every dollar we put into the student loan program. Next year, student loans are expected to bring in $34 billion.”
Now that you mention it, it looks positively painful. :-S
Even so…
I can’t shake the feeling that “red” is supposed to equal “wild” in this.
That’s, like, the opposite of how penicilin was discovered.
The “thanks for signing” e-mail from Mighty Girl contains an e-mail for sending to all my imaginary friends. It’s in German… and unbelievably embarrassing. X-)
For the forward thinking, a practical solution. And assembly instructions.
re: Creep
I see a lot of ‘conditionally’ and ‘provisionally’, which is my feelings too (as Ogvorbis put it so well, a provisional #1 followed up with a resounding #3), so I’ll take this evening/night to think about how to word a reply that will convey all I mean to say. (Including future actions, which must not be defined by those of the sucking-up type, ew.)
But yes, outright forgiveness is Out of Order.
Thanks again, y’all, wonderful wonderful, I can’t say it enough today.
A paper with two equally last authors. I’ve seen papers with 2 equally first authors, there’s at least one with 2 equally second authors, but 2 equally last ones is new…
What’s also new is the paper’s conclusion about the phylogenetic tree of Neoaves (most extant birds): it’s not just extremely difficult to resolve as we used to think, there’s not much there to resolve! It’s all gibbering madness! It’s not a tree, it’s a net! Incomplete lineage sorting and introgression! Dogs and cats living together! AhahahaHAAAAAAA!!!!! *shriek*
The same, BTW, was already known to be the case for Laurasiatheria (most extant placentals that aren’t rodents). In both cases this looks like a radiation into the empty world after the K/Pg boundary mass extinction.
Uh, open-access paper on phylogenetic net of Laurasiatheria.
Pteryxx
Thank You for the link to the petition about changing Merida. She was perfect the way she was. She does not need to be changed.
Can you tell I signed? : )
–
It’s only right. : )
–
markbrown
What you’re doing is difficult. Please keep giving up.
It is worth it.
–
blf
Thanks for sharing the bikini body article. The message needs to be heard.
–
Ogvorbis
My condolences on the lost bottle.
*moment of silence*
My envy of your cooking skills continues unabated. : )
–
Hope you have an awesome time at WIS, Esteleth!
–
David Marjanović
Signed petition to end employers ability to not pay overtime. (Thanks for the link.)
Already signed Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s petition.
–
*snort*
“Republicans need to know that healthcare reform isn’t just another ideological battle, and your signature will help send them that message.
Tell Republicans: I support Obamacare“
Gah.
rq
I am so glad your Husband has your back! And very glad to read your updates. If I may be so bold:
1 Creep is not forgiven.
2 Creep is not invited to your house again.
3 Creep’s behavior was wrong. It’s on him.
I am glad you are taking your time to respond to him.
This is very good. Big *thumbsup* for you, rq.
Hi folks
Oh my goodness
Had a loooong discussion with BFF (who doesn’t believe in god but very much in the catholic church)
I think we had 4 rounds of “You say I’m a homophobe!!!” “No, I’m saying that you support a homophobic organisation”.
See, that’s why I don’t think the “what you said was ….” approach works.
+++
rq
Yay on being firm.
Seriously, you don’t owe that person another chance. It’s his problem.
+++
Hehe, two things I firmly established with the kids: Birds are dinosaurs and humans are apes.
Got a B in social theory, and still no response from prof in the class i’m failing.
I was going to say I’m not handling this well, but that strikes me as a too optimistic. I’m not even handling it badly; I’m just plain not handling it at all. Seems like I’ve not just run out of college-spoons, but of all spoons
:-(
jadehawk
*hugs* and a shipment of large stainless steel spoons.
More hugs to Jadehawk.
Damn, Jadehawk :-((. I’d send you a whole canteen of spoons if I could. {{hugs}}}
Jadehawk – *many lots and lots of chocolate*
Stand firm rq. This is not a matter of a clumsy social faux pas by a blundering adolescent nor any kind of “culture clash” from a newly arrived immigrant who’s never before used a chair or a fork. And it’s not a matter of you and your family having any special, pernickety rules about host and guest privileges. (And I’d say if you were pernickety, it’s your house, pernicket away.)
This is an adult man who violated ordinary social norms, boundaries, private spaces, all the rest of it – and took. photos. to. confirm. that violation. Hold his feet to the fire. Tell him you accept his apology as offered. Finding the words to say but stay away from my kids and my house anyway might be a bit of a trick. (Might be a bit easier for you to do than for any of us. You can maintain the rage for as long as it takes to get this out of your system and keep this guy out of your street.)
Finally watched all of Firefly. Just started the Serenity movie, and what the hell? Everybody seems to have undergone a massive personality change. Went from the entire season building up that Mal treats the Tams as members of the crew to suddenly telling them they’re not? Zoe almost crying? What is happening here?
*grumble*
And I understand the need for exposition for people who hadn’t watched it before, but for the flashback of Simon saving River to include the guy in charge hand-feeding all the information it took him the entire season to figure out is a continuity error and then some.
The short answer is that the show got canceled near the beginning of the multi-season story arc, and the movie had to try to tie everything up in the equivalent of 2 episodes time.
More on college tuition exacerbating (and exploiting) classism:
Quote from BB, Atlantic article here.
I wonder if Mensa has anything to say about this?
Huh. I always thought Serenity was a prequel…
*shrugs*
Okay.
WMDkitty
It can’t possibly be; there’s no way that the end of the movie could lead into the beginning of the series, for reasons that are obvious but spoilery, so I’m not going to specify.
(and I realized that that response might be confusing; reading it, I realized that I went from assuming you had seen it to assuming you hadn’t partway through)
I’ve seen it. May have to watch it again.
*large pile of hugs* for Jadehawk.
You’ve been ill. I don’t see that you can be faulted for not processing when you’re ill.
–
well, i seem to be “faulted” for not… fixing it, or dealing with it in the correct way or… I don’t know. In any case, I’m failing because of depression and because I’ve been getting colds/flus/infections on average once every 3 weeks, not because I don’t know the material. Feels like being faulted for being ill to me.
That’s what’s so weird – the movie was entirely fanservice for the devotees, but it started out directly contradicting things that happened in the series itself, and those fans are the kinds of fans who would notice even the slightest deviation, no matter huge ones. It got better, and maybe the difference was more stark because I went straight from one to another, but still.
I just met my future brother-in-law.
Something tells me we are not going to be close.
carlie
There was a long, dark time between the end of Firefly and the release of Serenity.
We were grateful for what we got.
Hey, speaking of FireFly etc., I finally watched it early this year, and liked it.
Figured that maybe I should watch that Buffy show since it’s the same guy, couldn’t get through the first episode.
Is the “Angel” series worth trying?
– Jafafa Hots, nothing but time on his hands.
Jafafa Hots
I have heard that SMILING suppresses the gag reflex.
:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)
Like trekkies with the first Star Trek movie.
–
Jafafa Hots
Buffy was definitely worth watching.
I understand how it would be hard to get into starting from Episode One.
I didn’t start watching until the end of Season 2 and then watched the earlier episodes to fill in the back-story.
I really ♥ Angel but it’s a bit incoherent.
Good timing, carlie.
uh…
:)
He’s a right-winger, you could tell he was uncomfortable in California, especially in Berkeley.
There were people with long hair selling artwork on the sidewalk!
And that discussion about the workers picketing because they are paid a fraction of what other workers in the same job elsewhere in the region are paid, and their union reps were locked out? Shut up and quit your job if you don’t like it! Someone will be willing to do it for minimum wage!
What’s this, there’s no MEAT at this vegan diner? And these other restaurant and store signs – what the hell is “Panamanian Bread?” How freakish and bizarre! And Salvadorean Bread? THE VERY IDEA!!!!
Why my liberal sister chooses right-wing afraid-of-anything-different types I’ll never understand.
Jafafa Hots
Where on “Earth” is the poor dear from?
I live in Edmonton, Alberta, (AKA Redneck Central) and I can see all of that when I go grocery shopping.
He was born and raised in Tampa.
As we sat eating, he pulled out his iPhone and checked the streaming video from the cameras he’s installed in every room of the house so that he could monitor what my sister’s teenage daughters were doing back in FL.
I found that a bit creepy. He checked everything and then texted my nieces “close the garage door.”
Checked to make sure they were in the house, sitting at their laptops texting or whatever.
Jafafa Hots
That is sending up all kinds of red flags for me, right there.
Jafafa
You have my sympathy.
[If I were the teenage daughters, I’d shutting down his cameras and sensors.]
[with chewing gum and aerosol whipped cream, if necessary]
Yeah, it’s creepy.
But they mostly like him, because he buys them all the latest gadgets.
They have a big screen TV in every room of the house INCLUDING THE BATHROOMS.
When I mentioned not having a TV he got a look on his face like he’d just eaten a slug. And he was almost offended by the fact that I have no speakers attached to my computer. (We like quiet here… nothing running without someone using it, and when in use – headphones.)
I keep hoping that the cameras in every room thing is not that he is a creepy control freak but hopefully just a gadget addict.
It is worrying though because I am disabled, my housing fate will some day be influenced or even determined by my siblings, and this sister is the only one in my family who has had understood my interests in that sense – if he gets control, I’m fucked.
My nieces are half-way out of the house now, so hopefully they are already properly radicalized and maybe he won’t do too much damage there.
I suggest “ball pean hammer and a call to CPS.” Especially if they’re really in “every” room.
Since he found them as he cycled through the rooms, I dunno if they are in the bedrooms.
I hope not, I’d be surprised if my sister allowed that.
Later he checked and all the rooms were dark – checking to make sure they’d gone to bed.
(One is 21 years old but basically visiting from college, the others are 19, 15 and 14.)
Wow.
This puppy would be sooo easy to fool.
Has he never seen a Mission Impossible movie? or episode?
like on the TV?
….okay, does anyone have an explanation for that INSUFFERABLE thing where you said someone an email that clearly and completely describes the issue, they reply by picking out a few phrases and responding to them at random while ignoring the context, and then ask you to give them a complete explanation verbally the next time you see them?
Azkyroth,
Why would you read them an email? If it’s a long email, it’s difficult to remember all you’ve said. I wouldn’t be surprised if they asked you later to explain parts of it. You really should have sent it instead.
(that was an attempt at a joke)
(a bad one)
Azkyroth #194
You need to write short sentences.
Each phrase is a sentence.
No one can cherry-pick short sentences.
Unless.
They.
Really.
Try.
[/Kirkspeak]
Good morning!
Today is a travelling circus day, which means I have to take the two younger kids downtown via (old-style, high-up) train and then via trolley to my mother’s place. Them, and assorted bags, knick-knacks, and Pooh bears.
And yesterday, Middle Child attempted to show his independence… by cutting his own hair, with the big scissors, while standing on a table (which he had to climb in order to reach the scissors). To be fair, it was a spontaneous decision, because his piggy bank is on that same shelf, and I’d completely forgotten the scissors were next to it, but right in his line of sight when he went to drop his newly found coins into the bank. He now sports an asymmetric, if evened out, haircut.
In other news, I’m still working through Firefly, and I’m enjoying it, but I’m trying to see how it fits into the movie… Which it isn’t really doing, mostly for the reasons carlie mentions. They’re all starting to fit together, which doesn’t fit with the beginning of the movie all that much. Although, if I remember correctly, the reason Simon is all angry at Mal at the beginning of the movie is because he doesn’t want his sister to be used on their jobs anymore, so maybe they’re at odds with each other for new, developed reasons. We’ll see.
Jafafa Hots
Sorry for you having to deal with your sister’s selection. :( He sounds a bit like a creep. I mean, cameras in the house is one thing; checking them regularly to make sure the ‘kids’* are inside is a bit much. But wait, he has no night-vision setting? Maybe he’s not so bad. (And buying them all kinds of gadgets also sounds like bribery, but I may be oversensitive from my own recent Creep dealings.)
*I say ‘kids’ because while 14 is definitely a kid, 21 is not so definitely so.
+++
Dear Movie Remakers,
It’s not about race! Reeeealllyyyyy!!!
Love,
Racist Fans
rq
And the stupid starts at comment one on that link, too. I admit, my first thought when it said that Johnny Storm was going to be black was “What about Sue, then?” Although the author is entirely correct that there are many ways that it could come to pass that she was white and he’s black, I don’t really see any point in adding them into the story instead of hiring a black actor to play her too.
I decided not to do the comments on that story. The examples in it were bad enough.
And, strangely apropos of this and the Cumberbatch discussion. Nooooo, there’s no white-washing going on in movies at all!
rq, thanks for the “nerd racism” link, I just tweeted it.
Never really been a comic book fan, but it seems there’s “ick” everywhere you look.
The purpose of junk DNA: nothing.
Geez, I go away for a little while and look what happens. WTF?
Good news everyone! Going to DC this weekend with Esteleth!
My boss is still being a jerk. I reported her bullying and what did I get? A performance review. Of course.
There’s just so much happening, all at once. Information overload.
Good morning
Yay for all the folks meeting at the weekend
Jafafa Hots
Urgh Serious red flags for future brother in law. Checking on your nieces at that age especially when they’re not his kids? Bad, if you ask me.
rq
I do not envy you that task but I hope you have fun there
+++
Also the University of Monty Python struck again
They managed to delete all registrations for the practicals…
correct emotional response: OMG I get to meet SallyStrange finally!!!!111!!!!!!!!!!!
actual emotional response: . . .
there’s something seriously broken in my head right now :-/
Congratz!! And I just know that you will all have a ball. Now if everyone of you guys could also buy a ticket and hop onto a flight for Dublin in 6 weeks time, I won’t feel so lonely there. Since I have this sinking feeling that no amount of Guinness will wash away the awkwardness that will be spending a whole weekend with Michael Nugent.
Jadehawk – Anything I could think to say would be some variant of offering to help you find your dead fish, so I’ll just offer more virtual hugs.
Hugs to Jadehawk.
Sympathy to Jajafahots.
Wish I could actually do rather than just type.
‘rupt, more than I have been in a while. Work’s been busy. Which is great. But a bit stressful. I’ll be okay though. *hugs* all around, I’ve missed hanging around here (for the whole two days it’s been or so. I’m spoiled).
Psst…PZ won’t like this, but…http://writtenkitten.net/
Written kitten!
Dear Sirs,
It seems you are having a few difficulties with this new-fangled concept called “papyrus”. For instance, recently all registrations, written only on this papyrus stuff, were lost.
I can sympathize! Clay tablets are much easier to manage. Provided, of course, you don’t drop them.
I am fully behind your efforts to catch up to the latest in 3rd C. BCE technology, and do hope you will also eventually embrace the “alphabet” and “positional notation”, among other astonishing advances in the human intellect.
May I offer some suggestions on the use of papyrus? I have been using the stuff for some time now, along with ink, quills, and other key bits of paraphernalia.
1. Do not put papyrus near a source of heat. Such as a fire. Papyrus burns — catches fires — and is destroyed.
2. Do not allow papyrus to become wet. Don’t spill water, beer, wine, grog, or any other liquid on it. The papyrus weakens considerably and can tear. That is perhaps desirable for a dancer’s clothing, but not for writing.
3. Also, the ink used to write on papyrus can “run” if the papyrus becomes wet. This is similar to the dyes in your clothing vanishing after washing. The writing is lost.
4. Finally, there is an enormous advantage to papyrus — if you use it properly: The “backup”. It’s easy to make what is called a “copy” of what’s been written. Write the text out again — on a different piece of papyrus — and then put this “copy” in a different place. By doing this, if one of the disasters 1–3 listed above happens, you still know what was written: Just look at the copy.
I trust that the above suggestions and advice are helpful. Please pass this note on to your experts to help them continue advancing your amazing abilities.
Cheers!
–blf.
p.s. This note is not written in hieroglyphics. You will need someone to translate it for you.
dianne – OMG that is the best thing ever. I’ve seen some sites that do a similar thing, but without the reward kitten. I wrote a block of jibberish text just to get to the kitten, and then “aww”ed loudly enough for the entire hallway to hear.
The cows in England (Man trampled to death by cows) got the wrong men: Japanese mayor says second world war ‘comfort women’ were necessary:
(Just to be clear: There is no suggestion the two trampled gentlemen England, or the cows, are or were in any way involved in sexual slavery.)
Man trampled to death by cows
Right. I’m going to England next month. When I do I am staying completely away from the cows. No eating them, no looking at them in the field, no walking through fields with them, no eating horses by mistake thinking that they’re really cows. None of that.
I’m undecided on the question of cheese still, but otherwise, no cow products.
Bring the MDP. The cheese can’t trample you if she gets it first.
But the MDP might.
More on the Bangladeshi garment industry. First the good news: Guardian link
Another Guardian link
The bad news: Salon link
As of Monday the search for bodies has stopped, with the death toll at 1,127.
Here’s a perfect opportunity for pro-lifers to show they actually care about human lives. They could make up giant posters of the mangled bodies of Bangladeshi factory workers and protest outside Wal-Marts and Gaps.
An interesting compare-and-contrast article on Exploitation Racism and Competition Racism:
Two Kinds of Anti-Muslim Racism in the Netherlands.
–
*pouncehugs* for SallyStrange. And Portia.
–
Jafafa Hots, this guy sounds deeply creepy to me, even if he happens have a raging case of technophile in addition to being a creepster.
–
That would be the depression. That lying liar that lies.
:( :( :(
All I can offer is *hugs* and sympathy.
And, as carlie says, an offer to help you find your dead fish. Or turn them into finger puppets. Maybe arrange a seance?
–
“Sakihito Ozawa, the party’s parliamentary affairs chairman, said he believed Hashimoto’s remarks reflected his personal view but expressed concerns about repercussions. “We should ask his real intentions and stop this at some point,” he said.”
How about now?
–
Won’t be a problem so long as you keep the MDP between you and any on-rushing cheeses.
Let her take point.
–
Hia all.
Checking in. Rupt by a couple months atleast, so dumping pile-of-non-imposing-hugs, if they’re needed, here.
*Hugs* for all who need them, yay for the folks that are traveling and meeting people in person.
Extra *hugs* to Jadehawk. Depression sucks.
I do wonder what he means by ‘Official’ evidence? Does he mean that the Imperial Army didn’t write : “Hey, we rounded up a bunch of sex slaves today.” in the records?
Vilem Saptar
Long time no see. Welcome back. *hugs* if desired.
Hello, Vilém Saptar!
*takes a hug from the pile and wanders off*
Jadehawk – I hope it works out OK.
rq – I agree with the consensus here! You’re quite right to be creeped out – if someone violates boundaries in two different ways, it’s likely they will do so in others.
Our poor old dog is sick. Probably a stroke, possibly an inner-ear infection, the main symptoms being loss of balance, vomiting, anorexia, partial loss of bladder and bowel control. Even though she’s (at minimum) almost 14, the vet is quite optimistic she will recover, but at present she won’t take the prescribed pills, even concealed in nutella. I suppose we could try and make her (hold the mouth open, put the pill in, close the mouth, stroke the throat), but even if this worked they’d probably just come up again. Next few days will be critical.
Best of luck with your sick dog, Nick Gotts.
–
*reloads the hug flatbed for Jadehawk, rq and Dog Gotts*
—
For Mother’s Day, Boingboing linked to this 2003 essay about Feynman. No, the other one… Joan Feynman, who retired from NASA’s JPL that year.
My Mother, the Scientist
Turns out Creep is also a raging homophobe, to the point of ‘line them up and shoot them all’.
So, once the last letter (as of now) is sent, that’s some serious unfriending (the social network does not allow me to send letters to persons not my ‘friends’ due to privacy settings, and I only friended him because of this issue). *shudder* Good riddance.
*hugs* and other *gestures* for all, esp. Nick re: the dog. It’s always sad when they get old. :( But tha’s life, I guess!
@rq
Just one more reason not to feel bad about drop-kicking that asshat straight out of your life.
Hey Dalillama! Hey Beatrice!
Can always use hugs, thanks Dalillama.
*waves* at cicely and everyone else in lounge.
Pteryxx! Great to
seeread you!Nick Gotts – hope your dog gets better quickly.
Commiserations to Jadehawk, Jafafa Hots and rq.
Pteryxx @224
What an inspiring link! Thank you!
*waving back*
Hi, Vilém; welcome back!
–
I was scared to go to rehearsal tonight but he wasn’t there. Either way, what with my stomach doing flipflops on the bus on the way there, and realizing I’m terrified to face him in real life, I was comforted by the thought of the Horde invisibly behind me.
Thank you all.
Good night! And good luck.
things that happened today:
1)i woke up with something vaguely resembling a human mood
2)went to health clinic, was told it’s probably a viral infection, got told to eat hot spicy food and drink lots of tea and sleep a lot; no ear infection tho, so I’ll be ok flying on Thursday.
3)Finally heard back from prof; apparently the final project got cancelled cuz prof couldn’t get ahold of other prof who was in charge of the bones we were supposed to be looking at. so I’m only missing one small lab and one paper report, rather than a project worth 20% of my grade
I give this a wimpery little “yay”
Jadehawk
Yay for assorted good new.
Queen to crowbar cannabis legalisation into speech http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/queen-to-crowbar-cannabis-legalisation-into-speech-2013050767719
— — — — — — — —
Regarding “Firefly” and “Angel”; there is another good TV series: “Moonlight”. Much better than the wossname, current blood-drinker crap.
Alas both Moonlight and the series about Harry Dresden got canned after one season.
— — — — — — —
“Japanese mayor says second world war ‘comfort women’ were necessary”
Also, why are people so down on that Hitler fellow?
birgerjohansen
That link is a satire site, unfortunately.
Granted, that’s clearly a joke, but how would the English respond if the Royal family were to interfere in politics in such a manner?
In Denmark, we have a system where the Queen is head of state, with the understanding that she’s never allowed to do anything whatsoever. The royal family isn’t even allowed to voice opinions in matters of politics. They’re supposed to stay strictly out of it.
I have the feeling that the English might be a bit more forgiving about it than us, but I’m not really sure. Can anyone give an opinion on that?
Here’s to the “yay”, Jadehawk, even if it’s a little one. That actually sounds pretty good; glad to hear you had a smidgen of good news, and hoping you get more good things, whether great or small, happening soon. And here’s to the trip on Thursday!
.
Nice to see you again, Vilém!
.
rq, the more you tell us about this bloke the more it sounds like you’re better off the further away you keep him. I don’t think I could have made that sentence much more awkward, but the important bit is clear enough: he’s well crossed off your list. Good for you, for taking the steps you did in a straightforward and decisive manner. In case facing him in real life goes on being an issue, it might be an idea to make sure at least a proportion of people in choir know what happened and why you cut him off. So they’ll be aware of the situation in case of any awkwardness, and hopefully they’ll be inclined to watch your back.
.
i don’t remember who the monitors are anymore, but i want one of them to send an e-mail to PZ about yorsubs. Making jokes to someone with serious depression about how they should just take Prozac instead of arguing is fucking beyond the pale.
I’m out of that discussion. That shit just stole all my spoons again :-(
Jadehawk, I’m glad to hear about the good (if qualified) news about your problem class…and sorry that some complete asshat stole your spoons. I’d lend you some, if I could.
:(
–
@LykeX
From what I remember being taught at school (so many years ago!) the Queen has the power to dissolve parliament and that’s pretty much it. I suppose the royals lobby the government in relation to things that affect their interests (I believe Prince Charles has a habit of interfering in various woo issues like homeopathy), but they certainly don’t have the ability to propose new legislation.
——–
*hugs* and cookies for all, especially Jadehawk.
But how would people react if she actually did? Our Queen technically has veto-right over all legislation, but if she ever exercised that right, she’d be in the unemployment line by the end of the week.
great weather here in north dakota. Driving at 40mph and horked a lugie out of the drivers side window. Splattered the windshield. Of course my window washer fluid was out.
@LykeX
If she did, it better be for a damn good reason I’d guess. The royals are really just there for prestige, tourism, boring speeches on Christmas day, and gossip. If they actually poked their nose into politics in a significant way, I’d be shocked if there wasn’t a major backlash.
I see. Thanks.
Oh, I forgot one use for the royal family… jokes about them all being German, and Prince Philip being a racist doofus.
Also, they are a distraction.
–
Vilem Saptar – *pouncehug*
Nick Gotts – I’m sorry about your dog. *hugs* if you want them.
Jadehawk – Good news [regarding events earlier today]. And *hugs*
Jadehawk
Hooray for good news about your class and that you’re cleared for your trip.
Sending a *hug* and a spoon.
Good morning!
Today I feel strangely refreshed, even though Youngest did his best to be a bother while sleeping. I think it’s more teeth, because he’d just started sleeping the whole night through in his own bed, and now he’s back to wandering sleepy circles around ours. Crawling over all obstacles and the like. :( Probably another two weeks of this.
Jadehawk
I would like to lend you a few spoons that I regained recently and will not be needing today. *spoons*
I’m happy for your good news, and pissed off about the asshole. :(
Oh, and here’s a *spicy chili* for that health thing that’s not flu.
I think the gods are fighting it out, and PZ is to blame. It happened in Minnesota, after all.
TMI ALERT, BODY DISCUSSION
What the fuck is the purpose of pubic (and ‘pit) hair, anyway? It’s not like there aren’t other signs of sexual maturity…
At this point, thanks to sensitive skin and horrible clumsiness* I’ve given up on shaving ANYTHING, and gone the “filthy hippie” route.
So… does anyone have any suggestions for cheap, no-razor, no-chemical hair removal?
*I have yet to shave without somehow managing to injure myself — entirely unintentionally! Try explaining that when you have a history of cutting…
Nick, I’m so sorry to hear about your dog. Caring for an elderly dog you’ve had a long time is hard … I really hope things improve. Ours is rising nine (guesstimated life expectancy of the order of 12 or so), so old age is just below the horizon :-(((
WMDKitty
Unfortunately I put off shaving as long as possible (and oh yay it’s summer), so I can’t really help out! :/ But good luck.
+++
Matt Damon goes on strike, with the full interview here. Who’s with him???
For the art-minded, abstract models re-designed for real life and Eugenio Recuenco does Picasso portraits as fashion models (scroll right). I like it.
Thanks for all the best wishes about the dog (Amber – I’m not sure why I’ve been protecting her privacy!). She’s refusing water now as well as food, and just failed to stand – on a wooden floor, admittedly. We’re taking her back to the vet for an anti-nausea injection, but I think she’s dying. Since she doesn’t appear to be in pain, we’re intending to keep her here in her home and “let nature take its course” (as if it ever did anything else) if she won’t drink or take her medication after that.
Jadehawk – very glad to hear about your course. I’ll email PZ about yoursubs.
Good on you Nick. So long as she’s not in pain you’ll be glad later that you were able to be there for her. You won’t be very happy for the time being. But the feeling of doing the right thing can see you through.
(Speaking as one who left it a day too late to take an ailing cat to the vet. Her last night was agony. We were so grateful when the vet was able to take the pain away. But I’m forever guilty when I think of it. I won’t make the same mistake again.)
It’s something for the mildly deranged penguin to grab ahold of to fling you out of the way so she can get to the cheese.
Stand, naked, between the mildly deranged penguin and the fromagerie.
Fuck, Nick, I’m sorry. Do you have the vet reasonably near at hand just in case there’s pain later? I guess you’ll be keeping her mouth moistened, even if she’s not drinking … anyway I’ll stop saying things you already know far better than I do and I’ll be remembering our first dog, and thinking of you :-(
Hi folks
Good news first:
The University of Monty Python did something (hopefully right). I got a mail that said
A) They have all the paperwork they need
B) Because the progress is checked according to the lowest term (I’m simultaneously in term 4, 6 and 8) and since I’m a part-time student I already got enough CPs until the end of next term. I’m still planning to get 21 CP this term…
Jadehawk
Safe hugs. What a jerk!
Have a good trip, I hope you can enjoy your weekend and tentative yay for not missed lab.
Nick
Sorry to hear about Amber.
Hi Vilém
WMD Kitty
Have you tried Wilkinson Lady Protector? Because my incidents of shedding blood on the bathroom floor notably decreased after I switched to them…
Enrolled all staff members in fish-slapping dance course?
Ah. A whale-slapping dance course.
Perhaps that is why the whales are running away, First grey whale spotted south of the equator:
If this isn’t the right place to ask, please let me know and accept my apologies for the mistake. I don’t usually visit the Lounge.
My question is what has changed on the front page. I noticed that Greta Christina is no longer on the right, so there must have been one blog moved or removed. But then Mano Singham is still on the left, where he’s been for a while, so a second title must have moved as well. And farther down, ZOMGitsCriss’s blog is off the front page, but that’s the only one I remember by name.
For the life of me I can’t remember what those first two blogs were. Or did things just get moved, not removed? Does anyone know?
Charming, part N of Many, Mayan pyramid bulldozed by road construction firm:
Charming, part N+1 of Many, Family of girl who died suddenly in India seek answers over missing organs:
Giliell
Yay for the university getting something right!
Just watch, though, tomorrow they’ll call you to tell you they’re missing your documents. :/
this strikes me as one of those questions which, if you have to ask it, there’s no point in trying to explain.
For the Lounge members with several hundreds of thousands of dollars to spare, and no quirky items to buy: how about a racetrack or a missile base? (That second one has potential Commune options, although I would hate to be limited to the underground. But, in a post-nuclear apocalypse, choices may be few.)
Scr… Archivist, the answers to your questions are Assassin Actual and Blasphemous Blogging.
That reminds me of an Oysterband song of some yonks ago, Ashes to Ashes, which starts with the lyrics:
For those who aren’t aware of this, be warned, the Koch brothers may be trying to purchase the LA Times:
The LA Times was probably the first serious newspaper I read regularly, several decades ago when it was (as I recall) still family-owned with a serious commitment to journalistic excellenceism, and something like the number 2 or 3 most-trusted newspaper in USAlienstan (being the NY Times and either a Chicago or DC paper).
I found these haikus at Daily Kos:
Go Minnesota!
Marriage equality WIN
Why’s Marcus smiling?
Such noisy insects
Cicadas? No. Issa’s crowd.
You saw that comin’.
Carbon dioxide
400 parts per million
Depressing haiku
The car lift goes up.
The car lift goes down. Repeat.
Romney’s bored again.
Congressman Markey
Magic of democracy…
Senator Markey!!!
Ahhh…it feels like spring
Leopard thong fits perfectly
Down go neighbors’ blinds
Charming, part N+2 of Too Many, Walmart opts out of Bangladesh safety agreement (my emboldening):
As I currently understand it, the agreement Slavemart has refused to sign is legally binding, requires financial support for improvments &tc, and requires(?) blacklisting refusing factories.
And now for something really serious, really important. Not slave labour, not a possible fLAke Times, not even hair removal: Avian flu? Hong Kong’s rubber duck deflates:
Parrowing @265,
Thank you!
Need some advice:
My back started seizing up on Monday probably due to stress. I’ve been using a heating pad on it and have taken a couple of hot baths, but I need some advice for getting my back back into shape so I can keep getting to everything I need to get to in this important time in my life. And yes, I know the best option would be go to a doctor, but that’s really out of my price range right now so I’d like to try and avoid it if it is at all possible.
If you haven’t tried already, I’d suggest a foil-type electric shaver. Cheaper ones run ~$30 or less, and tend not to have things like the “wavy” structure that’s visible in the middle here which tends to interact…unfortunately with skin that isn’t perfectly smooth. I know ones that can be used wet exist, and there’s also a product called Lectricshave (comes in a little green bottle) that I find helpful for shaving with them. You’ll want one that either doesn’t have a “trimmer” thing on the side, or can be run without it; purchasing one separately might not be the worst idea as they work much better on hair that’s already stubblish.
Otherwise I’m afraid I don’t have any bright ideas.
The story sounds pretty blatantly as though she was murdered for her organs. I hope the British government does something about it.
Princess Makeover
:)
–
Charming things are not charming.
At all.
:(
–
Nick
*hugs* I’m sorry to hear about Amber.
Cerberus
I recommend some side bends, front bends (bend over and touch your toes sort of thing), and possibly some back lifts. Also, based on my experience, for something involving muscle spasms, you’d probably benefit more from seeing a massage therapist. When I was an LMT, I got quite a few referrals for things like that, and quite a few clients who weren’t but should have been because the doctor said they couldn’t help.
cicely
I love that Dork Tower.
This is a handy resource for mormon dogma regarding chastity, homosexuality, marriage, spirit babies, etc.
http://imgur.com/4bBBHkq
Scroll to page two to review the short sections on chastity and homosexuality.
@267 blf: The LA Times is not the only media outlet coveted by the Koch Brothers.
First they tried to elect one of their own (David Koch was the Libertarian Party’s vice-presidential candidate in the 1980 presidential election), then they tried (several times) to buy various political offices for candidates of their choice, and now they’ve decided to buy the free press and make it an arm of the Koch brothers propaganda machine.
Mother Jones link on hispanic candidates with a Koch flavor.
Politico link on data control with a Koch flavor.
Rolling Stone link for story on stopping the Koch brothers from buying the Tribune papers.
Excerpt from the Rolling Stone article linked to in #278:
@Lynna
Is that the Handbook of Instructions? If so, you can download a full pdf here. Handy reference.
Is dianne or other medical person around? Need a medical-related term translated – the definition I can find for it is the blockage/closing of the body’s natural openings, either congenitally or by growing shut during life; the general Latvian word for something like that is atrēzija (of the gastro-intestinal tract). I need the English.
Would atresia be correct? Gastro-intestinal atresia?
Well, that was good at least…
Paul Krugman in The New York Review of Books discusses how the case for austerity has crumbled.
Excerpts below:
Lynna @284
Yeah, Latvia was a country that went the austerity route and is now considered an austerity success story. Funny, the general populace doesn’t seem more wealthy or better off (quite the opposite, in fact). Most of them just left the country when it got bad. Our beloved leaders are still getting fat on all the savings they’re getting from slashing wages, though. It’s not that bad, is their usual line in the media. *sigh*
Disney faces backlash over new “sexy” Merida; pulls new image from web site as a result
Mostly a re-hash, but down at the bottom:
“As of today, Disney has quietly pulled the 2D image of Merida from its website, replacing it with the original Pixar version. Perhaps we’ll be spared an onslaught of sexy Merida merchandise yet.”
–
*Falls down from Hekuni Cat’s pouncehug* *pounceback*
Hi opposablethumbs! Good to see you again too.*waves*
Hi Gilliel! *waves* Great to hear you’re going to college and that they did some of the bureaucracy right :)
Austerity – This was on Colbert recently and some grad student from UMass found an error in their(Rogoff-Reinhart) spreadsheet calculations, I think.
ALso, Lynna – link to NYRB not working for me. Maybe you borked it?
Apologies for the borked link. Let’s try again:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/jun/06/how-case-austerity-has-crumbled/?page=1
Vilém Saptar :
Correct. Here’s the brief summary from Krugman:
On FFS, more victim blaming regarding rape.
Salon link.
In an article that is about the judicial black hole that Grand Juries have become, journalist Natasha Lennard describes the persecution of Occupy activist Jerry Koch. (Hey, a Koch that is one of the good guys.)
Court challenges to North Dakota’s “trap laws” that are an attempt to ban abortion in the state have begun.
Salon link. Good explanation of what the trap laws are, and why they are unfair.
Cicely
Thanks for the update about Merida and the link to Dork Tower. This makes me so happy.
*YAY!*
–
rq
Thanks for the link to Matt Damon talking about Water.Org. This is very cool and requires further study. : )
–
Cerberus re: I get email, gay marriage edition
You clearly convey what is going on in that excellent mind of yours. Thank You for that. Just to read you is a privilege.
–
Mormon Moment of Madness:
Does that work any better than “just say no”? :-)
Anyway:
In severe depression, lots and lots of genes with a circadian expression rhythm are out of whack.
Mate with the young, kill the old: reversed sexual cannibalism and male mate choice in the spider Micaria sociabilis (Araneae: Gnaphosidae)
Abstract:
“Female mate choice is regarded as a strong selective force that significantly affects male mating success. In extreme cases, mate rejection can result in sexual cannibalism. However, males may choose between their partners as well. The killing of potential female mates, i.e. reversed form of sexual cannibalism, may be related to male mate choice. We examined male mate choice in the spider Micaria sociabilis, focusing on the roles of female mating status (virgin/mated), size and age. Reversed cannibalism reached its highest frequency in the period of generation overlap, i.e. when young males from the summer generation met old(er) females from the spring generation. These results suggest discrimination against old(er) females. The frequency of cannibalism was not affected by female mating status or female size. However, larger males from the summer generation were more cannibalistic than smaller males from the spring generation. We conclude that reversed sexual cannibalism might be an adaptive mate choice mechanism and can be explained in the context of the aggressive spillover hypothesis.”
To leach gold out of rock, don’t use cyanide – use concentrated hydrobromic acid, nitric acid, potassium hydroxide, sodium metabisulfite, and α-cyclodextrin (a ring of 12 glucose molecules). The last of these is completely harmless, can be recycled easily, and the efficiency of the process is at least as great as the use of cyanide.
Yet another petition to give banks and students the same interest rate.
Yet another petition in support of “Obamacare”.
Good news! Paging Jadehawk!
Long-term warming restructures Arctic tundra without changing net soil carbon storage
Abstract (9 citations removed, boldface added):
“High latitudes contain nearly half of global soil carbon, prompting interest in understanding how the Arctic terrestrial carbon balance will respond to rising temperatures. Low temperatures suppress the activity of soil biota, retarding decomposition and nitrogen release, which limits plant and microbial growth3. Warming initially accelerates decomposition, increasing nitrogen availability, productivity and woody-plant dominance. However, these responses may be transitory, because coupled abiotic–biotic feedback loops that alter soil-temperature dynamics and change the structure and activity of soil communities, can develop. Here we report the results of a two-decade summer warming experiment in an Alaskan tundra ecosystem. Warming increased plant biomass and woody dominance, indirectly increased winter soil temperature, homogenized the soil trophic structure across horizons and suppressed surface-soil-decomposer activity, but did not change total soil carbon or nitrogen stocks, thereby increasing net ecosystem carbon storage. Notably, the strongest effects were in the mineral horizon, where warming increased decomposer activity and carbon stock: a ‘biotic awakening’ at depth.”
Also, forget the Onion Test… or at least supplement it:
Architecture and evolution of a minute plant genome
Abstract (1 citation removed):
“It has been argued that the evolution of plant genome size is principally unidirectional and increasing owing to the varied action of whole-genome duplications (WGDs) and mobile element proliferation. However, extreme genome size reductions have been reported in the angiosperm family tree. Here we report the sequence of the 82-megabase genome of the carnivorous bladderwort plant Utricularia gibba. Despite its tiny size, the U. gibba genome accommodates a typical number of genes for a plant, with the main difference from other plant genomes arising from a drastic reduction in non-genic DNA. Unexpectedly, we identified at least three rounds of WGD in U. gibba since common ancestry with tomato (Solanum) and grape (Vitis). The compressed architecture of the U. gibba genome indicates that a small fraction of intergenic DNA, with few or no active retrotransposons, is sufficient to regulate and integrate all the processes required for the development and reproduction of a complex organism.”
Or in short, junk DNA really is useless. Other quotes:
“Remarkably, despite its tiny size, the (G+C)-rich U. gibba genome accommodates about 28,500 genes, slightly more than Arabidopsis, papaya, grape or Mimulus, but less than tomato”.
“Intergenic sequence contraction in the U. gibba genome is particularly apparent in the paucity of repetitive DNA and mobile elements […]. Whereas repetitive DNA accounts for 10–60% of most plant genomes, in U. gibba it only amounts to 3%, including 569 mobile elements […]. Notably, retrotransposable elements, which largely dominate angiosperm genomes, are rare in the U. gibba genome; we identified only 379, amounting to about 2.5% of the genome. Of these, only 95 seem complete and therefore potentially capable of further retrotransposition […]. We found that all genes known to be involved in retrotransposon silencing have homologues in U. gibba […], as well as a set of 75 microRNAs (miRNAs) belonging to 19 families […]. These results indicate that, despite its small genome, the general repertoire of miRNA-mediated gene regulation mechanisms in plants is conserved in U. gibba […]. Together, these data indicate that any influence of retrotransposon proliferation on U. gibba genome size must be countered by fractionation after WGDs and also by the silencing of these mobile elements.”
“Genome size contraction is also reflected at the level of introns, which showed smaller size and a slightly reduced number per gene […]. Compressed promoter spaces, fewer exons per gene than Arabidopsis (that is, net intron loss […]), and missing segments or whole genes in retroelements […] support the notion that numerous microdeletions have occurred during U. gibba genome evolution, as previously observed in Arabidopsis and maize. Furthermore, the presence of numerous solo long terminal repeat (LTR) elements (a single copy of an LTR that is the product of homologous recombination events between two identical or related LTR-retrotransposons) in the U. gibba genome […] indicates that large-scale recombinational deletions have also occurred. Unlike the contracted nuclear genome, the plastid and mitochondrial genomes of U. gibba are quite similar in structure to those of other angiosperms […] with no apparent shortening of intergenic regions […]. Therefore, the evolutionary forces acting to reduce U. gibba genome size seem to have affected only the nucleus.”
“In summary, U. gibba genome architecture demonstrates that angiosperms can evolve diverse gene landscapes while overall genome size contracts, not only during expansions. Furthermore, in contrast to recent publications that highlight a crucial functional role of non-coding DNA in complex organisms such as animals24, the necessary genomic context required to make a flowering plant may not require substantial hidden regulators in the non-coding ‘dark matter’ of the genome.”
Reference 24 is the ENCODE paper. And the supplementary information amounts to a whole book with at least 7 chapters and 43 tables.
Next paper: the oldest apes and the oldest Old World monkeys. Two more gaps in the fossil record! And a nice phylogeny of Catarrhini.
And another: In phylogenetics, using genes with strong phylogenetic signal is better than using whole genomes. I have yet to read that paper, though.
Back to petitions, in the hope they’re not quite as useless as junk DNA:
If the LA Times is bought by the Koch brothers, half of the staff will quit. Yet another statement of support to sign.
“”Study shows dogs may have been domesticated far earlier than thought” http://phys.org/news/2013-05-dogs-domesticated-earlier-thought.html
By contrast, cats hung around on the sidelines until humans and their canine slaves were properly pre-adapted to support cat civilization*.
*Since cats lack opposable thumbs, essential services require the rise of human symbionts. And since intelligence means metabolically costly brains, this cost is better delegated to a symbiont.
Dogs contribute to the symbiosis by keeping away serious rivals (big cats).
birgerjohansso
More proof that we cats domesticated you humans. Of course, your kind is so damned easy to train that it was a no-brainer.
The arrangement has, thus far, worked wonderfully.
Domestication of housecats on Stuff you missed in history class.
So I recently discovered the following tumblr which unfortunately isn’t updated very regularly (yet?):
Little Girls are better at designing Super Heroes than you
Where the author takes the costumes of super heroes that young girls actually want to dress up as, and uses it as the inspiration to draw what this hero would look like as an actual comic character.
Thus undeniably showing that a female superhero doesn’t need to show a lot of skin to be interesting.
…I should send them some photos of The Fuzzy One’s most recent Dangerwoman rendition O.o
For people with an Apple device: this looks like a really cool app. It is a place to write down things you’re interested in, but it has categories so you can search and find them easily. So if you hear about a book you think you’d like to read, or a restaurant you want to try someday, etc. you can keep it all there. Very simple idea, but the first app I’ve seen that does it. And I’m sad, because I got excited and bought it before realizing it won’t run on my ipod 3rd gen (because Apple is forcing older models into obsolescence by making the new iOS incompatible with 3rd gen and under products, so anything made new that’s compatible with the new iOS won’t work on older units), but after I tweeted about it one of the developers tweeted me back right away to see what was wrong and to apologize that it wasn’t compatible, so they seem like good people.
TONY – this blog post, or this blog in general, might be something your friend Jim might like to read? If you’re still sending him info?
Heh, no apologies required Lynna. Periodic offerings to Bork are quite fated.
Hi carlie! *waves*
So very threadrupt. For those in need, know that I hear you, believe you, and care about your troubles. Most especially to Jadehawk. I abandoned my upper education due to depression. I kept not dropping course I was failing until I could no longer continue in the program. My best strategy would have been to stop school until the depression was under control. Twenty/twenty hindsight and all that.
I find it weird to think about now. For all my nihilism, and despite getting to the point of serious self-harm I never gave up on school. I always told myself I could do it, even though after the first year all the evidence showed that I couldn’t. Strange.
House update for those playing along at home.
A fuller view with added Small Fry for scale. The verticals on the left are supports for a cubby house. We had a couple of beams left over and when we mentioned that we’d keep ’em to build a cubby the builders said they’d cement them in place. I’m a bit afraid that my ad-hoc building skills will look a disgrace atop such professional supports.
Interior views of the main living area, one big space, kitchen and all. The paint was going to be Cowardly Custard, which for name alone was my favorite choice. But I think we went with Golden something, something, mumble mumble.
Right.
Middle.
Left.
A slightly blurry close-up of how the floor turned out.
As always, a warning for large file sizes.
We’re close now. They’ve given us a finish date in mid June. You all are going to be invited to the housewarming. In fact, I think I might just live-blog it or some such.
FossilFishy, your house looks very pleasant. What’s with the uprights that seem to be surrounding it on at least 2 sides? Wrap-around porch? Manufacturing artifact?
–
Thanks for that cicely, I really like the space. It’s cosy and warm in exactly the way I’d hoped it would be.
There’s been much debate as to what to call the wide surrounding eaves: veranda, porch, pergola? There are currently so many beams because the temporary supports that held the framework up while the concrete footings cured are still in place.
The house has been designed for passive solar heating and the wide eaves are a part of that. On the front they’re 3 meters and on the sides 6. Over the sliding door will be a proper roof with a ceiling fan to create an outdoor “entertaining area”, and on the other side it will be roofed for half the length to make a carport.
The rest will lave louvred beams set at such an angle that the winter sun will mostly be let through and the summer sun will be shaded out. The point is to allow the sun to heat the thermal mass of the concrete floor in winter while protecting that mass from heating in summer. It has the added bonus of making what is really just a house-shaped box look a little more interesting.
Unintentional break is over, but I’m not certain if I will even attempt to catch up on everything I missed since Friday…
I second that emotion, Tony.
*hugs* for everyone.
I’m so out of touch.
I’m going to crack open a hard cider. It’s been a hectic week. And work might be about to get busier.
Hope everyone is doing as well as they can be.
Tony, even though you might not have the time/energy to fully catch up, I’m gonna draw your attention to carlie’s post, here.
I read it, and think it might be a useful post to show my friend the pastor’s wife who is having trouble with the Struggle for the Direction of the (Methodist) Church. And thank you for it, carlie!
–
[Lays out a variety of salty snack treats for Tony and Portia.]
[Eyes cicely.]
[Hides the wasabi peas behind the Cheezies.]
Oh well, I’ve missed you all, plus it doesn’t look like too much to cover.
Last Thread:
ednaz @577:
Yeah, I imagine feelings does not fully encompass what he’s experiencing. Not sure what word does, but I get your meaning either way.
Thank you, Giliell, opposablethumbs, dontpanic, and everyone else for the kind words.
****
Cerberus @594:
Fuck.
That whole situation sucks.
It boggles my mind to think that your direct boss and the HR person showed more concern for you alerting them than, y’know making sure the child was ok.
I hate that you’re being put through this.
You deserve awards, not the shitty treatment you’re getting.
****
rowanvt @612:
Going out on a *very* short limb here, but I don’t think you’re in that boat alone. Heck, we may need a bigger boat.
(random example of personal geekery: I love Buffy so much, I’ve rewatched certain episodes just to memorize lines of dialogue I find awesome [Buffy’s talk with Spike in Becoming pt2, Buffy, Buffy’s conversation with Wesley in Graduation Day pt. 2, among others].
Worse Better than that, I actually use “five by five”, “bored now” and a few other Buffy-isms in meatspace dialogue.)****
John @616:
You may be surprised to learn that there are laws on the books in the US that are quite antiquated (IIRC, in AL, for instance, it is still technically illegal to drive in anything other than closed toe shoes; no flip flops, or sandals for instance)
****
Cerberus @634:
That sucks. It sucks deeply. I’m sorry Partner is being treated so poorly.
****
JAL @644:
If the nightmares won’t go away for good, hopefully they will noticeably diminish.
My sympathies.
****
Portia @662:
One of the few good things about people being at church on Sunday mornings is that traffic is minimal. It is incredibly easy for me to get to work on Sunday mornings with light traffic.
(that said, I’d take heavy Sunday AM traffic if it meant an end to religion, or at least no religious intereference in public policy, or any number of other beneficial effects of the lessening of Teh Gawd Power)
Well, that’s the last thread caught up!
On to round 2!
Holy fucking HTML tag screw up Batman!
Sheesh.
I was trying to strike through the “Worse” during my Buffy comments (…
WorseBetter than that, I actually use “five by five”, “bored now” and a few other Buffy-isms in meatspace dialogue”….all the way to the end of my post).****
cicely:
Noted. I will check that out as soon as I’m done catching up. Thank you!
****
FossilFishy:
I’m going to pull a No True
ScotsmanPea here. Wasabi Peas aren’t peas (to me, of course, and I don’t care what anyone else says, nor do I care if the facts are not on my side). No need to hide them.Buuuuuut, about those Cheezies…are we talking actual slices of cheese? Or Cheese-Its? The former is ok, but you should know the latter is clearly mine, and mine alone (it’s in the fine print on the bottom of the box).
O.o
No, no Tony. Allow me to introduce you to the only cheese based snack food worthy of the name:
Behold the mighty Cheezie!
Made with real cheese and yummy, yummy trans fats!
the Semester From Hell™ is over. Now I’ll have all
summerweekend torelaxhang out at WIS2, before I’ll have to go back and do this one more timeEveryone, you must believe FossilFishy on the Cheezies issue.
Hawkins Cheezies are the type-specimen.
—-
FossilFishy
I love your house.
In about 10 years can I move in with you?
I’d take that very attractive shed out the back.
Apologies for the miss S, I’ve been away from the homeland for far too long. :( Cheezies are just a fond memory now….
Thanks chiqau. Though it was Ms Fishy and the builders who are responsible for how it looks.
The two acre block that it’s on is zoned for two dwellings. We’re planning to (more or less)self-build a slightly larger straw bale house and make this one into a rental or a nanna-flat. By the time that happens I suspect there will be no Nanna to move in so you’re first on the list. Mind you, if I’m realistic the heat-death of the universe is likely to come before we complete any house using our own labour.
er, have this lonely “ing” it’s searching for an equally lonely S.
(Disclaimer: Since I am catching up, obviously, some of my responses will be to stuff that has likely been dealt with already, such as TEH TROLL, or rq’s creep problem. The former isn’t worth any comments here, but the latter–that’s YOU rq–most definitely is.)
****
DonDueed:
I am incredibly sorry for your loss.
****
I’m going to just leave comment @14 alone, as I’m sure it has either been picked apart in the ‘Dome (possibly here, but I can see how that probably shouldn’t even get started…just in case, y’know?).
Aaaaaaaaaand comment @29…(mostly b/c you folks did a fine job and I’m coming into this a bit late)
****
ooooh, look, SQUIRREL!
Actually it’s a comment by lurker ilex who provides a welcome distraction from a certain someone.
Ilex–cheerleading is more than welcome. The Lounge is the perfect place for such comments. I want to add that while I cannot speak for any of the people you are thanking, I know that for me, occassionally hearing support from lurkers about what I’ve written is appreciated. Who knows, they may feel the same.
****
It is a rare day in Hell when I listen to country music.
It is usually when it is being played by someone else when I hear it.
Case in point: RIGHT NOW, at Emerald City (technically, The Other Side, which is the Lounge type bar–heeeeey IDEA [stop that squirrel]–but it’s the same building and same owner and connected occasionally), I’m listening to country.
Could anything make it worse?
Sure.
You betcha.
Several of the songs have given praise to _ _ _. One word. Three letters. I live in the southeast US. No clues. I will give you one chance. No do overs.
****
ednaz @60:
I completely understand. It feels good being able to spread what you’ve learned, especially when such lessons are in the name of progress, equality and the betterment of all.
****
Jafafa:
Good luck with your blogs!
****
Last week (Friday, I think), a husband and wife* sat at my bar. Over the course of their time having dinner, I discovered that the husband is the producer of ABC’s Agents of SHIELD, which airs this fall. He was keeping track of something (presumably emails or some such), and made mention of ABC picking up the show. It seemed to make him happy. I know it made *me* happy. Especially knowing the hand of Joss Whedon is involved.
Now, how does Agent Coulson survive…?
My leading theory is the one I hope they don’t go with, but given the history of SHIELD in the comics, it is the most logical one.
*In yet another indication of how I’ve changed in the last few years I realized that I rarely use “couple” anymore when discussing people, because in my mind, “couple” has always meant “a man and a woman”. To break out of that mentality, I’ve been trying to avoid saying that. Hence my use of “husband” and “wife”, which really isn’t relevant to my above point)
****
chigau @72:
I’ve have been owned by various cats since I was @16, and I never heard of any that snored. You’d think that by this time one of them would have told me :)
****
rq @78:
I know I’m late to this, but I say take whatever action you feel is necessary to protect yourself and your family. This creep has crossed a serious line.
^^THIS irritates me.
Ok, so Husband and friend don’t seem to think much of creep wandering through your house. Do your feelings not count for anything? WTF? Because they aren’t creeped out by him, you shouldn’t be either?
****
[meta] How much longer am I going to have to skip comments by THE PEST? [meta]
(at comment 92 now).
****
rq:
ABSOLUTELY NOT.
Your red flags are-IMO-far more reasonable than Husband and friends’.
I see from your #120 that Husband has weighed in a bit more, and I’m glad to see your feelings are not being dismissed.
@122:
One word for how he should be treated from now on: PARIAH.
“Tee Hee” my ass.
As for Creep apologizing, one of they ways I gauge actual apologies from ones that are given to “save face” (cf. Michael Vick’s “apology” for dog fighting)–does the person understand why their actions were wrong, and can they explain? Not just say “I’m sorry. I understand why my actions were wrong.”, but all of that plus “I should not have done X, because…”
****
Speaking of apologies, or in this case a lack thereof, T responded to the detailed note I gave her, which laid out everything I mentioned in the Lounge a few threads back. She successfully managed to irritate me even more (pissed off E too, when I told him what she said) with the following:
“Tony, with regard to your note, I’m sorry you feel the way you do…”
WTF?
I had laid out *exactly* why I was mad.
Exactly why I felt used.
Exactly why I felt betrayed.
I gave numerous examples. Hell, I think I *listed* them all, as they’ve been building for some time. I didn’t just lay them out, I explained why I was pissed off.
It’s like she doesn’t even see that she has done anything wrong.
I should add that my irritation with her grew one size larger today. I was off all day. For much of that time, I lounged around the house. My car was there, and I was in and out of my room throughout the day. Obviously I was home. Between her gym classes, she came home and spent nearly an hour in the bathroom.
We have one bathroom.
Did I mention previously that she spends upwards of 20 minutes-if not 30-in the shower?
Oh, and I had to PEE the whole fucking time.
I guess I’m just a lot more considerate. If I’d known that a roommate was home, I would have limited by my time in the ONE fucking bathroom we share (especially since she can shower at the gym).
The only bright side to this is that her “apology” note also made mention that she’s got a few options of somewhere to live and that she will be out of my life soon.
To which I say “good riddance”.
Incidentally, I haven’t uttered one word to her since I wrote her that letter. I’ve joked in the past about shutting up when friends tell me to stop talking. Heck, I managed to do that with M for several hours, and boy did it bug him to no end. But that was me joking. This is me being serious.
****
Jafafa :
HUGE Buffy fan here, and even I don’t really like season 1. It helped (for me) that I got hooked on Season 4 and 5, THEN went back and watched the first season. I really think you’ll be rewarded with some fantastic storytelling (especially in Season 3-go FAITH, played by the QUITE talented Eliza Dushku), compelling characters, sharp dialogue, and of course lots of cool fights, both internally and externally (as well as between friends, between enemies, and a mix of the two).
Oh, and S1 is only 12 episodes, so you only have to soldier through that many until the S2, which kicks things off much better than S1, and once you get to Spike, things really get cool. And then there’s, oh gosh, I really need to go watch that show in order.
****
SallyStrange:
I hope you had fun with Esteleth this weekend.
BTW, I was on another FtB blog (Brute Reason, I *think*) and saw a nym just like yours but lacking your gravatar. It was eerie (also, ISTR all letters being lowercase).
****
Portia:
Are we talking about your work life or mine?
:)
Seriously, mine has been the same way. I don’t feel like going into the clusterfuck, hellacious, neverwannadealwithathatagainbutnowthatI’mamanagerIprobablywill shift that was Mother’s Day (no joke, it was horrible–short staffed in the kitchen, ENORMOUSLY long ticket times, a domino effect of guests that got tired of waiting on food and asked for their checks so they could leave, AND I sent one server home because she was disrespectful to oh, pretty much every other employee. This shift was only supposed to be 10am til 4pm, but wound up ending at 12am.)
****
Vilem Saptar:
Good to read you again.
I will not complain about my 5 day hiatus from the Lounge given how long you’ve been threadrupt.
I hope all is well.
****
Nick:
I hope your dog has begun taking the medication.
I used to get creative and heat up a few slices of cheese (10 seconds in the microwave) and put doggie medication betwen the soft cheese slices and hand roll them together.
It *sometimes* worked.
****
rq @225:
re-The Creep
It is ever so nice to know that my non-choice of being gay, which harms oh, exactly NO ONE, is grounds for being shot.
Eyeroll.
Oh, wait, I guess that makes me bigoted according to some fundies.
Everyone ready for a collective round of ::SPIT::?
****
WMDKitty:
I’ve wondered about the purpose of pubic hair as well.
No advice on painfree hair removal though.
****
From Lynna’s link @291, because it cannot be said enough:
No.
It.
Cannot.
Rapists not raping will prevent rape.
****
I see David M @296 has FINALLY found a use for that stupid statement “just say no” (my opposition to that phrase with regard to drugs is a dislike of the simplistic belief held by many that this is helpful in preventing kids from using drugs. E D U C A T I O N is the answer, not After School Special catchphrases.)
****
oooh, The Queer Shoop sees Carlie has offered a helpful link.
To show appreciation, the Shoop offers Carlie the Hat of Awesomeness (which can also be worn with the Snark Hat) as well as “Thank You”.
Aaaaand I’m all caught up!
I may wait till tomorrow to check out some of the threads.
Any recommendations?
Did PZ post about the verdict in Kermit Gosnell’s case?
Oh, before I forget:
I read the title of this article and was prepared for some serious shaming of women. Not only was that *not* what happened, but what did happen was a pleasant surprise: concern for the bodily autonomy of children and giving THEM the choice of what to do with their bodies at the appropriate age:
(emphasis mine)
Throughout the article, the adoptive parents speak of their child being allowed to make the decision he feels is best for him, and that bolded portion at the end brought a smile to my face (in the “there are other people outside FtB that get it“…yes, I know there are, but I rarely hear of them, so when I do, I’m glad to hear them speak up).
FossilFishy
ooooh…self-build procrastination! We can help with that! (Did I mention there are two of us?)
FossilFishy:
I see that CHEEZIES are knock off of CHEESE PUFFS, which themselves are an inferior, mutated by radiation ala cheesy (oooooh, I punned) 1950s sci fi films.
Their original form?
The much superior, bows for no imitators (hey, which one of you musically inclined people plays drums? I need a drum roll here)….CHEETOS!
It’s not enough that there are Deep Rifts between Pea lovers and those in the anti-Pea movement, we have had to add Horse/non-Horse lovers.
Now we have to add icky fake knock off Cheese Puffs versus Cheetos??
I mean really, my side has Chester the Cheetah.
chigau, FossilFishy, who is the Cheezie mascot?
Sorry to pull such a trivial thing out of your long post, but I’m a bit primed to be thinking of things housey at the moment.
There are many strange customs revolving around bathrooms here in the Antipodes. Not the least of which is having a window that deliberately cannot be shut over the toilet. But there’s one that makes shit-loads (ten shit-loads to the metric shit-tonne) of sense: toilets are more often than not in a separate room from bathing/shower areas. In Chez Fishy (Ghost Train Villa ™ ) Ms. Fishy also insisted that there be a small sink in the toilet. Early on this caused some confusion when I would ask where the bathroom was and be directed to a room in which there was no toilet. The two terms are not synonymous here.
Anyway, glad to here that T may be gone soon.
And as too the crazy days at work, Back in my retail management life I found that days like that did more to promote a team spirit than anything I said or did to that end. So long as everyone was pulling their weight at the end of it all there was a sort of “We got through it, phew, we rock!” bond that happened. Perhaps the only good that comes out of such things over and above a good cash-out.
Tony
Hi!
re: bathroom hogging
Remove the door and hang a curtain (beads).
Offer to replace the door upon agreement of a 20-minute time limit to closed-door bathroom-time.
Oh dear, more DEEEEP RIIIIIFTS!!11!!!1
Have you ever tried Cheezies Tony? Unlike the fluffy, insubstantial imitators you’re proposing, Cheezies have a great tooth to them. There’s nothing puffy [shudders] about them.They have weight and crunch like all get out, and are substantial enough to be eaten as meal unto themselves. Not that I’d ever do such a thing mind…. [whistles tunelessly]
Chee-ZIES! Chee-ZIES! Chee-ZIES!
Cheetohs will never be what Cheezies once were.
Tony and Portia
Glad to see you both back!
Tony
I finally put my finger on what bothered me about Creep’s apology, even though, on the surface it wasn’t a complete not-pology: it’s because he used the phrase forgive me. He did not say I’m sorry or I apologize, but he said forgive me for taking the liberty, as if I’m the one who has to be the active party here. Hel-lo, not my problem, his! So I’m glad I said I would accept an apology, but I won’t forgive (with a note that at his age, he should have known better, and his very first response should have been to apologize for real, not giggle about it; we may all be different (because him being different is the whole nerds-are-socially-inept argument, in my mind) but we all grow up in society, among social norms, and even though he may be a child of the Soviet Union, it’s been more than 20 years, so really, he should know (and I have no doubt that he does!)).
As for the gays, well, just makes me all the more glad to block him from my friend list. I have a feeling he’s a Nice Guy Misogynist, too. Can we spit now?
FossilFishy
The house made me (almost) squeal with delight. It looks fantastic! And I’m glad to hear it’s nearly done, that is exciting!
More later.
Tony
Don’t forget that whole Cake vs. Cookies issue.
From Think Progress:
My response (also posted to Facebook):
“One of the ways to combat rape culture would be to promote an understanding of bodily autonomy, respect for the integrity of others, and proper sexual education in our youth, so that they do not grow up lacking a proper understanding of consent, or so they *do* grow up knowing that forcing yourself on someone else is morally, ethically and legally wrong (as well as WHY it is wrong). To do that, we need to reinforce the separation of church and state in the US, with a great focus on schools (no, creationism is not an alternative to evolution, and it does not belong in a science class). Teens need to have this information AND understand it, so that when they become adults they will make informed, responsible decisions, including DO NOT RAPE (which, incidentally is the ONLY, I repeat ONLY, thing that will stop rape from happening, because those who do the rapes are the ones who are responsible for the rapes; victims do not, nor should they have responsibility for what others do to them).”
Many Japanese toilets (the porcelain thing for pee-and-poo) include an integral unit for hand washing so one can wash hands before touching everything else.
rq
Thanks, we’re pretty happy so far. Though the money is running out and we’re in a bit trouble over it.
And may I add: it’s spittin’ time!
[hacks up a big lougie]
My late voice agrees with all the others. This guy is a skeeve and the only way he could be waving more red flags would be to an aircraft parking specialist.
I don’t get it.
I figure whatever one of us dislikes, food-wise, someone else will like, so it all balances out. And there are always Extreme Omnivores — they’ll eat anything.
It’s just a bit of sillyness for its own sake WMDKitty. For myself, I enjoy arguing over these subjective things in a lighthearted way as an antidote to more serious arguments.
Oh boy, let me just say that I enjoy my interaction with you folks here every bit as much as people in meatspace.
FossilFishy, your disparaging comments about Cheetos (which do have crunch, and cheesy goodness, and there’s more of them in the bag and it’s not like eating cheese flavored air….so THERE) notwithstanding-you made me LOL. In the bar. Loudly.
****
rq:
I had forgotten about cake vs. cookies, probably because I like both.
On a food related, but massively different note, I was talking with a coworker about blending incredibly different cultural foods. I started wondering what wonders a creative chef could work in trying to mix Mexican with Chinese. So many people said it couldn’t work. I reached a few of them by saying that a talented chef might be able to pull it off (I don’t know if they realized what I was really getting at–that their imagination may be limited in this case, but that doesn’t mean such an attempt won’t work).
FossilFishy:
Oh hells yes. Being able to indulge in silly “arguments” just for the sake of light hearted fun is sooooo much better than the ongoing ones (guns, abortion, feminism). The former are not necessary, but fun. The latter are necessary but decidely not fun.
Tony
Hmm, an interesting proposition…
I regularly use soy sauce together with chilli in marinades and sauces. Does that count?
+++
Chris Hadfield,
gypsySpace King.Once more, for emphasis: Australia is dangerous and weird! That’s what you get for living upside down all the time.
Literally, an article about literally.
Advocating for safer heavy metal shows, but it can apply to any genre (except maybe classical, unless you’re Stravinsky).
The modern pirate story becomes a movie. With Tom Hanks. Woo. Hoo.
tony
You asked, and so I give you : Smutto, originally from Schlock Mercenary.
And now I’m craving Cheesies, AND I’m a little homesick, AND I want an Old Fashioned thanks to Chris in the Own Goal thread…. desires I’s got ’em, fulfillment, not so much. Sigh.
Tony
Plus, silly arguments let us work on our debating skills. Or just being silly. Whichever! :) But they’re fun.
Shit, shit, shit Cheezies, CheeZies! That sort of mistake is going to lose me my Canadian citizenship before I manage to gain Australian.
Sometimes I come home to Pharyngula and find that a thread I had left at 30ish comments has gone to 250ish comments and I just cannot …
So (after a peruse to see that the issue is being taken care of) I delete the link.
I really, really appreciate The Horde.
Had to laugh at the kookaburra warning in the Australia list. Exactly that happened to a friend. We had a barbecue in a national park, she was a great talker, waving expressive hands around and – whoosh – one of the three kookaburras which had been calmly observing us from a nearby tree flew through like a rocket and took a lamb chop from her hand. Of course, being a kookaburra it didn’t understand the concept of cooking, so it had to go through the kill-this-food-thingie-by bashing-it-on-a-tree-branch routine for a fair while before it tucked in.
mildlymagnificent #343
kookaburra-as-predator freaks me out.
I’m Canadian. kookaburras are cute birds.
there’s a song…
I just had a thought, thanks to Justin Vacula (specifically his lack of understanding the implications of rejecting god belief)—
For many believers, their faith and belief in god extends beyond the literal definition of theism. Some do not work on Sundays. Some do not eat pork. Some are antigay bigots. Some deny women the right to be priests. Some deny women bodily autonomy.
None of these things is required to believe in a god.
If you use the dictionary definition.
If instead, you take a practical approach and understand
in all those cases, the theists’ belief in god carries with it rules and consequences. We are not saying you MUST reject homophobia, gender essentialism, sexism, etc…we are saying you SHOULD, by looking at the beliefs you hold that are wrapped up in religion.
That song totally lies. One of the first times I heard a kookaburra in real life I was fumbling in the dusk for my keys. Merry would not be a description of that sound. Terrifying in a there’s-a-hatchet-murderer-right-BEHIND-YOU! sorta way would be closer to the truth.
Carlie:
That link does look like something Jim could benefit from. I have passed it on to him. Thank you.
****
Dalillama:
Thank you for that link!
Hi Folks
Tony
Well, my parents are angry with me after I told them that I disapprove of them continuously ignoring our stated wishes like “we come over for a barbecue but we really need to eat early because of the kids”
Those people don’t ever think about any of the consequences their actions have on others but are very, very hurt whenever you suggest that they might be indeed like Mother Theresa.
+++
Toilet and Bathrooms
Older houses in Germany tend to have a cobined one (the good thing about my parents’ house is that my grandparents went overboard with those things: There wasn’t only a bathroom/toilet on the groundfloor (grandparents’ flat) and the first floor (parents’ flat) but also a toilet with sink in the attic (our rooms) and a toilet and a shower in the basement.), but newer ones have them seperated which makes a lot of sense. Or you have a toilet in the bathroom and a seperate “guest toilet”. and yes, sinks. People would think it very weird to disgusting if you couldn’t wash your hands before leaving the room. And being of the female persuasion I really welcome that.
FossilFishy
I’m right with you re: kookaburras. I remember the first few mornings visiting my uncle in the hills near Adelaide and waking up in the faint light of dawn to that… song seems like such a charitable word. Freaky! I do like them, though, but that first spine-tingling experience has imbued me with a sort of respect for the bird.
That, and it’s predatory nature – it’s like a giant kingfisher, and those birds are deadly.
*ahem* Extra apostrophe, please come back!
Hey, I just found the socks I bought for #1 and then couldn’t find anymore.
They’re at my feet.
Apparently they’re meant to be full socks for 5 yo and not sneaker socks for grown women.
I probably should get dressed in the evening before I go to bed instead of in the morning…
You should thank yer mum for giving them to you.
Going to bed in the morning sounds about right.
An alternative to various dressing problems is simple: Don’t bother. Go around naked. Saves time, hassle, and money (at least on clothes). Admittedly, in certain climes, there are a few risks (freezing, sunburn, arrest, …), but you’ll have to learn to cope with those nuisances anyways as you grow up.
I must say I miss the kookaburras. At our old house with a couple of gigantic trees in the backyard, we’d wake up to magpies alternately warbling, carolling or murmuring among themselves until about say 7.30 or 8 am depending on the season. Half an hour or more later, the kookaburras would turn up.
One little fact. If ever you come across a lost little kookaburra, you must return it (whether you have or haven’t taken it to a vet or wildlife services) to the exact spot you found it. If it’s near your house you’ll notice the whole kookaburra extended family hanging around that place frequently in the day/s after you rescued it. Put it back there and mum, dad, granny and the cousins will happily take care of it again.
Wow. Isn’t it nice when they just hand you even more justification, making you feel better about your action? Thanks, T, for removing any last bit of doubt that you’re a jerk.
Speaking of opening sentences that seal the deal, we had a job candidate once who managed to destroy their chances on the first sentence in the phone interview. We asked the softball opener “What is it about (our name) that makes you want to work here?” and their response was “Well, there are three reasons that I want to leave (their job)”. No. That is an entirely different question. That would have been enough for me, but then one of their three reasons was to get away from a facet of the job that would be an integral part of the job we were interviewing for, adding that same kind of last nail in the coffin to the “this will not go well” suspicion.
Thank you for the hat! :) I hope that Jim finds something in that blog to be helpful, or at least one more example of how he doesn’t have to be so conflicted.
NO. Not in cold climates. This is why we got rid of outhouses, so we didn’t have to pull our trousers down in zub-freezing air.
Oh, great. I already have a recurring dream since childhood about needing to go to the bathroom and not being able to find a suitable place to find one (which I think is a common dream, given the Animaniacs Potty Emergency episode that I know I’ve linked to before), now I will have another place in my dream that I will go to and find no bathroom there.
If your wife had to ask for a sink in the toilet room, does that mean people usually have to go from one room to another to wash their hands?
But then again, do you do the bidet thing there? I guess that would lessen the washing need a bit?
mildlymagnificent
They (the kookaburras) have such a complex familial structure?
carlie
Here, the older buildings/houses regularly have toilets and bathrooms separate… with nary a sink in sight in the toilet part of the set. :( I think it hearkens back to the days when people just didn’t wash their hands so often (and, I suspect, in many cases, still don’t). It’s really annoying, though. And some of the older houses out in the country-side still have dry toilets inside, without running water, which means traipsing out to the well and pumping up some water to wash hands. Also, no running water in the kitchen. :/ Modernization moves at varying paces.
That said, the house in which I grew up had a full bathroom (bath/shower, toilet, sink) and a smaller one, mostly for guest use (toilet, sink) that also served to redirect non-showering traffic away from the room with a shower. It’s a model that worked well for us (except when someone flushed while someone else was in the shower, eeeeee-haaaaa….).
I’m not a big fan of separating the toilet and the shower, but I definitely appreciate a second guest toilet. I guess I like a one stop shop when I’m getting ready for the day. There are ways around hogging the bathroom for an hour at a time even when there’s only one.
I have trouble understanding what seems to be traditional in Swedish homes (when I say traditional I should clarify that I have been inside exactly 4 Swedish houses and they were all like this, so take that for what it’s worth)- the bathroom with the shower in it (often the only one in the house) is located far away from the bedrooms and often just next to the kitchen or just off the front hall. It seems weird to me, and kind of uncomfortable, to have to take shower and then either change in the bathroom or walk through the main part of the house in a towel. Or maybe I’m just really picky about bathroom location.
Thanks. We’ve managed to get a couple of pills down her, following a bit of cream licked off my wife’s fingers. We also got a syringe from the vet to give her water, as she can’t or won’t lap from her bowl, but I doubt we can keep up with the amount she needs, even though she’s not moving around. The vet wasn’t keen on the idea of letting her end her life naturally, as she said it could take a long time. We’d still prefer for her to die at home if she’s going to do so soon – that’s what most people want, and I think dogs are just as home-oriented – so if there’s no change either way in the next few days, we’ll have a difficult decision. To make it more difficult, my wife is away from Saturday to Tuesday and my son, who’s understandably upset, has an exam on the Tuesday – though fortunately, not one he absolutely needs to pass, as he’s already been accepted for the university course he wanted. And at least Amber gives no sign of being distressed.
Actually, Parrowing, I’m with you – except it’s sometimes the opposite here, with the shower right near the bedrooms, but the toilet across the entire apartment/building. Which also seems odd, but it’s a bit easier on the post-shower phase.
Here’s an exercise in pareidolia for everyone. May I add that #6 was unexpected, and I’m surprised there’s no virgin Mary on toast anywhere in there. :)
Aw, I loved number 13, rq. They’re so happy!
Shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone here, Climate research nearly unanimous on human causes, survey finds:
Yup. The problem is that in Australia a lot of older houses are built like they’re in the tropical parts like Queensland or the Northern Territory, even when they’re in a relatively cool part like Alpine Victoria. It was just below freezing here a couple of nights ago and yes, our toilet window is not designed to be shut. I’ve maintained that a window that can be closed in the toilet is the mark of a truly civilised country. :) Mind you, as far as I know, no one builds like that any more.
Yup. Or in older houses like ours at least. I’ve never seen a bidet here, but my experience has been mostly limited to the rural parts of Australia.
We also have no built in heating in our current house. We have a couple of big electric heaters for the kitchen/dining area and a smaller one for the lounge room that only gets turned on when we’re in there. There’s no heat in the bedrooms and inside temperatures are typically 5c above the outside ambient air temperatures. This means that on that cold night a couple of days ago it was 5c in the bedroom when I got up. Not fun. We tried heating them with small electric/oil heaters but it was costing us too much money so now we just layer up on the blankets and wear a hat to bed.
Have I mentioned I can’t wait to move? :)
Parrowing
Secretly, I picture PZ as #10. ;)
FossilFishy, am I misremembering this or did you mention something about your soon-to-be house having heated floors?
*lights socially adept people beacon*
So, this was weird. A co-worker from down the hall just stopped by. He asked if I would like a cup of coffee (no, not like that), and I said thanks but I don’t drink coffee, then we chatted for a moment and tea came up, and he said he had tea as well, but I really didn’t feel like having anything although I assumed this was fishing for a chat because there is a lot of chat around here. So I politely declined but started a bit of a talk about finding tea in the area, and we talked for a minute or two, and then I asked about his summer plans, and he responded briefly but then left for his office. What was that about, then? I thought I was doing well by understanding that the actual request was for some conversation, and did my best to be welcoming if he wanted to come in and sit and talk about whatever, but that obviously didn’t work and now I wonder if I just looked like a goof who was too rude to accept a bit of hospitality (but going to his office can be a time-suck of massive proportions, and I have stuff to do). People, who can understand ’em?
FossilFishy – I would think closing a window could help in the heat, too. I just can’t grok the concept of a complete hole in the wall. It’s like when I visited a college in Arizona and couldn’t get over the fact that the stairwells were on the outside on all the buildings. But, but, rain! Snow! Ice! Oh, right, none of the above.
carlie, that reminded me of something only tangentially related: The design of the high school in the town I grew up in was based on a school in California. The school is divided up into many smaller buildings and students have to walk outside to get from one building to another. There are few covered walkways, and they decided that this was a good design for a school in northern NJ. Also, because they built the school on wetlands, they were not able to build lockers. The students have to carry all of their books around all day. I see that as of 2008, there was a proposal to make the school sidewalk accessible, but it hasn’t happened yet.
Apropos of nothing.
I’m one of the lucky ones.
I’m still standing.
I can still smile and laugh.
I can still love and let myself be loved.
I’m not without damage, not without a limp and a twitch in my ability to deal with life.
But I am one of the lucky ones.
The worst has passed, long passed truth be told, and now when I imagine the horrors that life could still visit upon me and mine, I know that I’m strong enough to bear them should they come to pass. I know this because I have hard won and indelible evidence that I can survive. It there within me every time sleep falls away enough to become aware of myself again. And even in the happenstance of insurmountable odds I know that I will go down fighting until there is no more reason to. For this too, I have evidence.
I am one of the lucky ones. Would that I could find the source of it.
Would that I could share it out to those in far more dire and pressing need than I have. I rarely if ever wish for the supernatural anymore. Reality is too wondrous, too far beyond my ken as it is for me to crave things beyond it. But in this alone I still desire that magical fantasy world, that oh so impossibly just world where I can chip off my now unneeded luck and leave it just there, for those that need it more.
I am one of the lucky ones.
I never forget this; it’s the least I can do.
It is the very, very least I can do for those who suffer and are beyond the reach of my tiny ability to help within the unforgiving limits of concrete reality.
I am one of the lucky ones.
May you be one too.
FossilFishy, I always love your writing. :)
Whaaa? The building was ok, but lockers were…too heavy and would sink?
That reminds me of how much I laughed at a show I’m watching – I talked about liking the “Switched at Birth” show, but they are supposed to be set in Kansas City, and one of the schools features…outside lockers. Like, outside the building altogether. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA to infinity.
…but then again in upstate New York, the high school lockers are half the width of the ones I grew up with in the midwest, and I have no idea how one is supposed to stuff a winter coat into a locker that is a foot wide, much less have room for anything else in it after.
cicley @286 (I am catching up in the most out of order manner)
From what I’ve read, Merida is still doomed to sexification. Disney refuted the rumors that taking down the image means they’re abandoning the revamp. Of course, I can’t find the link to the article I read that says that. Sigh.
*snarfs up salty snacks*
Thanks a lots folks, now I want cheetos ^_^
Ha! I never noticed that. It always did seem like a pretty Californian setting, though.
Parrowing@368, That “high school in California” design sounds a lot like the design of the high school in California I attended (except for the bit about the lockers). This might not be coincidence, since my Californian high school was part of what was called (as I now recall) the “model (high?) school program”, whose goals were (and still are) unknown to me. The design was supposed to quite flexible, with (most) of the buildings built to a similar floor-plan, and able to be re-purposed with the interior re-configured.
Academically, it was college-like: The school year was devided into three(?) terms. At the start of each term, there was a registration day where the students choose their courses for the upcoming term (albeit course-plans had to approved by adult consulars), with multiple classes during a day (albeit each “course-slot” had to a class (no free time per se)). Students went from classroom to classroom for each course, and hence had multiple teachers during day. It was possible to take courses at a higher-speed than they were taught — something I and over “advanced” students did routinely — and even to take courses at the local community college, albeit transport was a problem.
I can easily imagine some of the ideas being copied (not necessarily competently), and I assume some of the ideas implemented at that school were copied (not necessarily competently) from elsewhere.
I understand that in the yonks since then, the academic model has reverted to something more traditional. I cannot confirm that, or even describe what it is now, nor do I know why it changed (albeit my guess is based on my time there: Many many students didn’t seem to take advantage of collegiate atmosphere, and I believe there was some push-back from parents and others). I have no idea how the finances then or now compared with more traditional high schools.
blf@362,
Yeah, having lead a project on domestic energy demand, which included some work on public attitudes, I’d agree with Profs. Krulle and Grosnick. Even in Europe, where outright conspiracist denialism is less common than in the US, it looked like people would be more amenable to appeals to thrift norms (it’s wrong to waste stuff in general, therefore wrong to waste energy) than to information and warnings about effects on the climate. Although we didn’t look at this, I think a large part of the trouble is that people don’t want to believe we are faced with the choice of disastrous climate change or radical changes in lifestyle, so they are willing to believe denialist lies, at least to the extent of thinking it’s all still up in the air (pun intended). But if we could get high-status individuals to push the truth hard, that would shift attitudes. Problem is, many of them are either in denial themselves, or in the pay of vested interests. Worse, since the best evidence is that we need to leave maybe 2/3 of known fossil fuel reserves in the ground, while corporations and governments still see profit/national advantage in prospecting for more, what we need to do is in blatant contradiction with the logic of the capitalist world-system.
Tenderising.
Possibly… From the LA Times, Disney’s sexier, skinnier Merida to stay, despite protests (dated 15th May):
However, there’s no real confirmation one way or the other.
Giliell:
I agree about sinks in bathrooms. It took me a while, but I finally trained myself to wash my hands for 15-20 seconds and use paper towels to both dry my hands and open the door (usually I turn the water off with the back of my hand). Hard to do any of that if the sink is separate from the toilet.
****
carlie:
Yup, the deal was sealed with her notpology. I don’t even feel guilty anymore about telling her to leave.
—
I think you displayed the level of social interaction (with your co-worker) that you were comfortable with. Not everyone indulges in various social conventions, nor should they be expected to, but you didn’t just decline the coffee/tea offer, you engaged in convesation. Seems to me you handled the social interaction well (or, better stated, you handled it in a way that was comfortable for you without offending co-worker).
FossilFishy
As another one of the lucky ones, I say we start a stockpile of Luck for those in need. Sadly, I do not know how to build one, much less distribute said Luck upon need. :(
+++
A look at women’s sexuality. Something about the tone puts me off (can’t quite put a finger on it), but at the same time, I think it’s a great topic about which to write. Also, I don’t think it scrunches EvoPsych under the heel quite as much as it should. It mentions nothing (fine, nearly nothing) about the cultural aspects of gender roles and sexual expectations (granted, I’d probably have to read the actual book for that) – actually, this may be what I find somewhat problematic in the article.
I think that has to do with how the plumbing hooks up. If they’re close together, it’s much easier than running water and drains to the other end of the house.
But yes, highly inconvenient. Especially if you have to go to the bathroom at night, in the cold, cold winter.
*brrrrrr*
Apparently. I’d sort of noticed that you rarely saw them alone, they don’t appear to be gregarious like magpies or parrots. (I know Australian parrots are generally highly regarded – but those squawking flocks of corellas are absolutely witless).
It was only because a friend’s husband found a baby kookaburra in their yard – took him a while to find the poor little mite. He heard a funny noise which he sort of disregarded, they live in a rainforest area and funny noises are not rare, but followed it up when he heard it again later. Poor little thing had apparently alighted on the edge of an empty plant pot – which promptly upended and trapped it underneath, also making it a bit hard for anyone to spot the source of the funny noises the bird was making. They took it to the local wildlife vet service who fed it up for a time because it’d been trapped for at least a day by that time. Next day, when they picked it up the wildlife people told them what I said earlier. Very strongly.
Apparently the groups of 3 to 8ish that you often see are not a small flock in the usual sense, they are all closely related. They’re more like a permanent extended family in a well-defined territory. When the friends put the little one back where it was found, the extended family turned up within a couple of hours and birdie flew away with the family.
I’d never known, but it explained some things that I’d observed before which made more sense in the light of that. Certainly the business about the long-term commitment to defined territories.
Good morning.
Sorry I’ve been so absent.
Bad times at night.
TRIGGER WARNING FOR NARCISSISM
I hate this shit. I know that I really had little choice in what happened. I know that even when I had a choice (hurt her or be hurt) it really wasn’t a choice. I know that deciding to be part of cub scouts was a decision I made but that did not volunteer me for abuse. I know that I should have told as many people as possible but I was so sure I would not be believed. And yet, as I lay awake in bed last night, these same thoughts kept racing through my sorry excuse for a brain and it is so fucking hard to defend myself against myself because I know where all of the guilt triggers are.
/TRIGGER WARNING
Went last night with Wife and Boy to Popeyes for some fried chicken. Luckily, it is a fair dinkum drive from where I am to the nearest Popeyes so we kinna do it to often. I really do like their red beans and rice.
Cute, but hard to clean.
*hugs* for the mental trap doors you keep running into, Og.
Sounds like you had a yummy dinner. : )
Anybody remember that part of My Cousin Vinny where he shouts “Everything that guy just said was bullshit!”
I would love to be able to use this stamp to reflect my feelings about motions I receive from the other side.
The mildly deranged penguin points out there are single-use: When your unexpecting guest looks down into the cup s/he’s drinking out of…
And in case, after a few months of use, cups have a cute collection of green and fuzzy things. With those, there’s just more surface to colonize! You could get an interesting thriving civilization going…
What do you stamp? Their e-mail, your reply, their foreheads, your forehead, or just wander down the street stamping anybody you can get close enough to?
Tony @321
I know that this is just one thing in a rainbow of grievances with T, but on the bathroom thing, my partner and I have had a system since we were just roommates where if you’re going to use the bathroom for an extended period (to take a shower or groom), you check in with the other people in the house first with a quick “I’m going to take a shower, does anyone else need to use the bathroom first?” check-in. Doesn’t even need to be a wandering through the house thing, it can just be yelled outside the bathroom door before going in. Maybe your roommate and you need to institute a similar system so something like that doesn’t happen again.
Ogvorbis @382
You know, as well as we, that it wasn’t your fault, that you didn’t ask for or cause the abuse to occur.
So, let me just tell you that it isn’t your fault or your weakness that you keep finding yourself self-blaming yourself anyways. It’s an unfortunate natural impulse in our society. We’ve got a society that is based in minimizing, victim-blaming, or otherwise burying rape narratives, seeing those who undergo the trauma as somehow complicit in their assaults. In addition, we’ve got the desire to self-blame. If it was our fault, if we did do something wrong that “caused” the incident, then it’s something that’s controllable by us. We could have done different, so next time, we will. And on top of that, we’ve got a mind that’s perpetuating the abuse, playing the role of our assaulter in blaming ourselves. Of course we suffered that, because reasons. And that’s not even noting how the constant narrative that rape is the fault of the victims guides one’s thoughts back to that like a magnetic compass. Or how the anger and pain of what you suffer feels too wrong to spew outward, so we turn in on ourselves like a knife and keep cutting*.
It’s natural that your mind will turn on you, often when you already low. It doesn’t mean that you are weak and that you are slipping. In many respects, the fact that you’re attacking yourself less means you’re starting to build a strong rapport with your mind where you are standing up for exactly how much of it was your fault (none of it).
It’s a hard road, Ogvorbis, but you’re doing amazing. And yes, none of it was your fault.
*I used we a lot because I do the same thing with regards to my rape or the trans* oppression I have faced recently. I know it’s not my fault, but sometimes when I’m at my weakest and my self-loathing is acting up, I end up victim-blaming myself anyways. Why did I sit there and accept my rape without physically standing up for myself or raising a fuss? Why did I fucking shake hands with him afterwards (this one sticks the most for me and is often the hardest aspect of my rape to shake off)? With my trans* oppression, why was I dumb enough to come out at work, hadn’t I read the narratives, why didn’t I factor in the consequences? I really hurt my partner by doing this selfish shit of trying to be myself, why aren’t I more meaningful of the others tangled into my life? Is my dad right, am I really fucking up my life into the gutter, oh fuck, how am I going to keep on surviving? Are my ideals and political convictions just a marriage to self-destruction? Why in the ever loving fuck did I come out to my uncle as if it would have been no real thing when he was our only real safety net in terms of having a place to move to and stay if we went under, not to mention potential financial support when we go under? It’s a sick side-effect of the trauma. But none of it is true.
rq @ old comments
On ChoirCreep: Oh that fucking personality type. The “I’m an ignorant bigoted asshole who wouldn’t know my asshole from the center of the Milky Way, but damnitt I have man-bits and a heap of unexamined privilege, so I must be right about everything”. I think most of the reason my dad’s email was so incredibly shitty (oh and for mother’s day, I got disowned by her too, so yay on that) is because he’s been taking lessons on how to be that guy from his closest work mate who is definitely that personality type (we don’t tend to get along when we meet).
And they are so hard to educate too, because they often wrap their self-esteem into “always being right” so when you demonstrate how incredibly wrong they are, they just turn super slippery and assholic in order to avoid having to admit that they are ignorant on a subject.
Ha! There are many I would like to just stop them mid-sentence to stamp their forehead…But they do always send me a paper copy of a motion, usually along with email or fax so I have it immediately. I almost never do anything but stick the paper copy in a file, and give a copy to the client. So I could stamp it over this paragraph or that one, the ones that say things that are patently false. (I actually used the word “spurious” in a responsive motion last week, which is legalese for “bullshit.” }:)
When I was twelve, a friend’s mom did this by telling her kids to “Speak now or forever hold your pee.” It still makes me giggle like a twelve year old.
I’m so sorry. : (
BIG bladders!
Pricking with a pin is not recommended…
Hi Oggie.
I hope all those triggers wear out.
(why doesn’t it work like that?)
(it should)
This sounds a lot like the social structure of eastern American Crows.
Some people think it’s a better model for ancestral humans than any living primate.
Big *hugs* to Ogvorbis and Cerberus. It is, always and ever, not your fault.
This is standard in our household, although former roommate never did get the hang of it. He was kind of inconsiderate about a lot of things, though.
I dunno; I have to admit I find it grating on occasion.
Just kinda seems like beating a dead horse.
*blinks, looks over at Cicely* ohhhhh….
:P
carlie, I keep forgetting to tell you that last Friday the colleague from Brazil spontaneously called me Dave!
Two new dinosaur papers. They’re unusual in not describing new genera & species. :-)
So full of win… :-)
All seconded.
And some positive life news (Bob knows I’ve been needing some):
Got a job for the summer, doing summer campy stuff and I get to put a spiffy “Lead” position in my resumes which is all sorts of kick ass. Will have to teach in drag because economic realities make it so (i.e. I’m a cowardly fuck who let basic survival trump being an out and active tool for dismantling the oppression being wielded against me).
Also my love-life is going great. Me, Partner, Girlfriend, and Partner’s girlfriend are all having good times in various configurations of hanging out.
And in annoying life news (cause I needed more of that):
My partner is struggling with her bully at work. Basically she’s in a guaranteed losing position, because her boss has gone full on Batman villain about doing her bully friend’s bidding. Partner is getting yelled at for constantly fucking up even when a) she hasn’t or is fucking up no more regularly than anyone else or more commonly b) when the Boss herself fucked up, but assumed that Partner must have fucked up or it still counts against her, because “Partner is such a fuck up”. Most annoying bit is that Partner got blamed for a system glitch problem that began Bully trying to destroy her. Bully ends up losing something to the same system glitch in a way she can’t blame anyone else. Boss turns around and is all, there there lover, it’s okay, you’re loved and supported, softly softly after going hard-line on Partner about it.
When the Bosses start using their delusions as proof of your nefariousness and are practically diving into the laps of your accusers in what might as well be NRE glow, I think we can safely say you’re fucked and there ain’t a damn thing you can do to save your job.
So Partner will be job-hunting for her own replacement employment.
David M., thank you for the link (in comment #296) about leaching gold out of rock without the use of environmentally damaging cyanide.
We will never lack for stupid things said by right wing religious flea brains as long as we have Pat Robertson. Here is his latest:
Salon link.
Tony, I’m also eagerly awaiting Agents of SHIELD…and the explanation for Agent Coulson’s survival.
I hope they don’t blow this.
And I’m glad that T will shortly be out of your hair; I’m only worried that she’s just saying that she intends to leave, but doesn’t intend to follow through.
Buffy was awesome.
CHEETOS! The terribly unhealthy, fried ones. Those baked ones—they aint’n’t Cheetos. I don’t care what the label says.
–
Absolutely!
*spit*
–
“Some of the sheep.”
–
*hugs* for Ogvorbis. That kind of train of thought is hard to permanently derail. The tracks are always right there. Path of least resistance, and all that.
–
*hugs* and sympathy.
–
Azkyroth, I will have you know that I never beat a dead Horse. There is no point. It can no longer pursue Its sinister Agenda; all it can do is lie there rotting, sinisterly.
–
More stupid things said by right wing religious flea brains:
Oh those radical, sexy, immoral seniors! The American Family Association also issued a statement accusing the group [AARP] of using member fees to advocate “special rights for immoral behavior.” Coverage in Salon.
Coverage on Think Progress. Excerpt below:
Cerberus, I’m sorry that your Partner is being railroaded.
:(
–
Okay, after the latest news about the price of oil being rigged, I have to agree with Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone that “Everything is Rigged.”
This is a follow up to comment #400. The Maddow Blog has issued an annotated version of Pat Robertson’s comments.
The Pat Robertson nonsense begins with, ““Stop talking about the cheating! (1) He cheated on you, well, he’s a man. (2) So what you do is begin to focus on why you married him in the first place, on what he does good,” and goes on from there to get worse. “… what you want to do is make a home so wonderful that he doesn’t want to wander. …”
Excerpts from the Maddow Blog annotation:
Obvorbis and Cerberus – *many hugs and lots of chocolate*
FossilFishy – I’m one of the lucky ones too. I really enjoy your writing.
I think I scared ChoirCreep. He’s missed two (important!!*) rehearsals this week, and before that he was all about attendance (for himself and everyone else, too). Shall we now Victory Dance?
*Annual amateur choir review, complete with national standings, on Saturday.
Cerberus
*gianthugs* for you! :(
You’re one of those people to whom I would dedicate a truckload (and more!) of Luck. Because you deserve it.
And so does Ogvorbis.
Jadehawk… wow, those are super dead. I still like you, though.
I find it massively creepy.
Massive trouble reading, like, undiagnosed and completely untreated dyslexia?
(…Almost spelled it “complelety” and then spent three seconds wondering why it looked wrong.)
Tsss. Hieroglyphs are never written on clay tablets. No respect for tradition.
(They are, however, written on papyrus. *duck & cover*)
They waft scents around. It’s Stupid Design.
*evil sniggering*
It happened to fit Merkel’s ideology, duh.
Nobody had a more convincing idea, so she got it through.
Glad to have been of service!
All pretty standard where I come from, except in small apartments.
At last somebody has grown a brain on this planet!!!
It is a giant kingfisher.
They even killed the Flash plugin.
…why? Is the bathroom too small? Most of my family always change in the bathroom and store their underwear there.
Jadehawk… wow, those are super dead. I still like you, though.
I find it massively creepy.
Massive trouble reading, like, undiagnosed and completely untreated dyslexia?
(…Almost spelled it “complelety” and then spent three seconds wondering why it looked wrong.)
Tsss. Hieroglyphs are never written on clay tablets. No respect for tradition.
(They are, however, written on papyrus. *duck & cover*)
They waft scents around. It’s Stupid Design.
*evil sniggering*
It happened to fit Merkel’s ideology, duh.
Nobody had a more convincing idea, so she got it through.
Glad to have been of service!
All pretty standard where I come from, except in small apartments.
At last somebody has grown a brain on this planet!!!
It is a giant kingfisher.
They even killed the Flash plugin.
…why? Is the bathroom too small? Most of my family always change in the bathroom and store their underwear there.
*drawn-out facepalm*
*out of words*
*pile of hugs huge enough for everyone to sleep on*
*milk with maple syrup*
*chocolate*
:-D
I keep saying that the EU Commissioner for Competition is the biggest force for capitalism in the world.
Chatting with a friend who is awaiting the birth of her baby (due in 2 weeks). Says it has dropped and turned.
“It is punching my cervix,” says she.
Pardon me, I’ll be over here, cringing…
rq
Excellent news! Hurrah for Creep-free rehearsals and best wishes for many more.
Cerberus
Great news about the job, and the love life. Wonderful :)
I hope Partner find something way better very soon.
drive-by *hugs*
Hi Tony! I’ve been sort of okay, dealing with stuff, but these aren’t the best of times :/
Sharing living-space with inconsiderate people sucks after a certain amount of time/after your limit to accomodate inconsiderateness is crossed. Hope you don’t have to put up with any such for long time.
*hugs-if-needed* to Ogvorbis and Cerberus.
carlie :
I feel this. All the time. Even when I comment here, most times I just can’t make up my mind whether to say something or not, whether to comment on/respond to what is being shared or not. *sigh* Social ineptness or something.
Hi chigau!
Does Boss have a boss?
If so, start spamming FYI memos about minor stuff and then slip in one memo about an actual problem, which you’ll BCC to the Boss’ boss. Then, when Boss screws up, it’ll be clearly their fault for not reading the memo that notified them of the problem.
I’m not sure if that would work, since I don’t know the exact situation. I’m just going by the first rule of corporate life: Cover your ass. It may be less aggravating to simply find a job with fewer assholes.
Beatrice:
I’ll grab one, thanks.
Hi Vilém.
I’m signing up for more pro bono work. I’m excited to help people.
Some older male attorneys think they can push me around. They can’t. I’m excited to demonstrate their wrongness.
I have a business expansion around the corner, the form it takes will be announced tomorrow. I’m excited.
My mom is visiting me and bringing nieces next week. I’m excited.
I’m just excited.
Wooooooo.
Carlie
I have this type of experience too, all the time.
Portia
Good news all around, then. Congratulations.
Good new for good news, Portia! :)
The travelling circus travels by car tomorrow. Woo hoo. Of course, assuming I even make it in to work, this means that in two weeks time I’ll be back to my evenings-and-weekends schedule at the lab. Time, where have you gone?
+++
To close out the night, some more items to share:
really old water
those roaming charges will get you!
Doctor Who vs. Star Wars – winner: the police
And this song, called It’s My Life, from tonight’s Eurovision final, in a lot of ways made me think of the Lounge. It’s from Romania, and stick it out – the singer does something amazing with his voice (even though sound is crappy on this video because it’s the rehearsal). I just… Still don’t know if I like the song or not, but that’s impressive and unexpected.
Good night!
Back to David M.’s link at 296:
I noticed that the word “green” was used excessively in describing this process. They used nitric acid to treat their gold scrap and they then blithely ignored the nitric acid when assessing the environmentally friendly nature of the process.
The samples they used for the trials was 58% gold. In other words, it was scrap jewelry. “Rose gold” is only used for jewelry as far as I know. So what are they doing using such refined gold for their trials? They mention recycling the gold from electronic devices, but that gold is an alloy. Beryllium is used to add strength to gold components in electronics. No gold/Beryllium alloy is mentioned.
Also, I think they got up to 94 to 95 percent purity with their pretreated-with-nitric-acid scrap. But they need 99 percent plus purity to recycle gold into something usable (something that can be made into an alloy), so they would have to take the results of their trials and subject them to the old cyanide process to get an end product.
I am a bit confused by all this. However, it may just be that the researchers are not done yet. I hope they know they have a ways to go.
I think the “green” claim may be misleading if the process requires nitric acid.
::The Queer Shoop scratches his head upon reading “milk with maple syrup” ::
OMFG, better keep your eye on the Farm Bill.
Daily Kos coverage.
Center for Budget and Policy Priorities paper on this issue.
Tony
The correct reaction is, YUMYUM!!! (It’s like milk and honey… but better.)
An excerpt from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities paper referenced in #422:
David – you must have been giving off a totally laid-back vibe! :)
Cerberus – hm, trying to draw some kind of silverish lining on it, you having to dress that way for the job is being totally subversive – they don’t like people dressing in what they think of as drag, but in conforming to what they want you really will be dressing in drag.
I got my IUD replaced recently (the doctor said she’s only seen one or two other people go for three in a row, and I was all “AND THERE WILL ALSO BE A FOURTH”), and here’s a fun bit of trivia: before they put it in, they have a measuring stick with which they have to do a sounding. That is just like what soundings are in the ocean, but in your uterus. In other news, turns out that the uterus has more nerve endings than one would think is necessary.
carlie-
Maybe I can think of it like a Drag King performance. Here’s Cerberus, “he’s” here to educate and take no sass. Actually no, that probably won’t work. I think there might be a rule against bad lip synching in the training manual.
::The Queer Shoop scratches his head at the thought of “milk and honey” too::
Milk goes with, well milk.
Or *OREOS*.
Or a bowl of cereal.
Or oatmeal (heck, milk with honey or maple syrup is perfect…in oatmeal).
Or a glass of milk with a nice deliciously chocolatey warm brownie and a large scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Ow.
Ow.
Ow.
I’m not sure how many more :headdesks: I can handle. I already have a few dents in the desk from 3 ThinkProgress articles:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/05/16/2016631/epa-is-required-to-regulate-carbon-pollution-from-existing-power-plants/
Why do they have to petition the Supreme Court?
Can’t they pray to god?
They do it for rain FFS.
http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2013/05/16/2018671/the-number-of-women-in-top-grossing-movies-hits-five-year-low-what-are-women-for-in-hollywood/
There’s an important bit further in the article about the lack of women narrators, which I found interesting
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/05/16/2023101/congressman-legalized-abortions-cause-school-shootings/
It took god 40 years to begin his campaign of terror?
Did he lie about creating everything in 6 days?
thanks rq and Dalillama. Hugs to you both.
Oh, I’m going to be here a while.
Currently, I’m getting caught up on the “Own Goal” thread.
A statement by one commenter really bothers me, but I cannot put my finger on it:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/05/15/i-think-we-call-that-an-own-goal/comment-page-1/#comment-620215
Actually, looking at it again, there are a couple of things I find irritating (though I do understand why I don’t like the second):
1- equating higher levels of “smart” with new material
2- memorizing fandom minutae=nothing else to do with the rest of their lives.
tony, threadrupt but years ago in Reno I used to have a smith n currens for breakfast, after working the night shift of course. That is a perfectly acceptable use of milk and pepsi
I’m having an allergic reaction to ‘nothing’ again! Though it appears to have stopped at just the one arm this time instead of giving me body-wide hives for no reason. But we shall see.
Man, being allergic to ‘nothing’ is so much ‘fun’. Especially when (tmi buwahahaha) you get hives on your crotch. :/
I’m made for living in cities.
Going down to the metro in D.C. , I was standing on the escalator, taking in the “scenery”: a giant gray concrete tube with four very long escalators going down; a black metal and glass elevator tube in the middle; everything illuminated by rows of squares of those ghastly orange lights; and a small handful of tiny and forlorn looking people standing on the escalators. And my brain is all “OMG that’s so ugly it’s beautiful.” and suddenly I was idiotically happy just to be where I was.
IOW, I need to get the fuck out of ND. My brain seems to become very happy every time I leave :-p
broboxley:
I shall add your mixture to my list of “…do what?”
BTW, I was wondering how you were doing a few days ago (along with Caine and SGBM).
Jadehawk:
Florida is lovely this time of year.
Just ignore our Governor.
And the fact that it’s in the Bible Belt.
how large are your mosquitos?
how large are your spiders?
I just found out how much one of my cats holds back when we play games involving hands, teeth and claws. She doesn’t do me that courtesy if rabbit fur toys are involved. Now I have a centimeter long gash down the middle section of my index finger.
I see StevoR has returned.
(can’t say much more *HERE*)
Brings back memories of an old Bill Cosby routine. Importantly it’s a recording of a live gig. So he gets to the part where he says that he tried to get his wife to swallow a tennis ball so that the baby would have something to play with … and you hear the women in the audience laugh first and loudest.
(My own view is that it’s long overdue for medical texts to mention ‘trampoline’ when describing functions of body parts like the cervix.)
Tee Hee…I’m having a blast catching up on the Justicar thread.
Mostly due to the response to vargonian at this point.
I’d forgotten how enjoyable sitting back and watching the Pharyngula Shark Tank was.
*rum for everyone*
[or chocolate bacon whatever for those who don’t do rum]
Good morning
Fossil Fishy
Don’t turn radiators on just when you’re at home so you’ll save energy, because you won’t.
When new heatings came up in Germany where you could set the clock so it would only turn on like half an hour before you came home people did that, too. And the result was increased costs.
Because it takes much less energy to keep a house at a certain temperature than to let it cool out and then heat it up again. (Think about your car: Getting to 60 mph takes much more fuel than going at that speed)
Cerberus
Big fat hugs
Well, that’s not too difficult
The merest threat of having to play a video usually does that job, too.
+++
Can anybody send me JAL’s email?
I have a littly something for her little one and I need her post address.
Mine’s
nymÄTyahooDOTde
That’s not actually true, physically (big reasons: 1. specific heat isn’t significantly responsive to rate of change, and 2. heat transfer rate to the surroundings is proportional to the temperature difference with the surroundings).
…which isn’t a good analogy for a whole bunch of reasons. But, think about it: it certainly doesn’t use less gas to keep your car running at [speed limit] on blocks all night, then it does to shut it off and accelerate to that speed when you’re ready to drive to work.
Could you give us more detail Azkyroth? Or perhaps a link?
Back in the old country, where winters are serious we had an energy audit done on our home. The expert told us that turning down the heater at night was useful only to a point. IIRC he said that turning it down 5-10 degrees would be helpful to save energy but more would be counterproductive for reasons like Giliell mentioned.
I’m really fuzzy on the details now, but I think it had to do with letting all the thermal m ass in the house cool off too much. It can be quite quick to heat the air, especially with a forced air system, but if the floors, walls, furniture etc. have cooled the heater is going to have to cycle on more frequently until that mass has warmed up to the desired room temperature.
Parrowing
Sorry, I missed your question. Yup, you do recall correctly. We had hydronic heat pipes installed in the floor of Chez Fishy. It was relatively cheap to do because we were pouring the concrete slab. Mind you, we don’t have the money to connect those pipes to any kind of hot water boiler yet. I’m hoping that the passive solar nature of the place will be sufficient for most of our needs. Other clients of our builders have told us that their 7 star energy rated homes (out of 10) maintain 18-25c in winter without supplemental heating. We’ll see. If we never use the pipes we can still use it as a selling feature should it come to that. People tend to be reluctant to believe that passive solar works until they experience it.
Oh, I should have mentioned that our place is rated 8 stars.
Hi-ho.
Trying to gather the strength to actually leave the house. Kids are ready, I’m (theoretically) ready, but it always seems like such an effort to step out the door and actually do what needs to be done.
I’m terrified it will be horrible, and it (almost) never is. *meh*
Maybe it’s wearing a dress that’s making me nervous.
Alright, turning off and heading out.
If you say so.
I can only tell you that it is exactly what happened to my parents and grandparents after they got new heating. In the same house. If anything my grandparents should have needed more energy for the reasons of having a cold basement underneath and an additional glassdoor, but they, being at home all day needed less gas than we did when we programmed the shit out of the heating.
There’s a certain amount of truth to both analogies: It depends on what the goal is and on how long the breaks are. To stay with the car: It’s certainly better to turn off the engine when you’re standing IF you’re standing for a certain amount of time (with older cars. This has shifted with newer ones). If you’re only stopping for 5 seconds it makes no sense.
+++
Poor duck
The little one is sick. And demands to be taken to the doctor. She got taken to grandma instead because even though we have total coverage I’m not wasting everybody’s time by taking a kid with a slight temperature and a runny nose to the doc.
FossilFishy, your energy-efficient home has got a lot in common with my dream home (the only reason I can’t say it has everything in common is because I’m hopelessly in love with a romantic ideal which I will never actually live in but which resonates with the experiences of my formative years – and this involves stone walls and slate roofs and, most importantly of all, contour lines on the map being very close together somewhere in the immediate vicinity). It feels to me like such a happy home already, and you haven’t even moved in yet! I can’t wait to see some photos of the rooms when actually inhabited by you all.
.
rq, I’m a little bit ‘rupt and can’t remember the nature of the trip – which you will be on, by now – but I hope it all goes beautifully well despite having to wear a dress. That, I can really sympathise with; I haven’t worn one for … um … maybe ten years now, and probably never will again.
.
I’m interested in the heating-your-home info; I guess it probably depends on the construction materials and type of home (flat, terraced, semi, detached) as well as on your timing habits and preferred/needed difference between home and outside temperatures. We tend to switch our (gas, central) heating off completely for about four or five months of the year (not that it’s warm, but extra clothes are enough from late spring to early autumn) but have it on a timer the rest of the year (off from midnight to 6am; thermostat from 6am to midnight) and of course I’d like to know if that makes sense.
.
::waves:: and assorted hugs, chocolate and kittens to many of you, including congratulations to Portia for ahem coming as something of a surprise to older male lawyers :-)))), and to Cerberus for the summer job (yay :-)))) ; and including commiserations to too many good people having to deal with too much evil shit … such as triggering dreams :-(((( and transphobic family members :-(((( and shitty workmates and ultraDouche bosses.
.
I didn’t have any weekend at all last week, but I might get a weekend-and-a-half this week so it’s entirely possible that today may be Saturday. I should probably ask Ogvorbis.
.
It’s exam season again … my Spawn are somewhat stressed out, and I am probably stressing more than they are (I try not to unload that onto them, but I know some of it slips through. Besides, SonSpawn would hardly revise at all without reminders :-( so some of it needs to get through if I can manage to do so in a constructive manner).
Ogvorbis,
Sorry, man. That sounds rough.
You know, over the years I’ve done stuff as an adult purely to please the child I once was.
Of course, I was aware I was doing this but it was still satisfying.
—
Of what courage I have, I give you a tithe.
(May it help)
Completely, totally [Dude!] threadrupt, but just gotta say (and can’t say it anywhere else) : ‘God is an Asshole!’:
http://news.yahoo.com/monster-texas-tornado-kills-six-seven-people-missing-064601088.html
Oh, and Pat Robertson is still an asshole:
http://www.alternet.org/media/pat-robertsons-latest-ridiculousness-forgive-your-cheating-husband-because-well-hes-man
*waves*
Hi everyone! I’m totally threadrupt, which is sadly now my usual though I’ve at least tried some to keep up with other threads. We’re all good here, just…well living and waiting. Nothing new has happened.
Oh, except for my parent’s apartment got flooded and the landlord decided working on the other property’s lawn sprinklers was more important, even though it was just updating and maintenance. Not, you know, an emergency like an apartment flooding. She literally said there was nothing she could do and that we’d have to deal with it.
O.O
So we used buckets and all that household shit to try and clean it up. Then snaked the bathtub drain and replaced the broken cold water handle? knob? thingy? Everything got soaked and everything needs to be washed. We asked permission to hang the clothes and blankets outside to dry since we can’t even afford really to wash it all. The landlord’s response? “Well, everyone does it but they aren’t supposed to and I don’t want them to think I approve of it.” Lovely. So we did it anyways since it’s May in ARIZONA. Hello, quick dry! We then informed the landlord that with our evidence we are using rent to deal with flood damage and she’s not getting rent until she fixes the shit like she’s suppose to. Print out of the law (highlighted even) and the forms to file a fucking complaint against her/building. Sick of her shit.
Oh, then there was the drug apartment (our wall neighbors on one side of course) where a dad brought his young daughter to get high. The douche passed out and the little girl went wandering around the complex. She found the apartment to a friend’s house. The occupant, an older black guy, was sleeping. Yes, with his door unlocked because he goes in and out and his friends (my step-father included) walk in to visit. Well, the dad wakes up either notices the kid is gone and doesn’t care or doesn’t notice, because he gets high for about another hour. He then calls his wife to let her know their child is missing and goes “searching” for her. The little girl comes out when she hears her dad calling her name, leaving the still sleeping man totally unaware of what went on. The dad has called the cops and proceeds to blame the black guy for kidnapping and molesting her daughter to cover his own ass.
Well, the poor friend gets wakened up by the banging and entering of the police with their weapons drawn. Poor guy. =( The cops, thankfully, get this one right because the dad goes to jail, the kid goes with the mom and the neighborhood friend is still home safe and sound. Of course, the druggies next door don’t like being caught up with the police so now they are even fucking worse. Oy, more drama to come.
Little One’s school level graduation is in a week and her birthday is the day after that. She’s still insisting her b-day will be a school day because she wants to have the in class celebration with her friends. She’s going to be so disappointed. =(
Uh…..I know there’s more I just can’t think of anything else. It’s after 3 a.m. and I’m still struggling with sleeping. Except when I pass out from exhaustion for 6 hours and wake up like a person with a hangover. I’m just such a joy to be around! *sigh* I’m sorry all I do is dump my shit here and leave without really contributing anything. I just don’t have any spoons. I’m surprised I’m not just lying in bed all day staring. (in my worst phases I do that…) I’m just brain dead at the moment. Proof: somehow I’ve gotten into watching Whose Line Is It Anyways? on youtube from the very beginning and laughing my fucking ass off. I forget everything and mostly talk like “Wait…wut? Uh, yeah….that….good…” but I react to that show like I’m normal. (well, for certain definition of normal…) So far, I’ve “Awwwed” and wanted to cuddle Ryan Styles, am attracted to and wanting to listen to Wayne Brady forever.
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. That’s so sweet! Thank you!
It’s jals(dot)snark(dot)tentacles(at)gmail(dot)com
Do I get to know what it is or is it a surprise? :D
(OMG I smiled at something other than WLIIA! and a real smile too, not the obvious “I’m trying…It’s something” smile where just a corner of my mouth goes up and struggles to remain in a upright position.)
OMG, just got to the episode with Stephen Colbert as the anchor on a weird newscasters skit!!! (From Whose Line Is It Anyways?, in case if you didn’t read my long ass previous post.)
You know, I can’t defend my taste in shows but it’s helpful. I get so into it’s embarressing so I just watch it when Roomie is at work at night. I have to use headphones because laptop speakers suck so I’m not jumping at every noise and all that anymore. Nope, instead I’m clapping, rocking back in forth from laughing and dancing in my seat. XD I don’t even like watching things on my laptop. It just seems really…weird and uncomfortable to me. Like I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing and for some reason think I’m being watched when I try to watch any sort of video on my laptop. But with WLIIA? it’s like I’m just part of the audience, without the worry about being picked for skits. Win-win.
I don’t even know how I got to watching it. I remember it from growing up, but I don’t have any actual memories to go with it except for one. I remember learning what the phrase “Those must have cost a pretty penny” meant when Drew said that about Ryan’s new pain of shiny shoes. I remember thinking.. Because his shoes are shiny? and then was corrected… by someone. I dunno know who, or a voice or anything, but I got informed somehow.
went to bed around midnight; woke up at 2, VERY awake and hungry, so went to cafeteria for snacks and internet; finally got tired again around 5; fell asleep, only to be woken by a nightmare in which I was having some sort of cardiac failure and lost consciousness. I was actually confused, waking up in a hostel instead on the floor of where the dream was happening.
Brain, why do you hate me?
In the news: ‘Scissor-handed’ creepy-crawly named after Johnny Depp
First you have to make sure it is dead. Chop it’s head off (the mafia is always interested in the detached head, so there is profit$$$ here), or squish it, or — most effective — pretend to be a pea and give it some orders. The mildly deranged penguin suggests ordering it to kill itself and all other horses in the vicinity.
Then you have to make sure it isn’t re-animated. Zombie horses are not groovy. Nuking from orbit supposedly works, as does grinding it up and calling it “freshly ground (beef)”…
Bloody spurious apostrophe’s. Tpyos is probably heartily sick of them by now.
Fruitcakes in the UK, Part N of Zillions, No huge demand for gay marriage, says Philip Hammond:
gadzooks, that’s vague.
it describes me.
I guess they mean ‘an arthropod’?
Not enough cheese before bedtime.
(Actually, there’s bugger-all evidence that cheese causes nightmares. Unless you consider the mildly deranged penguin a nightmare.)
Philip Hammond is an arse.
Spoons for Jadehawk and JAL.
I’m guessing that’s the USAnian version of WLIIA, JAL? Who “hosts” it? The UK version “hosted” by Clive Anderson was (not always, but often) very funny (and also starred Ryan Styles, for extra added goodness).
Good to hear the police do sometimes get it right, and didn’t just go for your neighbour for “kidnapping” the little girl who wandered in.
*spoons for Jadehawk and JAL*
Hundreds of genes with a circadian rhythm of expression in the brain are out of whack in people with severe depression. German news service citing paper.
The mosquitos have all been eaten by the spiders.
The spiders have all been eaten by the alligator babies.
I was asking myself the same question this morning. unfortunately, the answer was, “Because I deserve it.”
Yes, I am going through one of my depression episodes right now. The 9/11 (all three of them) and scouting dreams (with horrible (and arousing (which scares me and depresses me) details) have been coming in full force. I remember waking up at least five times last night from bad dreams. Fuck, depression is so easy to accept at 3:00am.
(FIFY.)
The baby alligators have been eaten by the mosquitos.
If it was in Australia, the spiders would be eating the adult crocodylians.
It’s hosted by Drew Carey. There’s going to be 10 new this summer and Drew Carey isn’t hosting those, but that’s all I know on the subject.
There’s a… UK version? It’s not some weird thing that only a few people in the USA like?
O.O
To teh Google!
(The only people I know who admit to liking it are the commenters on the youtube videos. I didn’t even think to look up the show or find anything out about it. My perception is clearly…skewed.)
Damn. Sorry, blf. Didn’t mean to repeat your joke.
Your version was funnier, though.
Damn, Ogvorbis. I’d like to send you a canteen or three of spoons too. :-(((((
+++out of cheese error+++
+++grok failure+++
Huh?
Quoth the paper:
“Etymology
After the actor Johnny Depp for his portrayal of Edward Scissorhands in the 1990 film of the same name. The hands of which are reminiscent of this taxon.”
Even though Joanne Rowling confuses “ancestor” and “descendant”, “ancestor” doesn’t mean “relative”. It’s much more specific than that. It’s the Internet, so I don’t actually know, but I suspect no lobsters or scorpions have issued forth from your loins…
A stem-arthropod with “great appendages” (the scissorhands), as depicted in figure 4. Just follow the link to the paper. (If you want the full text and don’t have access, tell me.)
…Though, actually, other parts of the tree they get are a bit suspect. They don’t find the pycnogonids (Jadehawk, do not look them up) as chelicerates, despite recent evidence from development genetics, and say
“Cladistic analysis was undertaken using TNT (Tree analysis using New Technology) v. 1.1. (Goloboff et al., 2008a). The large size of the data set (176 taxa and 580 characters; see online Supplemental Data file) necessitates the use of New Technology search options.”
That can’t be right. On the kind of desktop or indeed laptop sold nowadays, PAUP* should be able to deal with this in a few days at most.
“Multistate characters were treated as non-additive (unordered)”
*howl* *flail*
This both misses existing synapomorphies and creates spurious ones! When you divide a potentially continuous character into states, you already use the assumption that a change between close states is easier than between distant ones! Do I really have to cite Wiens (2001, Syst. Biol.) for this every single time?
You’re not supposed to have diving spiders in Florida.
The freshies perhaps, but not the salties. Saltie don’t give a shit. Saltie eats what it wants.
Spoon theory.
Oh my word, are you in for a treat. And many hours of viewing. As with much of the good stuff, they were the ones who started it.
of course it doesn’t.
Apologies for the pre-coffee error.
gah, from that press release:
…which is damn near as wrong as what I said!
*calming manatees for Giliell’s little one*
*and for JAL’s little one*
*and for JAL*
I don’t, because I don’t know enough people and don’t work in the Real World.
That’s because the nitric acid is entirely turned into potassium nitrate in the process. That’s saltpeter. It’s harmless, unless you eat enough of it to get cancer.
I have no idea what happens to the bromine, though. If it comes out as bromide ions, that’s fine, they can be precipitated and recycled…
“In order to explore the practical potential of the selective co-precipitation of α·Br for gold recovery, we have employed gold-bearing scrap as the raw material to develop a laboratory scale gold recovery process. […] The residual gold in the filtrate can be recycled while α-CD can be reused by recrystallisation from the filtrate. This laboratory scale process is highly selective for gold, as well as being economic, fast and feasible. As it doesn’t involve the use of toxic inorganic cyanides, this process is much more environmentally benign in comparison with the universally accepted cyanidation process2. Further optimization of process conditions and parameters is ongoing in our laboratories.”
So it’s basically a proof-of-concept paper, though a promising one.
“For the red gold alloy scrap sample, the recovered gold was obtained in 89% yield and 97% purity (ICP-OES). For the yellow gold alloy scrap sample, the recovered gold was obtained in 92% yield and 95% purity (ICP-OES).”
That may be argued to depend on the honey, but… on average… yeah :-)
(Current honey: orange blossoms. Preceded by linden blossoms.)
:-) I was indeed standing on a street, too close to the moving cars. :-)
In particular, we wonder why they’re so much more common on the USA than elsewhere…
So North Dakota is worse than Brutalist hell…
I can immediately believe that. *hug* ^_^
It is – and it’s the author himself saying it, which means he’s lying, because he knows better (see the “Diagnosis” sections).
Ogvorbis, David Marjanović #472 has the right of it with his link to Spoon Theory – I was thinking in terms of spoons because of the earlier conversation with Jadehawk and JAL; I’d like to send a large package of energy-and-wherewithal-for-copingwiththings-with.
.
I see that carlie is a fellow WLIIA-enjoyer :-)
.
Turns out I’m not having a weekend this weekend after all. So it’s not Saturday today, as I had thought it might be; it seems to be about Tuesday. Or possibly even Monday. But it will make the hole a smidgen less deep, when it eventually gets paid, so yay! (nearly Spawn#2’s birthday, and we wanted very much to get him something a bit special – of course it’s no consolation for not having anyone to celebrate with, but if he likes the present maybe it will make him and us feel a bit better … eh, overcompensating :-( … ‘scuse the feelings-dump. It sort of helps. Thank you, for rlz).
*hugs* for Jadehawk, JAL and Ogvorbis.
Giliell, I hope little one feels better and is distracted by the grandma visit :)
—
I got a counterclaim in my pro bono case. I am having a sassy feeling about it, like “You wanna have a pain-in-the-ass competition? Because I am great at that.” I am gonna discover the crap outta these jerks.
Some more of the shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone here, Global warming has not stalled, insists world’s best-known climate scientist:
I understand that one reason Hansen is in Europe currently is an attempt to convince the EU to consider tar sands as extremely polluting. Hansen’s position on tar sands has caused the Canadian goofballs to freak out, Canadian oil minister Joe Oliver condemns climatologist James Hansen:
Hansen’s response to the fool: “[T]he current government is a Neanderthal on this issue… Many of the governments are denying and trying to ignore what’s going to happen a few decades downstream. They’re only worried about the next two or three years.”
Indeed, the current set of blockheads in the UK are continuing to insert their brainless cavities further into deep and smelly places, UK signals support for EU import of Canadian tar sands oil: “Leaked papers show UK rejects proposal to classify oil from tar sands as highly polluting, a label that would deter EU countries from importing it”.
David M. at 476:
I understand that. One still has to either transport nitric acid, which is not as safe to transport as cyanide (dry transport), or make it on site. In either case, one has to store and use nitric acid.
Mining operations keep a cyanide kit on hand for emergency use. Yes, cyanide can kill you, but there is a kit equipped to treat exposure to cyanide. On the other hand, if you breathe nitric acid fumes your lungs will cease to function and you will die. There is no treatment to prevent that.
Nitric acid can be stored in plastic or glass. It will eat through any other container. Cyanide has to be carefully stored, but it can be stored and transported in many types of sealed containers.
If a truck or train car carrying liquid nitric acid crashes, there is one hell of a problem. If a truck carrying containers of cyanide crashes, the truck may be ruined, but it is likely that the crash-proof containers of cyanide will just be rolling around somewhere and can be picked up and hauled away safely.
I liked the paper, and the idea of exploring other methods of leaching gold out of rock, but I think the nitric acid use is unnecessarily downplayed.
I take your point that this is a proof-of-concept paper and that I should wait for further developments.
Yes, there were lies told about the tragedy in Benghazi. Those lies were told by Republicans who leaked altered emails to the press. Republicans had the original emails, they didn’t leak the originals but they claimed to that the emails they altered were the originals. That equals lying.
CBS link. Major Garrett reports in the video.
Coverage on Then Maddow Blog.
This was not an innocent mistake made by congressional Republicans. They referenced the correct emails in their interim report in April, as noted by Mother Jones.
*hugs* and spoons to JAL, Ogvorbis, Jadehawk and any others who may be in need. Also, here is a picture of a cute puppy.
JAL
WLIA is quite popular among people I know, US and UK versions. A fan (or fans) recently tallied everyone’s points on the US show, and found Wayne Brady the clear winner with 50,072,587,425 points.
@nightmares
I think that I’m lucky I don’t dream anything that stays with me when I’m awake. From what others have told me about their dreams, I really can’t see where there’s an upside to the whole matter of actually experiencing your dreams.
Major yuck factor, and yet another reason to question the efficacy of factory farms: Poop foam has been causing explosions on hog farms.
PDF containing poop foam images and some scientific details from the University of Minnesota.
Thank you. My cheese is refilled and my grok has come.
I will remember spoon theory.
An addendum to that is that, for many people, going out and acting like a normal person is not something that they even have to think about.
Talking Points Memo posted a convenient list of the Republicans who want to impeach President Obama. They are not agreed on why they should impeach him, but they are sure they want to impeach him.
Not only are the Republicans impeding action on real legislation, like gun control and immigration, but they are adding drag in the form of impeachment discussions.
Michelle Bachmann is on the list of those calling for impeachment. I really wish that Minnesota had dumped her during the last election. Too many fellow fanatics in her district, I guess.
Our dog Amber had to be euthanased today. Her medication had improved her alertness, and she was just about able to stand, but four days after her stroke, she was still refusing to eat or drink of her own accord. We had kept her going by syringing water into her mouth, but the vet was pretty certain she would not start eating and drinking again, and natural death might have taken up to two weeks. We had thought she would have to be taken to the vet for the procedure, which had greatly increased our reluctance, but this morning I rang and asked, and was told they (vet and veterinary nurse) would come out. So she died very quickly, and as far as we could tell, painlessly, at home and surrounded by her family. She was a friendly, gentle, loving animal – but with a mind and a set of priorities very much her own! (We didn’t always see eye-to-eye with regard to what it is appropriate to eat, or to roll in :-}.) We will mourn her, miss her, and remember her with affection, and gratitude for all she gave us. Thanks to all who expressed their sympathy and support.
:°-(
Big *hugs* to Nick Gotts. I know how hard that is.
Nick, I’m so sorry. Amber was clearly very much loved, and I am quite certain that thanks to you she probably had just about the best life it is possible for a dog to have.
.
It always hurts, and you always miss them. It kind-of sort-of helps knowing that you did the right thing. I’d just like to send you a hug, if I may (and since that won’t be a rl hug I’ll give the rl one to the dog that usually sleeps under my desk).
Nick:
I am so sorry for your loss. My condolences to you and your family.
Nick – I’m so sorry. *hugs and chocolate*
Sciatica sux.
:( :( :( :( :(
I just can’t fail-to-recommend it strongly enough.
–
*hugs* for JAL. Your situation scares me, each and every time you describe it.
I liked the UK’s WLIIA much better than Usaia’s version. Back when I was watching, I mean.
–
If you’ve killed it properly in the first place, there will be no room for doubt; it’s just a matter of collecting the ashes and soot (for proper burial (packed in salt and cloves of garlic) at a crossroads (in an ecologically-friendly and leak-proof container)), then excavating and destroying a sensible amount of the underlying surface. Ideally, the over-lying atmosphere should also be contained and vigorously decontaminated but, unfortunately, if a circumstance involves Horses in the first place, they are already something less than ideal.
–
*also hugs* for Ogvorbis.
Depression likes to mug people at 3 a.m. because it knows that their defenses are already down. Fish in a barrel.
–
<singing>
It’s the Ciiiiiircle of Life…
</singing>
–
:D
–
“Your finger, you fool!”
No, wait—different kinda “discovery”….
–
Dalillama, my dreams are frequently entertaining, and sometimes I’ll come out of one with things that are useful in a DMing context. Every now and then, they’re useful in a problem-solving context.
It’s the nightmares that suck.
–
*hugs* and *something alcoholic* for Nick. I’m sorry about Amber. At least she was able to be at home with her family.
–
Congratulations to Portia on your good news!
*
I’m so sorry, Nick Gotts. *Hugs* if they are welcome.
*
Ooh, FossilFishy, the house sounds really cool. I was just thinking that if the floors were heated, then that would be quite a nice switch when you move- going from a bathroom with an opened window to a more insulated room with warm floors!
*
David Marjanović:
I phrased that sentence poorly. I meant to say that I would be uncomfortable walking through the main part of the house in a towel. As far as changing in the bathroom goes, I did that when I lived with my parents so it’s no big deal to me. I realized when I went away to university that many people thought that was unusual, so it was my understanding that a lot of people prefer not to change in the bathroom. I guess if a bathroom is shared, some might find it preferable to change somewhere else to free up the room.
*
And now I’ve realized that a large portion of this comment was spent discussing bathrooms.
*
Um. I like WLIIA also :D. Or at least I did. It’s been a while.
Science and drinks.
Oh, I’m so sorry, Nick. No matter how prepared and expected it is, it’s such a blow.
Hugs for everybody else, too.
I try to tell myself that anything my brain comes up with between 11pm and 6am is most likely to be A TRAP, and that I should picture my night-brain as having a twirly moustache and monocle and an evil hearty laugh when it starts in on me*. Maybe one of these days it will work.
*Problem is that I also have an absentminded chronically nervous secretary in there, who occasionally gets herself ramped up and randomly screams out things that she forgot to tell me to do earlier when I needed to do them, and those things I often need to pay some attention to. But she also can’t tell the difference between the “you should have done this today” list and the “you have to do this sometime before you die” list.
eHugs to Nick.
Thanks for all the hugs – much appreciated.
*hugs* for Nick, so sorry! :(
I bought an octopus today.
That is all.
Good night!
raccoon dilemma