Comments

  4. says

    Home, sorta. Staggered out of my car after the drive from St Paul straight into classes, and have since discovered I’m only partially conscious.

  7. rq says

    That’s not a cute baby animal. *disappointed*

    Will/Did the students even notice, PZ? I mean – are/were they fully conscious? :)
    Hope you manage some rest soon!

  9. says

    I appreciate all the well wishes on the job front.

    I found out something today- the person I thought I was up against, doesn’t want the job. So my biggest potential obstacle is not actually an obstacle at all. This does wipe out my plan B, but plan A is much more likely now.

    Hard to say exactly how likely. There is one other person in contention, who works evenings, I work mornings, so I really can’t say how well qualified she is. Our schedules don’t match up often enough for me to say. I do have an advantage in seniority- and if they consider my time at another location(long enough break it’s not official seniority, but might be informally considered) that advantage grows tremendously(from about two months to about a year). And my schedule gets me in view of management much more often, and given how satisfied management has been with my work that’s probably an advantage.

    So basically, likelihood of getting it is much higher than I though, though it’s hard to say exactly how much higher. The one I was pretty certain I could beat out for it also chose not to apply.

  10. says

    Ah, the Akeley one, I prefer the Bemidji one with Babe the Blue ox. Once in college after a night of drinking we put some sheets around Pauls’ waist made to look like a diaper. Then there is his girlfriend in Hackensak.

  11. Pteryxx says

    The last native speaker of Klallam, Hazel Sampson, has died.

    “In the U.S., this is happening all over Indian Country,” Valadez said. “They carry so much knowledge of our culture and traditions. Then it’s gone.”

    Valadez and Texas linguist Timothy Montler worked with Sampson and her husband, Ed, and other native speakers in the 1990s to compile a Klallam dictionary.

    If Ed forgot a word or got it wrong, Hazel would come out of the kitchen and correct him, but she declined to be officially involved in the project, Valadez said.

  12. rq says

    Pteryxx
    That is unbearably sad. When cultures die, because the people who carry them die… I know it happens, and its inevitable and has been happening for years, but it still hurts to think of all the knowledge and just plain interesting things that are lost with each person. And it is a reminder that all this cultural knowledge is carried by people – real, mortal, memorable people. :(

  13. rq says

    냂̀
    I am discovering new things on my keyboard. Anyone have any idea what that symbol above means? I get it by pressing Alt and the backslash key… ??

  16. octopod says

    rq, that’s Hangul (Korean alphabetic script) — you’d pronounce that something like “naelp” — but I don’t think it’s a word, just a syllable. I don’t actually speak Korean though, to my shame. :-p

  17. leftwingfox says

    catiecat and rq: I think the sound translates to “naelp”. It’s a single syllable with four sounds. I don’t know if that translates into a complete word though.

  18. rq says

    haha, My keyboard says ‘naelp’ in Korean. :D Totally inadvertent.
    Tomorrow, I shall seek out other keyboard mysteries.

  19. leftwingfox says

    Heh, jinx.

    I studied hangul briefly back in jr. high in preparation for a trip to Seoul, but I’ve never been great with learning additional languages. I admit, that was a combination of google search on the character to get a better look at the details, and reading up through wikipedia to cross-reference the result.

  21. A R says

    This is kind of off-topic, but I’m in university doing an honours-level music composition course, and I’m supposed to compose in the style of late Renaissance English church music composers, and I’m looking for good quotations by atheists and/or scientists to compose with instead of psalms. I’m not looking for poems (would take them, though), I’m looking for ordinary sentences. Any suggestions?

  22. kieran says

    http://www.thejournal.ie/panti-video-homophobia-1298688-Feb2014/ Don’t know if anyone here has been following this story. About three weeks ago Rory O’Neill was asked on a Saturday night show what he thought homophobia was and then was asked a follow up question who would he consider is homophobic in Irish media. He answered with his honest opinion, that Monday RTE (the Irish national broadcaster) received 6 solicitor letters, From John waters, Brenda O’Brian and 3 Members of the Iona institute ( a right wing catholic think tank mostly funded from sources in America)David Quinn et al., two weeks letter on the same show an apology was given to these people who were also given around €80,000 under a settlement agreement because of Irish defamation law.
    We’re heading into a referendum on marriage equality and now the opposition have managed to stop any criticism of their view point as homophobic.
    Watch the above video and feel free to share, it is one of the best pieces of oratory I’ve heard in Ireland in a long time.

  25. doubly says

    Life is really hard right now. My crappy apartment has bedbugs, and the landlord is pretty scummy. My university grades are fantastic, but there are two courses that are completely ruining my otherwise great GPA. And I still don’t know anything about what I want from my life, or how to get it. Sorry to spill here. I guess my question to you guys would be, when stuff gets hard, what gives you the strength to fight through it?

  26. David Marjanović says

    The last native speaker of Klallam, Hazel Sampson, has died.

    Fuck.

    The link-dumping must go on:
    What happens when advertizers tell Rush Limbaugh they don’t want to advertize on his show anymore because it’s too fucking racist? He doesn’t care.
    All the people that are important for the Eurozone are or have been in Goldman Sachs. The map is a bit weird, though; I’m not sure what the orange is supposed to represent.
    That Coca Cola ad featuring America the Beautiful? Stephen Colbert has a few things to say about it and about the author of that song. And they’re awesome.
    “The USDA just began accepting public comments on a plan allowing farmers to plant 2,4-D[-]resistant corn and soy” because more and more weeds are resistant to Roundup (glyphosate). 2,4-D-resistant crops would be much like Roundup-resistant crops, only worse: 2,4-D, a very commonly used herbicide, isn’t just toxic to plants only – I don’t think it should be used even more often than it already is. So here’s the petition to the USDA, allowing 255 characters for comments.

  27. David Marjanović says

    I guess my question to you guys would be, when stuff gets hard, what gives you the strength to fight through it?

    *offers heap of fluffy hugs*

  28. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    I guess my question to you guys would be, when stuff gets hard, what gives you the strength to fight through it?

    Oft times it is that things will get better. The Redhead put up with some horrific schedules, losing a lot of sleep when she went back to school to finish her degree in Art Education which also meant student teaching at several schools. It got better when she could catch up on all that missed sleep after obtaining her degree, and I wasn’t complaining about it.

    Some things one can’t get through. The Redhead suffered a stroke two years ago, and is still partially paralyzed. That we live with and joke about. I will get through the persistent chronic tiredness until I retire with both of us on Medicare in a couple of years.

  30. carlie says

    I guess my question to you guys would be, when stuff gets hard, what gives you the strength to fight through it?

    Spite. If the world is going to be all shitty towards me, I’m going to show it a thing or to by not letting it win and beat me down.

    I know, that’s glib, but I swear that is at the deepest depths of scraping the bottom for me – at the base of it all is a “fuck you” to the universe for thinking it can treat me that way.

    At a slightly higher level than that, it’s obligation. I went through months and months once when I would get to work but then have to spend at least 5 minutes talking myself into getting out of the car and going in. And all I could tell myself was “You have to. There isn’t another option. This is what you have to do to support everyone, because there is nothing else to fall back on.” And for a long time, that was enough.

    When I’m just in a normal funk, it’s taking my head out of my own butt and thinking about how good I have it. No matter what’s going wrong with me, there are always people who are doing worse and aren’t nearly as upset about it as I am about my problems. I guess it’s ust the thought that it isn’t really objectively so bad, and it can get better.

  32. Rey Fox says

    If anyone’s interested, we have a chew toy on the fudge factor thread. I sure can’t unpack all the wrong myself.

  33. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    If anyone’s interested, we have a chew toy on the fudge factor thread. I sure can’t unpack all the wrong myself.

    I noticed that earlier today. Sharpened my titanium fang. But I also am waiting for others to chime in. The “we’ve always done it this way” is strong with this fool.

  35. David Marjanović says

    If anyone’s interested, we have a chew toy on the fudge factor thread. I sure can’t unpack all the wrong myself.

    Ooh, awesome. Please provide a link so I can spend all of tomorrow righting all the wrongs. :-)

    (I don’t know which thread you mean, and it’s a quarter past 2 am over here.)

  38. says

    I’m tempted to do a point by point rebuttal of Igor’s nonsense. I’m pretty sure I can comprehensively cover everything if after every point of his I quote, I simply write “Point already addressed in thread. Learn to read”.

  40. Nutmeg says

    doubly:

    I guess my question to you guys would be, when stuff gets hard, what gives you the strength to fight through it?

    A few things that sometimes help me:

    1. Basic self-care. For me, this includes stuff like daily exercise, avoiding substances that do undesirable things to my brain chemistry, getting some sleep, seeing my friends, taking breaks. All of this makes me more able to cope with the hard stuff.

    2. Giving myself things to look forward to. This can be hard when life is full of massive suck and little else, but hopefully you can plan something, big or small, that makes the future a little brighter. Big things: an affordable vacation. Medium things: a fun weekend in a few weeks. Smaller things: coffee with a friend, doing a favourite workout, walking the dog somewhere nice. Even smaller things: watching an episode of a favourite TV show, eating a favourite food, wearing an outfit that makes you feel good.

    3. Reminding myself of the good things that have happened in my life. I’m old-fashioned sometimes, so I have physical photo albums in binders on my bookshelf. When I’m feeling low, I like to look through them. It reminds me that I’ve been to lots of great places and had good times with friends and family.

    4. As carlie said, having no other option is a great motivator.

    I hope that things get easier for you soon.

  41. ajb47 says

    Ugh. My wife is a direct disproof of that “high-earning women look for higher-earning men” statement. I know — the plural of anecdote is not data, but at least it’s a first hand anecdote, and the poster did not qualify the statement to say “most” or “the majority”.

    I need to start getting into these things with one of my favorite objections related to my wife’s profession and some of my favorite TV shows and movies — “Objection — assumes facts not in evidence.” That applies to almost any conservative or even Randian position. (Yes, the other version is “Citation really fucking needed”.)

    Oh man. It took me a couple hours, but I just realized that statement I debunked with my wife two paragraphs ago is a frigging MRA hypergamy claim. Women always look to trade up.

    Yeah, I haven’t caught up in the last couple of hours, and I’m not sure my thoughts on this would add anything to what is happening over there, so I am posting here. If anyone thinks it might matter, I will copy-pasta.

  42. says

    Doubly:
    I do not have much to offer save one thing: emotional support. Whether meatspace or online, the emotional support I have received from family or friends has been of great value.

    Also, Nutmegs advice @40 is wonderful.

    Btw, here? In the Lounge? You never need to apologize for discussing the stresses or joys of life. We are always open and more than willing to listen and/or offer advice as needed.
    Btw (pt 2) WELCOME.

  43. ajb47 says

    doubly @25

    I found support in family in my “dark” times. I’m very privileged as these things go, though. Out side of that, if you are looking for “steps” to take, deal with the most pressing issue first, then move to the next and so on. There can be a “paralysis by analysis” situation if you try to do too many things at once.

    Just my thoughts on it.

  44. ajb47 says

    Yeah, and as Tony said, Nutmeg’s advice, too. I’ve done each of those in varying amounts at different times.

  45. Pteryxx says

    So there’s a song, which almost nobody has heard of, that got nominated for an Oscar. Turns out it’s from an obscure, limited-release, Christian right-wing, racist movie. How did it get nominated? Turns out the composer is an Academy member who emailed voting members to push his song – which is an ethics violation. So the nomination was rescinded. Guess what happened next.

    And on Wednesday, the Faith & Freedom Coalition—a nonprofit group that spends millions of dollars to mobilize evangelical voters (and also likes to compare President Obama’s policies to those of Nazi Germany)—joined in with a call to protest against Hollywood’s latest salvo of “faith-based bigotry” and “anti-Christian bias.” In a press release, the coalition announced it was contacting its more than “700,000 members and supporters” and urging them to kick of a campaign of phone calls and protest against the Academy’s Beverly Hills headquarters.

    “The decision by the Academy of Motion Pictures of Arts and Sciences to withdraw the richly-deserved Best Song nomination of Alone Yet Not Alone, which contains a powerful message of faith, is blatantly discriminatory and just the latest example of Hollywood’s apparent hostility to expressions of faith in God,” said Ralph Reed, chairman of the Coalition. “We urge the Academy to reinstate the nomination or risk needlessly offending tens of millions of Americans and moviegoers of faith.”

    Gawds forbid they should scream and holler about anti-Christian discrimination if their song merely didn’t win. Sheesh.

    —

    In happier news, check out the latest Google doodle.

  47. rq says

    A R
    kieran got to it before I did, so I will just add that this specific song ends on what I think is a magnificent quote from Neil DeGrasse Tyson (the one about being satisfied with the questions themselves). He always looks so sad and defeated when he says it.

    doubly
    First, welcome and *hugs*!
    My answer is pretty much what carlie said, almost word-for-word: spite, obligation, knowing that I have all the luck. Also, as huge and impossible as things may seem, there’s always a way to take it in smaller steps. And then there’s that thing where unbegun items often seem much huger and more impossible than they actually may be, so the first small step is just to begin somewhere (which is not always at the beginning).
    Good luck! Nutmeg‘s ideas about setting small goals/pleasant things is a great one, too. Though in my case it’s usually small things. :)

    In other news, there is currently no other news.

  49. Nick Gotts says

    “The USDA just began accepting public comments on a plan allowing farmers to plant 2,4-D[-]resistant corn and soy” because more and more weeds are resistant to Roundup (glyphosate) – David Marjanović@26

    Well goodness me, that’s a surprise! You bioengineer plants resistant to a particular herbicide, plant them in vast monocultures which you drench with that herbicide, then you find that weeds evolve to resist it too!!11!eleventy!! Evolution is so unfair.

  50. says

    Is upward social mobility a myth?

    Gregory Clark, a Scottish-born economic historian at the University of California-Davis, argues that our identity as a nation of bootstrappers is largely a myth.

    In The Son Also Rises, which publishes later this month, Clark argues that researchers have vastly underestimated how hard it has been—and how hard it remains—for someone born into a low-status situation to ascend the social ranks. His results come from tracking the historical incidence of surnames across generations of tax rolls, university enrollment logs, and professional society membership lists in various countries.

    […]

    MJ: You’re courting controversy, especially when you turn to explaining the persistence of disadvantage among groups such as the Roma or black Americans. The Economist accuses your book of “trafficking in genetic determinism” by being too quick to write off the impacts of social reforms. The Civil Rights Act is only 50 years old, after all.

    GC: But even when you look at a society like Sweden, which has undertaken many of these programs for many, many years, you find very little ability to actually change that rate of social mobility very much. In Sweden, however, the disadvantages from being in the bottom 10 percent of the social spectrum have been very significantly reduced compared to the United States.

    http://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/02/son-also-rises-gregory-clark-inequality-upward-mobility

    ****

    The Koch brothers aren’t bad enough?

    THE DEVOSES sit alongside the Kochs, the Bradleys, and the Coorses as founding families of the modern conservative movement. Since 1970, DeVos family members have invested at least $200 million in a host of right-wing causes—think tanks, media outlets, political committees, evangelical outfits, and a string of advocacy groups. They have helped fund nearly every prominent Republican running for national office and underwritten a laundry list of conservative campaigns on issues ranging from charter schools and vouchers to anti-gay-marriage and anti-tax ballot measures. “There’s not a Republican president or presidential candidate in the last 50 years who hasn’t known the DeVoses,” says Saul Anuzis, a former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party.

    Nowhere has the family made its presence felt as it has in Michigan, where it has given more than $44 million to the state party, GOP legislative committees, and Republican candidates since 1997. “It’s been a generational commitment,” Anuzis notes. “I can’t start to even think of who would’ve filled the void without the DeVoses there.”

    The family fortune flows from 87-year-old Richard DeVos Sr. The son of poor Dutch immigrants, he cofounded the multilevel-marketing giant Amway with Jay Van Andel, a high school pal, in 1959. Five decades later, the company now sells $11 billion a year worth of cosmetics, vitamin supplements, kitchenware, air fresheners, and other household products. Amway has earned DeVos Sr. at least $6 billion; in 1991, he expanded his empire by buying the NBA’s Orlando Magic. The Koch brothers can usually expect Richard and his wife, Helen, to attend their biannual donor meetings. He is a lifelong Christian conservative and crusader for free markets and small government, values he passed down to his four children.

    Today, his eldest son, Dick, is the face of the DeVos political dynasty. Like his father, Dick sees organized labor as an enemy of freedom and union leaders as violent thugs who have “an almost pathological obsession with power.” But while DeVos Sr. simply inveighed against unions, Dick took the fight to them directly, orchestrating a major defeat for the unions in the cradle of the modern labor movement.

    http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/01/devos-michigan-labor-politics-gop

  52. says

    HORDE SIGNAL
    This fellow (whose nick I have no idea of) is having a really hard time atm and I’m worried.
    He’s expressed thoughts about self-harm and suicide and I can’t do much from over here except listening on Twitter.
    He’s also on FB, I suppose in the Pharyngula group and lives in Las Vegas. Maybe somebody here who is physically closer or just more experienced in these things could point him towards some resources?

  54. Nick Gotts says

    Tony! The Fucking Queer Shoop!@50,

    I’m somewhat sceptical of Gregory Clark’s claims, although it certainly sounds interesting work. His attitude towards income seems rather inconsistent – in the extract you quote he largely dismisses it as an index of social status, but he’s working partly from tax rolls, and in the full article, talks about how the families of those who were rich in the 1920s remain so. There are fairly large differences across rich countries in social mobility as measured by income – with the USA and UK having considerable lower social mobility than Canada or the Scandinavian countries. I also think his data about birth versus adoption families, and about elite surnames, may be subject to “contamination”: the former, because when the illegitimate children of the rich are adopted by poorer families, it may often be the case that they in fact get help from the birth family; the latter because people can change surname, and are perhaps particularly likely to do so in order to fit in with their new social circle if their status rises.

  58. rq says

    He seems to touch on the crushingly sad in several of his songs. Or at least the achingly serious.

  60. rq says

    katybe
    Eventually you’ll stick around for longer. ;)
    Either way, that is an exciting story! Thanks for sharing!

  61. birgerjohansson says

    ‘Steak-knife’ teeth reveal ecology of oldest land predators http://phys.org/news/2014-02-steak-knife-teeth-reveal-ecology-oldest.html
    A cool “finback” reptile -possibly with poor hearing necessating the use of huge visual signals (dorsal fin) to attract mates.
    (BTW I used “”Dimetrodon61” for my first email account handle, at yahoo.se)
    Technically these critters were closer relatives to mammals than the later dinosaurs (four major branches of reptiles emerged really early, once the amniotic membranes evolved).
    There has been a lot of specualtion about how advanced mammal-like reptiles managed to get before their great die-off (cynodonts with fur???).

  62. birgerjohansson says

    The huge individual in the photo may be a groll, a cross between a giant and a troll. I encountered the sub-species in Glen Cook’s first “Garrett” novel.

  65. says

    Good news, everyone!

    Big changes will occur in March. We are buying a much bigger, much faster server to handle the load on FtB. But we’re not bringing it live right away.

    We have also commissioned a professional wordpress design company to do a complete redesign of the site, building it from the ground up. This will be installed and debugged on the new server, and then on some magic day when it’s all stable, we’ll just flip a switch and change everything in an instant.

    And everyone will hate it. At first. I know how these things work. But we’ll finally have stability, efficiency, and consistency, and that will be a great good thing. And it will grow on you.

  66. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    Can you have them install, on each comment, an automated “reply to” button that automatically adds the “Commenter name” and “comment number” information people keep pestering people about to the reply box, and a “quote” button that adds that plus the content of the comment in blockquotes (preserving the nesting of any blockquotes already in it?) And make sure it appends to the content of the text box, rather than replacing it? This seems like it should be doable.

  68. ButchKitties says

    I agree that Nutmeg’s advice was great. I’d add that in addition to avoiding substances that do bad things to your brain chemistry, avoid stimuli that do bad things to your brain chemistry. Obviously there are lot of things you can’t avoid, but some you can.

    For example, when I was having a really rough time at work, I took a long break from watching Mad Men. I love that show, but I needed my home life to be a place where I absolutely did not think about what was going on at the office. For awhile I didn’t watch or read much of anything that wasn’t completely silly.

    You can catch up on all the horrible world events and well-written but depressing as fuck movies when you’re better able to cope with them.

  70. carlie says

    This is hilarious:
    Last night my child broke and told me that he’s getting his braces off today. He’s known since last month, but said “Dad wanted it to be a secret” so he wasn’t supposed to say. I’m impressed that he lasted so long, and said of course I’d act surprised.
    So I have an extra-long meeting tonight, which messes with how dinner will happen. Apparently part of this surprise was going out to dinner, so this morning Spouse said “Well, I guess I should go ahead and tell you…” … “but Child 2 thinks it’s going to be a surprise, so don’t tell him you know.”

    Now I have to act surprised for the benefit of two people who both know I’m faking it.

    Hee.

  71. says

    OK, I’ll tell the design company to add infinite ponies to the spec.

    Nested comments is a switch in the WordPress core — any host can click on a button to turn them on or off. So even if the default they give us is nested (which I don’t expect), first thing I’ll do is switch them off.

  72. ChasCPeterson says

    a “quote” button that adds that plus the content of the comment in blockquotes

    No! Please, no!
    Haven’t you ever perused a forum that uses a quote button? It’s obnoxious; the same shit gets re-posted 5, 6, 20 times, including the irrelevant parts.

    hate

  74. blf says

    Thank You for refusing to use nesting (a.k.a. comment-threading). Nested comments is worse than horses and peas combined.

  75. blf says

    Yeah, correct use of the current simplistic implementations of auto-quoting requires editing and/or thinking, both of which seem to be in short supply. Since both are usually necessary, the result is pointlessly deeply nested repeating verbatim quotes. Awful.

  76. chigau (違う) says

    75

    blf
    7 February 2014 at 11:32 am (UTC -6)
    Yeah, correct use of the current simplistic implementations of auto-quoting requires editing and/or thinking, both of which seem to be in short supply. Since both are usually necessary, the result is pointlessly deeply nested repeating verbatim quotes. Awful.

    QFT
    ;)

  77. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    76
    chigau (違う)
    [hush]​[hide comment]

    7 February 2014 at 11:49 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment

    75

    blf
    7 February 2014 at 11:32 am (UTC -6)
    Yeah, correct use of the current simplistic implementations of auto-quoting requires editing and/or thinking, both of which seem to be in short supply. Since both are usually necessary, the result is pointlessly deeply nested repeating verbatim quotes. Awful.

    QFT
    ;)

    Seconded. :P

  79. opposablethumbs says

    Now I have to act surprised for the benefit of two people who both know I’m faking it.

    :-D

    (I’ve had that – usually for my birthday …. :-\ ) Good luck with the surprisedness :-DDDD (and yay for the end of braces!)

    Thank you for the infinite ponies, PZ, but I’m really not sure where I’d keep them … (if they’re infinite, then no matter how many of us there are we will each get an infinite number won’t we?).

    We might be able to manage one, if we persuade all the neighbours to pull down all the fences. I’m sure the neighbours would love that – to have a pony wandering around in a big communal garden that runs the whole length of the row. The various dogs will have to get used to it; the cats can fend for themselves very well anyway, the foxes will probably be fine … Don’t know what the postman will think, though. And will it bite the neighbours? So many things to think of …

    Never mind. Ponies! It will be worth it!

  80. rq says

    I’ll take 5 ponies. Worst comes to worst, we can let them run free in the woods behind the house and re-establish a wild pony population in (sub)urban Latvia. It’ll be awesome!

    carlie
    Good luck with your acting skills! :D

    I’m very tempted to do it…

  82. rq says

    77
    Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought

    7 February 2014 at 12:16 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment

    76
    chigau (違う)
    [hush]​[hide comment]

    7 February 2014 at 11:49 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment

    75

    blf
    7 February 2014 at 11:32 am (UTC -6)
    Yeah, correct use of the current simplistic implementations of auto-quoting requires editing and/or thinking, both of which seem to be in short supply. Since both are usually necessary, the result is pointlessly deeply nested repeating verbatim quotes. Awful.

    QFT
    ;)

    Seconded. :P

    Yah, I agree.
    *runs away*

  83. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    To anyone in Sochi: I am now in possession of three light bulbs. Will trade for a door handle. This offer is real.

  84. David Marjanović says

    Link dump!

    Petition to Congress to raise the minimum wage.
    “Tell the Public Service Commission New York need reliable, affordable services — not a cable company monopoly!” The trouble with the cable company is that it only puts high-speed cables in rich neighborhoods.
    “Tell Congress: Protect Victims of Military Sexual Assault”
    “Google slaps phishing warning on misleading GOP website”
    “Unconstitutional & Unintimidated in Wisconsin!”

    Motorbike girl gangs of Morocco – with the headscarves and veils, they look very ninja. Colourful ninja.

    I can’t get the gallery to load. :-(

    Evolution is so unfair.

    Isn’t it.

    With apologies for coming in to share links rather than chat, Eight. Hundred. Thousand. Year old footprints! This makes me feel remarkably happy.

    800,000-year-old human footprints from England! That is massively awesome. :-) :-) :-)

    possibly with poor hearing necessating the use of huge visual signals (dorsal fin) to attract mates

    That alone can’t be the reason. On the theropsid side of the amniote tree, the ability to hear airborne sounds (other than very deep ones perhaps) only evolved in one branch of Middle Triassic cynodonts that contains Mammalimorpha, Probainognathus, Chiniquodon and not much else – but sails are rare and evolved a few times independently.

    Can you have them install, on each comment, an automated “reply to” button that automatically adds the “Commenter name” and “comment number” information people keep pestering people about to the reply box, and a “quote” button that adds that plus the content of the comment in blockquotes (preserving the nesting of any blockquotes already in it?)

    HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE

    Think it through. Have you never replied to several comments in the same comment of yours? How often do you quote an entire comment instead of just a sentence or two or a half? Have you never seen a forum where each post is longer than all preceding ones because it quotes the entire fucking thread, like a business e-mail, except that the quote goes above the added one-liner?

  86. David Marjanović says

    To anyone in Sochi: I am now in possession of three light bulbs. Will trade for a door handle. This offer is real.

    Think of the children!!!!!

    Further links to dump:

    Open-access paper: “Walking Like Dinosaurs: Chickens with Artificial Tails Provide Clues about Non-Avian Theropod Locomotion” – includes video at the bottom.

    Petition to the CEOs of Facebook and Instagram to stop allowing the sale of guns on their websites.

    A news anchorwoman takes down the outrage over the Coke ad. “Have we forgotten that every one of us ‘Americans’, except for Native Americans, are descendants of foreigners? That the English language is from England?”

    Reality dawns on Eric Cantor:
    “Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Cantor’s presentation was that it included a recognition that in the past Republicans have focused more on the nation’s employers than employees, have talked about small business owners and entrepreneurs to the exclusion of the far greater number of Americans who don’t own their own businesses.
    ‘Ninety percent of Americans work for someone else’, Cantor said, according to a source in the room. ‘Most of them not only will never own their own business, for most of them that isn’t their dream. Their dream is to have a good job, with an income that will allow them to support their family.'”

    In many countries, the postal service is also a bank. Elizabeth Warren wants to bring this back to the US.

  87. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    Think it through. Have you never replied to several comments in the same comment of yours?

    FFS, the “appending rather than replacing” part specifically addressed this. READ it through.

    Nobody cares who said something, the clever reply is what’s relevant.

    Then why do people periodically get fingerwaved at for not appending usernames and comment numbers?

  88. chigau (違う) says

    “Nobody cares who said something, the clever reply is what’s relevant.”
    Was sarcasm and meant for the Thunderdome.
    Sorry.

  89. cicely says

    A New Physics Theory of Life
    (following a link from here)
    –
    Stephen Colbert is Made of Awesome.
    That is all.
     
    I feel sure that he would Approve This Message. :)
    –
    doubly:
    First off, I don’t believe we’ve met, so Welcome In!
    Second off, *hugs* and commiserations.

    I guess my question to you guys would be, when stuff gets hard, what gives you the strength to fight through it?

    Sense of humor. There’s usually some humor to be found anywhere—the bleaker the situation, the blacker the humor. Sometimes, it goes clear over into the ultraviolet, and starts to emit bitrons (the sub-atomic particle of “bitterness”). Doesn’t matter—even bitter laughter helps.
     
    That, plus A Little Help From My Friends, here and elsewhere. Many’s the time that venting into sympathetic ears (or eyeballs) has prevented a Complete Losing of My Shit.
    It helps that most of My Friends get my sense of humor.
    ‘Cause vacant stares don’t help.
    –

    It is a sign.

    Out Of Fingers Error.
    Redo From Start.
    –

  90. Pteryxx says

    Y’all, these are *separate* buttons:

    Can you have them install, on each comment, an automated “reply to” button that automatically adds the “Commenter name” and “comment number” information people keep pestering people about to the reply box,

    wait for it…

    and a “quote” button that adds that plus the content of the comment in blockquotes (preserving the nesting of any blockquotes already in it?)

    The reply button alone isn’t going to drown everyone in masses of quotespam.

    —

    Source via Racebending:

    One of the seven languages included in the Super Bowl ad was Keres, an endangered Native American language with seven main dialects spoken by less than 13,000 people.

    In other word, an ad which has been called un-American by some does in fact include a Native American language, thus contradicting the idea that it was unpatriotic and turning an unofficial anthem into a song performed by foreigners.

    more at IndianCountryToday

  91. David Marjanović says

    Whoa. I just got away with posting six links instead of just five.

    “25 Images of Markets ‘Regulating Themselves’”

    Pledge to donate money to buy land for orang-utans on Borneo so it can’t be deforested to plant oil palms! Even small areas can make a difference when they connect existing refuges. “Pledge what you can, we’ll process the donations only if we raise enough to buy the land.”

    In German: A patient had inexplicable, severe symptoms till the head of the investigating team, a House fan, recognized the symptoms as those of cobalt poisoning. The patient had recently received two metal hip joints; exchanging them for ceramic ones has very slowly improved the poor man’s condition.

    Nobody cares who said something, the clever reply is what’s relevant.

    That sounds like you’re being sarcastic – but it’s true. :-| Coming from the scientist subculture, the purpose I know for citing stuff is to make clear I’m not claiming credit for it. In a scientific publication that’s done by mentioning the authors & year or (in the more space-saving journals) just a number that refers to the reference list; on a blog, the blockquote tag already makes clear that a quote is a quote, and the author along with the very minute they posted it can be discovered by Ctrl+F if need be – if you want to read the original context, say, which the mere name of the author will hardly ever tell you.

    I don’t reply to people, I reply to claims and arguments. To do otherwise would run a high risk of committing arguments from authority or ad hominem.

  92. rq says

    Yikes. Bad reading on my part. :/
    Sorry, Azkyroth, for taking the ponies and running with it. *chocolate booze*?

  94. rq says

    David
    It’s been at six links since forever. I should know. :)

    I see what you mean about the claims and arguments, but sometimes (and it has been explicitly pointed out in many a thread) it is important to also show to whom you are replying, using ‘nym and number. Usually together with a blockquote, but not necessarily so.

    The English version of the real-life Dr House can be read here.

    +++

    Also, Russian beer fixes everything. Dunno about Russian, but Latvian beer certainly does a fine job on most things.

  96. David Marjanović says

    FFS, the “appending rather than replacing” part specifically addressed this. READ it through.

    I didn’t consider that because this button would still require you to delete the majority of each quote – which almost nobody ever does, leading to forum comments that look like comment 82.

    A New Physics Theory of Life

    Strikes me as very abstract, perhaps too abstract.

    The reply button alone isn’t going to drown everyone in masses of quotespam.

    But the quote button is; and while Azkyroth specified an appending quote button, an appending reply button is a bit hard to imagine. I’d need an appending reply button.

    One of the seven languages included in the Super Bowl ad was Keres, an endangered Native American language with seven main dialects spoken by less than 13,000 people.

    “Keresan […], also Keres […], is a dialect cluster spoken by the Keres Pueblo people in New Mexico. Each of seven varieties is mutually intelligible with its closest neighbors [but apparently not the others]. There is significant diversity between the Western and Eastern groups, and these are commonly counted as separate languages.”

    Famously (in very limited circles), there is opposition to the very idea of writing at least one of them; that may be the one in the ad (or not).

  97. David Marjanović says

    but sometimes (and it has been explicitly pointed out in many a thread) it is important to also show to whom you are replying, using ‘nym and number.

    It’s pointed out much, much more often than it actually makes sense.

    Any thoughts?

    If the applicable legal definition of “fraud”, which I don’t know, really requires only “untrue or misleading” (as is quoted in the article) rather than an intentional lie, perhaps under the assumption that people have some kind of duty to inform themselves about what they say in public, that’s great! If the definition does require that the Mormons know their doctrines are false, the suit has no chance and probably counts as frivolous.

  99. cicely says

    Evolution don’t care
    That it aten’t fair.
    –

    I want a pony.

    Pan-fried? Or rotisserie? And what kind of sauce?
    –
    Horses and peas nest in comment threads?
    –

    “Have we forgotten that every one of us ‘Americans’, except for Native Americans, are descendants of foreigners? That the English language is from England?”

    Yes.
    Yes, “we” have.
    And “we” think that it is in poor taste to even bring up the subject.
     
     
    Especially since it’s true.
     
    </snark>
    –
    Hi, Brad Hudson; Welcome In!
    I don’t see the suit going anywhere. After all, the inducing of others to financially support a religious institution (and the clergy, etc. thereof) by teaching falsehoods is Standard Procedure.
    –

  100. says

    Yes, conservative tribalism is bad for your brain.

    Pollsters have found that in the Obama era, the number of self-identified Republican voters who believe in evolution has dropped sharply. Similarly, in recent years, GOP voters routinely tell pollsters that the federal budget deficit has gone up, even as it drops quickly. […]

    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/when-tribalism-takes-over

    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/gop-support-modern-biology-drops

    http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/02/tribalism-biology-and-macroeconomics/

    […] The point … is that Republicans are being driven to identify in all ways with their tribe – and the tribal belief system is dominated by anti-science fundamentalists. For some time now it has been impossible to be a good Republicans while believing in the reality of climate change; now it’s impossible to be a good Republican while believing in evolution. […]

  101. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    I’m such a baby. Watching the video and reading just a couple of comments about Nagasaki made my cry, and go listen to Joan Baez like some anti-war emo.

  102. says

    I want a pony.

    Pan-fried? Or rotisserie? And what kind of sauce?

    Tartar. With an egg yolk, salt, pepper, chopped onion and capers. That’s … di-di-di-di-di-di-di di-di-di good eats.

  103. says

    Some info that Brad Hudson (comment #95) might find interesting.

    Here’s the joint statement issued by the two men accusing Monson of fraud:
    http://journeyofloyaldissent.wordpress.com/joint-statement-concerning-summonses-served-on-thomas-spencer-monson/

    Comments from mormons (pretty much what you might expect, but perhaps deeper into prophet worship that we suspected):

    “When you think of all the prayers that are said on behalf of the prophet. Does this other person really think it will go his way. Talk about making Heavenly Father MAD!!!”

    “Remember how many times we see in the scriptures a prophet of God brought before a judge? If President Monson had to go before a judge, it’d be epic. One does not simply challenge God’s prophet to a duel. lol”

    “There is no such thing as bad publicity for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, someone is going to become interested in the church and start researching because of this and then they will have the opportunity to pray to know wether it is true or not.
    This is our invitation to all, that they seek to learn more about the church, read the Book of Mormon and pray, or ask God, in respect to it’s truthfulness. I know that it’s true because I prayed and received an answer!”

    “Tithing is personal ! Faith is the truth of the unknown. Our rights as mormons is our freedom of speech in this country USA! Those who follow Christ don’t judge our beliefs and trust me I am a believer that Thomas Monson is my today Profit. I love my church my bishop my friends my temple my Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints! I believe the church is the only true church today on this earth Amen!!!!”

    [Yes, the mormon commenter really did spell prophet as “profit.” Unintentional comedy.]

    “Yes it could be very educational for the world, but we have a super good lawyer who could represent him, our dear brother D H Oakes and it will stymie the court !!! I have no standing before the court, I am not a lawyer, but I too could stymie the court, never mind a law book, just the King James version LDS issue. Oh I just wish !!”

    More mormon comments here, if you can stand it:
    https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152187974579655&set=a.118930449654.97689.16317479654&type=1

    A post by Tal Bachmann about an upcoming radio show:

    For anyone interested, Tom Phillips and I are going to be discussing his recent legal action toward LDS Church President Thomas Monson live on the Drew Marshall radio show this Saturday, at High Noon, Pacific Coast Time (3 PM Eastern time). The show is also broadcast live online, so anyone interested can listen through the website: http://drewmarshall.ca/ . Whatever happens in the future with this legal action, Tom has already made international waves.

    The underlying premise for Tom Phillips’ complaint is basically this: Young salespeople are being carefully groomed and trained to go out and spread demonstrable untruths among the British public in order to persuade them to pay over significant sums of money to a corporation. The transactions depend upon acceptance by individuals of certain “truth claims” which must be received on the basis of partial information presented. If members of the public were to be told the whole truth and still decided they would join up and pay up, that of course would be entirely legitimate. However, when the whole truth is deliberately concealed in order to project a false impression, and money exchanges hands, that is fraud… according to the 2006 Fraud Act, which is the relevant piece of legislation in this case.” -Christopher Ralph (plaintiff in case of summons 2)

    http://mormonisminvestigated.co.uk/2014/02/06/what-is-actually-going-on-with-the-court-summons/

    This case is about money, but not in the sense that a few ex Mormons want their tithes back, but in the sense that the Mormon Church is selling a product through its young missionaries, and that this product is not being honestly sold, with all things disclosed that should be disclosed for the “investigator” to make an informed decision, therefore an accusation of fraud has followed on this basis.

    Christopher Ralph, one of the people involved with filing this case said this in a Facebook discussion.

    People seem to think that the idea is to disprove Mormonism in court, when actually the aim, (mine at least), is to show that LDS fundraising methods are unethical, dishonest, and perhaps criminal.

  104. =8)-DX says

    Thanks #22 @kieran for that Panti video – inspiring, insightful – tears and smiles. Everyone should watch that..

  105. says

    More info that may interest Brad Hudson (in reference to comment #95): Tom Phillips has received the “Second Anointing” and is theoretically untouchable. Some ex-mormons have been discussing this fact, and if it means that Phillips cannot be excommunicated for instigating fraud proceedings against prophet/seer/revelator and scam artist, Thomas S. Monson.

    http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1162131

    Also, from the thread linked above, there is a more detailed discussion of the ways in which financial fraud is perpetrated by the LDS church:

    […]
    In their General Conference, an LDS General Authority taught: “if a destitute family is faced with the decision of paying their tithing or eating, they should pay their tithing.” http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2005/04/tithing-a-commandment-even-for-the-destitute?lang=eng

    And this was similarly taught as an object lesson in their flagship publication Ensign, December 2012 edition: “If paying tithing means that you can’t pay for water or electricity, pay tithing. If paying tithing means that you can’t pay your rent, pay tithing. Even if paying tithing means that you don’t have enough money to feed your family, pay tithing.” http://www.lds.org/ensign/2012/12/sacred-transformations?lang=eng […]

  106. says

    For those interested in the secret Moment of Mormon Madness that is the “Second Anointing,” here’s some additional information:

    The reason Phillips does not appear to be pursued for excommunications seems to be because, as the previous managing editor David Twede revealed, “Tom has received a bulletproof ordinance called the Second Anointing from a Mormon apostle years before he stopped attending church.”

    According to the LDS website, the Second Anointing is an “‘unconditional guarantee’ … that a person’s actions have been fully approved, that ‘there are no more conditions to be met by the obedient person.’ … he is ‘sealed up against all manner of sin’.” https://www.lds.org/ensign/1976/07/accepted-of-the-lord-the-doctrine-of-making-your-calling-and-election-sure?lang=eng

    BTW, Mitt Romney apparently benefited from a Second Anointing. Maybe all of his mistakes were not sins? Although he did sin against reason, logic, and facts.

  107. says

    Lynna – I used to think the Pope had the Emperor Palpatine Memorial Trophy for Most Despicable Greed-head Ass-wipe Theocrat locked up, but it looks like we have a new contender in the ring. That’s a fucking obscenity, about the tithing. Obscene.

  108. says

    Thanks, Lynna. I’m a moderator on a support board for transitioning and former mormons, so I’m pretty up to speed on the background and details. I’m more curious about the extent to which awareness of the suit has traveled beyond the mormon/former mormon bubble and the reaction that fellow freethinkers have to using this kind of lawsuit to promote religious truth in advertising.

  109. Esteleth, [an error occurred while processing this directive] says

    Sorry for my long day-long hiatus. Was busy.

    I have received PayPal from two people, one of which is Tony. The other has a non-indicative name. ????

    My arm is healing. It is a dull yellow-brown color, no longer purple, and I can move it better.

    Doc says I can free it from the obstruction tomorrow and has given me exercises to do.

    Has anyone checked in on Protoplasmid?

  110. says

    Brad @108, okay, I’ll stop trying to tell you what you already know.

    I’m not a mormon nor an ex-mormon, but I live in the Morridor, so I am negatively affected by mormonism on many levels. I make an effort (sporadic) to keep Pharyngulites informed when it comes to Moments of Mormon Madness. I have friends who are mormons, and friends who are ex-mormons. One mormon identified me as Satan, so I guess I have been categorized.

    Of course Monson and his army of 60,000 (more now?) missionaries are perpetrating a fraud when they try to get people to join or to remain in the LDS church. However, it has been pointed out that you can say the same thing about most religions. With their “milk before meat” approach, mormons are more likely to hide salient facts about their dogma and history.

    My take on the summons to the prophet/profit Head Honcho is that it will at least bring international attention to mormon madness. Mormons are way off in Crazyland if they think Monson testifying in a UK court would make them look good.

  111. says

    CaitieCat @107:

    That’s a fucking obscenity, about the tithing. Obscene.

    Repeated for truth.

    More on the issue of obedience and tithing:

    A requirement, according to worthiness questions asked in LDS temple interviews, is that you must “sustain the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as the Prophet, Seer, and Revelator and as the only person on the earth who possesses and is authorized to exercise all priesthood keys.” Also to “sustain the other General Authorities and local authorities of the Church.” And finally to be ” a full-tithe payer.” Without meeting these obligations, you cannot receive ordinances (e.g., sacraments) that are required to enter the highest degree of heaven.

    Likewise, you cannot be married, see relatives married or attend to other family functions without sustaining the teachings of your prophet and paying a full tithing, defined as ten-percent of your total income. The fraud case connects the requirement to pay tithing to such benefits and that you are led into a belief in the Mormon system through false representations that can be proven false with modern science and history.

  112. says

    Lynna@110. I like the term Moments of Mormon Madness. I’ve never lived in the Morridor, but I understand how frustrating it can be. Thanks for your comments.

  115. says

    With the news I’m seeing out of Sochi, I hope coaches demand extra safety checks of all the athletic facilities. People having to trade light bulbs for doorknobs? Water not even safe for washing? I’d worry that the luge track might kill one of my athletes.

    On the job, I’m feeling more confident in it than I ever was. The person I thought I’d be up against, as I said, didn’t actually want it. The person I am up against, has racked up as many absences this week as I have since August, and one of them was a no call no show of which I have zero. I also live much further away, so tolerance for me not showing up tends to be higher than for the rest of the team. She’ll have to make a really good case that the different hours would make it much easier for her to consistently show up before she gets much of a chance to even be considered. Doesn’t help her that the area her absences most screw us over on is signing, and this is the signing lead job we’re both after.

    I’m tempted to settle into the application process being a mere formality, but I really shouldn’t. Don’t want to convince them they should go to external candidates.

  117. rq says

    gworroll
    Most of the problems in Sochi have been with journalist accommodations. From what I hear, the athlete facilities have been mostly fine (with some exceptions).
    Still, I have the same concerns re: actual built tracks, etc. …
    Good luck with the continued job situation!

  118. says

    One of their best years ever and two pregnant women are enough to break the benefits system enough for drastic measures? Were these literally the most expensive pregnancies in history?

    If I don’t buy that explanation, they’re assholes. If I do, that points to catastrophic mismanagement. I don’t see how he expects this to make them look good.

  119. David Marjanović says

    Yes, “we” have.

    From a comment on teh intarwebz I have learned that somewhere in Germany there’s a family that has created the pronoun wom, short for wir ohne mich, “we without me”. It’s used in such contexts as “we need to bring out the garbage at some point soon”…

    reading […] about Nagasaki made my cry

    Frankly, if that doesn’t justify crying, I don’t know what does.

    *offers fluffy hugs*

    Faith is the truth of the unknown.

    Also, colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

    Our rights as mormons is our freedom of speech in this country USA!

    This misses the point by so much it made me giggle.

    I love my church my bishop my friends my temple my Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints! I believe the church is the only true church today on this earth Amen!!!!

    I do not, however, love the comma key on my keyboard. Probably I have cast it into outer darkness.

    Also, there’s a specific Jesus Christ of Latter Hyphen Day Saints now? Is that like ascribing a miracle to specifically Our Lady of Fatima?

    The underlying premise for Tom Phillips’ complaint is basically this: Young salespeople are being carefully groomed and trained to go out and spread demonstrable untruths among the British public in order to persuade them to pay over significant sums of money to a corporation. The transactions depend upon acceptance by individuals of certain “truth claims” which must be received on the basis of partial information presented. If members of the public were to be told the whole truth and still decided they would join up and pay up, that of course would be entirely legitimate. However, when the whole truth is deliberately concealed in order to project a false impression, and money exchanges hands, that is fraud… according to the 2006 Fraud Act, which is the relevant piece of legislation in this case.” -Christopher Ralph (plaintiff in case of summons 2)

    Awesome – except that “deliberately” will be hard to prove.

    Are “you can’t possibly be ignorant enough to honestly not know this” arguments made elsewhere in British law? The only cases worldwide I’m aware of (not counting dictatures) are Austria’s and Germany’s law against making National Socialism appear less harmful, but I’m a complete layman in this area.

  123. dianne says

    @Beatrice: I’m sorry if my commentary on the Nagasaki thread contributed to your feeling sad. I’m afraid it makes me angry rather than (overtly) sad and I tend to start spilling all over the place. Sorry for triggering!

  125. raven says

    @Lynna re. Monson.

    I can’t see Monson showing up in a British courtroom. He is 86 and has been rumored for years to be showing marked aged related cognitive problems.

    I tried to veryify this with Google but didn’t get much in the way of reliable info. Given the secrecy of the LDS church, this isn’t surprising. IIRC, since it is a gerontacracy, this is common and the last 3 or 4 went out that way.

    Do you know one way or another about Monson?

  127. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Well, fml.

    Yesterday, I got the approval letters from DES about my renewal for medical and food assistance. Now, for the first time ever, I’m required to go through with child support in order to keep medical insurance for myself and Little One. Great. This means getting all my reports from 6 years ago and hoping they take it seriously. All that paperwork and time, living in limbo worried if they will accept it or not. I don’t have high hopes.

    Today, I was visited by a detective. Apparently, fuckface ran into my mother yesterday at the store. He said he would’ve killed me if I had been there and made it clear he wanted me dead. He was taken to emergency psych care and I don’t know what happened after that. The detective working my case wasn’t in today so another detective came to warn me about him and give me the case number. She said, oh no you can’t be put through child support process with this man. She said now I could get a protection order on Monday, but warned me it’s just a piece of paper. She was very friendly and actually got it. She’s part of the family division, which is better than every cop I’ve ever met on the issue. Small favors, since cops are the front line and you often can’t get pass them.

    So, Monday is phone day. Getting copies of reports, hopefully a letter from my detective to give to DES and waiting to see what happens. I’m trying to get my DES case worker to rule good cause before the referral to child support goes through. I’ve dealt with CSE before and do not want to again. They tried to make me sit down with fuckface to sign papers shortly after I left him. But DES phone line rings busy most of the time. When you get through the automated system often tells you the lines are too buys and hangs up. That’s what happened to me today, I couldn’t get through at all.

    Yay for getting someone to do something and having more hope getting the system to actually fucking work. More hope, not a lot though. I can’t be happy for that because duh, someone who knows where I live, has had many charges (from drugs to guns to violence…but no jail except time served) wants to motherfucking kill me. At the very least.

    Waiting and worrying. That’s what my life boils down to. *sigh* No sleep, more smoking, want to drink to calm down but can’t because hey, what if fuckface shows up…round and round it goes.

  128. Esteleth, [an error occurred while processing this directive] says

    *hugs* for JAL

    BTW, how big is your money-hole? Donations are trickling in…

  129. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Oh, no not much at all. Just enough to cover til mom get her check in two weeks. Sorry, I should’ve been more clear. $100 bucks would be plenty. We don’t take much to survive, which just makes it all the sadder how hard it is to get things done.

  130. says

    So an application for a bank account was denied immediately due to information from ChexSystems.

    Thing is, as a general “I should see what’s there” I ordered a report from them a couple months ago, and there was nothing on there. The banks denial email(automated email) listed a bunch of stuff, looked like it was just a list of what they check for rather than anything specific to my case.

    That report is in the mail. If there’s something I need to take care of(which could just be having a report way too sparse for a 36 year old), I’ll take care of it, if something is incorrect, I’ll get it removed. Annoying but not a big deal.

    What has me a little concerned is I decided I should check my big three credit reports. On the annual credit report website, not a single one would give me the report online, and the last time I requested them was July 2012. On a couple of them, some of the random questions had nothing to do with me- which isn’t a surprise, I’ve had such questions in years past and just chose “none of the above” and been fine. This time, though, I wasn’t, and a couple of them had information that looked like it might apply to my father.

    Now, this could be a problem. If, say, the loan to buy the trailer park is somehow showing up on one of them, I’m going to appear to be ludicrously overextended on credit to the point anyone seeing it will assume I have to be a drug dealer since the payments are being made. I hope it’s some random technical stupidity, I don’t look forward to having to sort out the difference between Jr and Sr with who knows how many companies.

    Did find something in the free credit monitoring from target that I need to take care of, so there’s that, but that’s just Experian data for the free offering.

  131. Owen says

    Come the revolution, credit agencies will be first up against the wall.

    Also seconding hijacking wom

  132. protoplasmoid says

    just wanted to drop in and give a thanks to Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- upthread at 52. Last night was not fun, by any means.

    Also, I did just leave Facebook for a bit; But yeah.

    Just thought I’d post because I know that it was mentioned of the conversation on twitter I had last night.

    I am not having a fun time in this town, at all. Las Vegas is supposed to be “entertaining” thing or something, but it’s only amusing if you can afford it, and… something.

    either way, apparently I can’t get any resources until after this weekend, unless I’m actually going to deal with going to (probably another) hospital {I went earlier this year for an unrelated thing. I was okayish then. *sigh*} and I really can’t afford that. I already owe that other place -1000 dollars.

    Welcome to Murica all. it’s a wondrous amazing place, where your only right is to starve.

    (in cause anyone is wondering why I left facebook, I can tell you a bit more why in email or something. Mostly I have a hard time being public about issues like this, but nuance could be better done when I know whom exactly my audience is.)

    Anyway, I’ll try to deal with this weekend the best I possibly can.

  134. bluentx says

    Hello, Lounge!

    After months of trying to get my home internet access (through Tether) back (post phone upgrade) it… uh…apparently … works again !? I’m not exactly sure how I got here but so far it’s been working for all of 15 minutes! Yay!

    Then again, I am waiting for the Internet Police to storm the house any minute because you know…OBAMA! eleventy!! eleven !!… and all that.

    Keeping extremities crossed that I am not hallucinating.

  135. bluentx says

    @#126:
    Wish I could vote for Jim Watson! (If he’s not off the rails on some other issue, of course.)

  136. cicely says

    Horses and peas nest in threaded comments.
    This Must Not Be!!!
    –
    David!
    *pouncehug*

    From a comment on teh intarwebz I have learned that somewhere in Germany there’s a family that has created the pronoun wom, short for wir ohne mich, “we without me”. It’s used in such contexts as “we need to bring out the garbage at some point soon”…

    1) Awesome! I’ll have to try and remember that.
    2) I know we need to take out the garbage sometime soon, but the doofuses keep voting for Republicans….
    –
    *hugs* and encouragement for JAL.
    –
    protoplasmoid, I have a couple of extra spoons I’d be happy to give you…together with well-wishes and *hugs, or other acceptable, non-intrusive gestures of comfort and support*.
    –

  137. says

    raven @ 125, I’m not sure about Monson’s health. There have been reports of him showing signs of Alzheimer’s Disease. http://exmormon.org/d6/drupal/More-Unconfirmed-Reports-Monson-Alzheimers

    Monson is showing signs of mental fraying. He tends to wander and repeats himself. He requires coaching from his inner circle to get back on topic. He tells stories from his life then repeats them in the same words a few minutes later. He repeats the same stories to the same people in the same setting. Could be Alzheimer’s. He is not allowed to deviate from prepared texts when giving public sermons. He does OK when reading a prepared text but when he wings it he drifts. His staff is concerned about this. This is from first-person observation. Also from info shared with me by Mormon sources familiar with how Monson’s public appearances are handled. Link.

    Here’s Steve Benson on how mormon leaders handle the situation when the head honcho is losing it:
    http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,853090,853346#msg-853346

  138. Esteleth, [an error occurred while processing this directive] says

    Odd feeling: reading another thread and being absolutely positive that I crossed paths with a random commenter about 7 years ago in a long-defunct place on the internet.

    Because they use the same ‘nym.

    But I use a different one…

  139. says

    katybe:

    With apologies for coming in to share links rather than chat, Eight. Hundred. Thousand. Year old footprints! This makes me feel remarkably happy

    There’s no requirement for anyone to socialize here, so dropping in to share links is perfectly fine. Thank you for sharing this one. It is incredibly cool.
    …
    Hmmm, I wonder what the response would be from creationists…
    “Were you there?”

    ****

    Thumper @64:
    Thank you for that link.
    With all the horrible things humans do to one another, stories like this are such a joy to read.

    ****
    PZ:

    We have also commissioned a professional wordpress design company to do a complete redesign of the site, building it from the ground up.

    I wouldn’t mind if they got rid of that ugly FtB logo…

    ****
    chigau:

    Just to get it out of the way,
    I want a pony.

    With or without sparkles?

    ****

    cicely:

    Stephen Colbert is Made of Awesome.

    Yeah, but I hear he likes peas…no, not peace.

    ****

    Still not liking these ginormous quotes…

    ****

    Beatrice:

    I’m such a baby. Watching the video and reading just a couple of comments about Nagasaki made my cry, and go listen to Joan Baez like some anti-war emo.

    (this is one of those times I wish inflection were possible online)
    You are not a baby for crying over that. You’re a compassionate human being filled with empathy and humanist values.

  140. rq says

    *hugs* for everyone!

    I think I’m going to hold off on telling Husband about my plan to avoid his dad until after this particular event, since my not-going has very little to do with the above (due to fortunate circumstances). When would be a good time to break the news?

    And re: the atomic bomb thread:
    I was glad I was at work yesterday (video disabled) because just thinking about it was making me teary. I will watch the video sometime today, but I know it’ll be making me cry.
    And the discussion following just seems so… inhumane. Better this, better that… 70 000 fucking people dead. Better? I just don’t know.
    Anyway.
    Happy Saturday morning!

  141. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    dianne

    @Beatrice: I’m sorry if my commentary on the Nagasaki thread contributed to your feeling sad. I’m afraid it makes me angry rather than (overtly) sad and I tend to start spilling all over the place. Sorry for triggering!

    Oh don’t apologize!
    I’m reading the rest of that thread this morning and your comments are one of rare sparks of humaneness. I can’t believe I’m reading so many people excusing dropping a god damned atomic bomb.
    Thank you for your comments.

  142. knowknot says

    – I was reading an article titled “Beyond Belief” by Chris Lehman in the current edition of The Nation, and my uninitiated and undereducated brain choked on a two paragraph section. Being unsavvy, it took me a while to figure out what it was.
    – In the article Lehman reviews “Apostles of Reason” by Molly Worthen, which, in part, analyzes the rise of the “Christian Right.” It should be known that Worthen is NOT acting as an apologist in the book, though some of the quoted text may seem otherwise out of context.
    – A rough (bolded) paraphrase of those two paragraphs with hideously rough (parenthesized) interpretations follows immediately, and the original text of both paragraphs is at bottom. And I admit what follows may be facile or obvious, but I don’t have anyone handy to check with, so…
    ||
    Re the nature and intent of the “neo-evangelical” movement prior to the rise of the “Christian Right”:
    Conservative religious thinkers aren’t a perverse breed of demagogue.
    __ (contrary to what YOU thought, though this does admittedly leave the fundamental sources
    __ of the apparent demagoguery up for question [note to selves: how did it get away from us?] )
    Rather, much like their counterparts in the secular world OF INTELLECT,
    __ (with whom they compare themselves, because the non-secular world
    __ of not-intellect, i.e, them, is losing ground)
    they are convulsed by waves of doubt, anxiety, etc
    __ (because they’re losing ground?)
    and JUST LIKE YOU, they’re trying to comfort themselves with INSTITUTIONAL REMEDIES.
    __ (rather than dealing with the sources of issues that don’t or can’t
    __ possibly exist anyway)
    This points to a trend which is obvious, at least for OPEN MINDS,
    __ (i.e., anyone willing to ignore the intransigence of their actual core
    __ beliefs, at least briefly)
    which is that they have RECOGNIZED that OTHERS have ACCUSED THEM of suffering from “intellectual shortcomings”
    __ (though they do not necessarily admit to such shortcomings, or at
    __ least not any that affect “core values”)
    and they have sought to REFUTE these issues
    __ (rather than to fix them, since they do not necessarily exist, at least
    __ not so as to affect “core values”)
    with INITIATIVES and CANONS
    __ (rather than reassessment of beliefs, positions, or values, or any kind
    __ of “soul-searching,” previously mentioned “doubt,” “anxiety” & etc.
    __ notwithstanding)
    designed to one-up the opposition’s achievements
    __ (to freaking win. derp.)
    while securing eternal verities within protective grounds.
    __ without changing a damn thing)
    ||
    – Manipulated, for the hell of it, for some kind of brevity, and to show what the original said to me: That the period leading to the uprising of the “Moral Majority” was suspiciously similar to aspects of the recent “Republican rebranding” effort. (I actually remember Francis Scaeffer, star of neo-evangelicalism. He was one of most profoundly pretentious, self-important people I’ve ever seen or heard of. Seriously. Old-guy-with-a-german-first-edition-and-a-beret-and-sound-of-music-knee-pants-who-won’t-leave-the-dorm, ever, pretentious.)
    – The review goes on, and another similarity seems to appear:
    ||

    What lay ahead, as recent Protestant history glumly testifies, was a decades-long land rush for opportunists, political consultants and garden-variety purveyors of snake oil. (…) [Resulting in an] effort to place the foundations of evangelical piety on a more rigorous intellectual footing. The tremendous popular and political success of the evangelical right, in other words, is inadvertent testimony to the intellectual failures that made its rise to power possible in the first place.

    And this effort was consummated when (switching to quote from the book):
    |

    …Schaeffer, Falwell, and other self-appointed spokesmen of the Christian Right appeared, to casual observers, to reflect some kind of consensus. One must not underestimate the power in this illusion of solidarity—but one should not take it for reality, either.

    ||
    – So, the sequence of the recent iteration may have been reversed (or scrambled, or multiplied) in that there was a reaction, and then a mess, and then Ted Cruzes, Michelle Bachmans and Sarah Palins spokesmenized themselves, and then there was a not quite rebraction, and then probably mostly Teds, Rands and Ryans. Or something. It gets far too Sneetch (as in Starbellied) for me to follow.
    ||
    For history so loveth its own booty.
    ||
    ||
    —– Original text behind the paraphrased section —-

    – In Worthen’s account, conservative religious thinkers aren’t a perverse breed of demagogue possessed by crude reveries of cultural power; instead, they are—much like their counterparts in the secular world of intellect—convulsed by waves of doubt, status anxiety and existential drift. And much like their less orthodox academic cousins, these figures have sought to tamp down their personal and intellectual anxieties with institutional remedies: new academic concentrations, seminaries and departments; greater fealty to the rites of credentialed scholarship; and closely monitored modes of internal message discipline.
    – Such measures point to what should be an obvious trend, at least for dispassionate students of modern religious controversy: evangelical thinkers recognized the general thrust of the secular academic world’s indictment of the intellectual shortcomings of faith, and sought to refute it with their own parallel set of professional initiatives and scholarly canons, designed to one-up the achievements of culturally influential skeptics while also securing the eternal verities of faith within their own protective bounds.”

  143. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    ….knowknot, I’m sorry, but I could barely parse that. What? O.o

  145. blf says

    he mildly deranged penguin once told me see had some horse tartar. Well, not exactly horse tartar, more sort of enemy calvary tartar. She was apparently visiting a “barbarian” horde (who were very good cheese raiders, apparently), and was invited to a feast with some of the recently conquered…

    Said it was a good accompaniment to the cheese, but the blood-red “vin“, whilst apparently traditional, wasn’t.

  147. blf says

      “The mildly deranged penguin once told me she…”

    eY tpyso isst rong vin his once — adn tahts’ befour i Wrench tooo lurch )witch his ven iD’ drunks het win.)

  149. Portia, walking stress ball says

    Esteleth
    Sorry that second donation was me
    Should have nym-dentified myself.

    JAL
    So sorry things are worse
    I can’t imagine
    Glad there’s a way to get out of having to seek child support.

    Rq
    Your email will be returned soooon :)

    —

    It’s littlest’s eighth birthday. His first request was a chess game versus his dad. He’s a wonderful little one.
    the Teen is still in bed. Lucky.

  150. says

    Bah, the collection agency sold my debt to another company and that other company is closed today.

    I just hope the current holder, when I finally reach them, has the original creditor information. While I think this is a legit debt, I’m not paying a penny until I confirm that. I don’t want to have to dance backwards to track down that information, or find out this is an error and the debt I think it is has been entirely written off after I’ve paid these guys.

    If I had grown up on schedule this wouldn’t be a problem. Oh well, it’s still my job to fix it. Like many other things, I suppose this is a “better late than never” situation to get on track.

    I do wonder though- people do mature at different rates. Even one person- in some ways might mature well ahead of time, in other ways might lag years and decades behind their peers. But society isn’t set up for that, it’s like “18 you’re an adult end of story”. I wonder how society might be able to accomodate this better? I have no ideas on how this could be done, but it’s something I think about sometimes. Sometimes taking things a little more slowly up front can get you where you need to be faster, compared to trying to get there all at once. There’s certainly potential for better preparing people for the “real world” if differing maturation rates were better handled. I just have no clue on specifics of how to improve this.

  152. birgerjohansson says

    infodump:

    WASP gives NASA’s planetary scientists new observation platform http://phys.org/news/2014-02-wasp-nasa-planetary-scientists-platform.html A new pointing system—the Wallops Arc Second Pointer (WASP)—that can point balloon-borne scientific instruments at targets with sub arc-second accuracy and stability.

    — — —
    Dating is refined for the Atapuerca site where Homo antecessor (the oldest known hominid species in Europe) appeared: 900 000 years ago. http://phys.org/news/2014-02-dating-refined-atapuerca-site-homo.html

    — — —
    Most Women Say The GOP Doesn’t Understand Their Problems, Poll Finds
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/07/women-gop-poll_n_4748200.html
    -No, really? (sark)

    — — —
    Republican official says gays should be purged from GOP, blames homosexuality on Satan http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/07/mary-helen-sears-michigan-gop_n_4740426.html
    Methinks both GOP viewpoints are related by way of dumbfuck reactionary values.

  153. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    Sigh.

    The quote, I mean.

    …I don’t really understand why it seems to surprise so many other social-justice minded people that taking words everyone already knows and using them to mean something different leads to being misunderstood.

  154. ChasCPeterson says

    Azkyroth: I’ve been trying to make that point for years around here. I believe it starts in academic Studies programs.

  155. says

    I’m not seeing much of a way around that confusion, though I do agree that it should be less surprising.

    New words might dodge that specific confusion, but it would be harder to relate the concepts to things people already know- and that seems likely to create stronger barriers to understanding.

  156. Jackie, all dressed in black says

    Good news!
    A friend got me tickets to see Mary Gauthier.
    Bad news.
    I have one of my downward spiraling colds from hell.

    *mope mope mope*

  158. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    Azkyroth and Chas,

    You start talking about a new concept, and try to describe it with common words. You find something that conveys the message, preferably something that people will be able to relate to. This other meaning of the word starts getting used more widely and there you go, the word gets a meaning number 2 (or 3 or 4) in Merriam Webster. I don’t see a problem, it just takes some time.

    Or what gworroll said.

  159. knowknot says

    Wow. Embarrassed myself there. I was insanely tired. I really wish I could say I was drunk at the time, but I can’t. Apologies. Really.

  160. Nutmeg says

    I’m at a family wedding in small-town Alberta.

    So far, the immediate and extended family have checked off racism, sexism, and various types of ‘splaining on their to-do lists. They’re smart enough not to try homophobia or anti-choice sentiments (3/14 of us cousins are gay). But guess what? Rural Alberta did those for them! We passed a billboard for one of *those* adoption agencies, saying “I wanted my child to have a mother and a father”. Puke! Even in rural Manitoba, our billboards generally only display one brand of conservative douchebaggery at a time.

    Urgh. Ranting complete, and I’m threadrupt for a couple more days. Time for me to take a patience pill and go put some fancy clothes on.

  162. says

    Nutmeg
    Ouch. Best of luck.

    The snow has come to the Pacific Northwest, ~5″ so far and expecting more overnight. L’s dog has never actually seen snow before, and had a time romping about in it. He’s a dachshund, so the snow is already deeper than his legs.

  163. ajb47 says

    David Marjanović @96

    I didn’t consider that because this button would still require you to delete the majority of each quote – which almost nobody ever does, leading to forum comments that look like comment 82.

    Then newbies get browbeaten taught into correct behavior like back on Usenet. I understand the concern listed in this comment — I was there when AOL made access to Usenet ubiquitous and dealt with hundreds of “Me, too” posts. Same thing with incoming freshmen and their new access to the internet. There is a lot of other things the new folk have to learn here, why not proper quoting technique? Personally, quoting everything and taking out what I am not responding to actually feels calming or nostalgic.

    Esteleth, [an error occurred while processing this directive] @109

    I don’t know if I shortened it before, but is it alright if I just quote you as “Esteleth”? (I just read in another thread that this is the procedure here and I may have shortened Nyms without checking before — sorry folks — it’s a holdover from, as above, my Usenet days where usernames were not as long).

    Also, what was the address to use in PayPal for JAL: Snark, Sarcasm, and Bitterness? I admit to dithering, but am now ready. (And this was before reading 127 — I have set up a response post in another tab and am going through the comments now. I wanted to donate, so when I found your comment, I set this response, then went on and have now come to 127 and now really want to donate.)

    I’d also like to ask if anyone here has read “Republican Gomorrah” by Max Blumenthal? I am about 70 pages in, and I am just looking for views or opinions if anyone has them.

  164. ajb47 says

    Whoa. FtB was down? But then, just before I got in this time (at 1:00 am, 2/9/14), I was sent to a page that seemed to be a shield against DDoS. (Wait here 5 seconds, blah, blah).

    Is the site back? Or did I just find a hole that lasts for a minute or so?

  165. rq says

    ajb47
    FtB internet weather can be rather tumultuous. Cloudflares are common.
    The site seems to be back, though. At least it’s mostly working for me right now.

  166. OptimalCynic says

    I need some urgent help. Are there any TRUSTED rape counsellors in the central Alabama area that I could refer a friend to? Needs to be one that doesn’t start off with “so what kind of Christian are you” and use the bible as a reference manual.

  167. says

    The LDS Church said they were going to stay out of politics, but now the mormon leaders have joined others to file amicus briefs in the fight against gay marriage:

    […] As of Friday, 17 groups — including a consortuim that includes the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — have given the court notice they plan to file amicus briefs in the case. […] In the 9th Circuit, there are more than 30 friend-of-the-court filings.

    Here are the entities who’ve piled on the Utah and Oklahoma cases so far:
    • Consortium that includes the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, National Association of Evangelicals, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Ethics and Libery Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod
    • The Sutherland Institute
    • The Eagle Forum Education and Legal Defense Fund
    • United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
    • American Leadership Fund
    • Family Research Council
    […]
    • Lynn Wardle, Brigham Young University law professor on behalf of “Utah counties”
    • Concerned Women of America
    […]
    • Sherif Girgis, Robert P. George, Ryan Anderson, authors of “What is Marriage? Man & Woman: A Defense.”
    […]
    • Robert Theron Smith for Rep. Lowry Snow, R-St. George; Rep. LaVar Christensen, R-Draper; Rep. Kay McIff, R-Richfield; and Rep. Merrill Nelson, R-Grantsville […]

    Not all of the amicus briefs are on the anti-gay side. For example, you will find the attorney for the defendants and Sandra Fluke on the pro-gay-marriage side of the issue.

    http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/blogscrimecourts/57512787-224/professor-rep-university-utah.html.csp

  168. says

    This is a follow to my comment @167. Here are some comments from readers of the Salt Lake Tribune article:

    So proud of the church and others for standing up for what is righteous. Even if it is a losing battle, it is well worth the fight to insure that everyone knows where the lord stands on this issue.
    ———
    Only the Liberal Left progressives will always try to rationalize and justify something that is corrupt and immoral as gay marriage as it is right thing to have, and if you are against it you discriminate and a bigot! When they themselves are the biggest hypercritical liars and deceive so many people with their lies!!!!
    ——–
    Why is the church interfering with public policy? If you want representation, accept taxation.

  169. says

    Good news to counter all the bad news coming out of Utah:

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/02/08/justice-department-privileges-same-sex-couples/5314885/

    In a major victory for same-sex marriage rights, the Justice Department will soon grant married gay and lesbian couples the same rights in legal matters as other married couples.

    The new policy announced by Attorney General Eric Holder on Saturday evening in New York, marks the latest step by the Obama administration to extend rights to same-sex couples that are afforded to married, heterosexual couples.

    “In every courthouse, in every proceeding and in every place where a member of the Department of Justice stands on behalf of the United States, they will strive to ensure that same-sex marriages receive the same privileges, protections and rights as opposite-sex marriages under federal law,” Holder said in prepared remarks to the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group that works on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equal rights. […]

  171. Pteryxx says

    I need some urgent help. Are there any TRUSTED rape counsellors in the central Alabama area that I could refer a friend to? Needs to be one that doesn’t start off with “so what kind of Christian are you” and use the bible as a reference manual.

    OptimalCynic: I don’t know of any specifically, but you should be able to contact the RAINN hotline or the National Domestic Violence hotline and ask them specifically about resources that accept people of diverse religions and orientations (since LBGT acceptance tends to overlap with non-Christian acceptance down here). I also suggest asking the Manboobz commentariat and emailing the Shakesville mods or asking in their weekend open threads, to take advantage of their non-Christian-friendly networks as well.

    Best luck and sympathies to your friend, and thank you for doing this.

  174. says

    Ninety new sign language terms to describe the solar system:
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-26066547

    In a project funded by the Scottish government, more than 90 signs have been especially created.

    Until now there have been no specific signs in British Sign Language (BSL) for astronomical terms, planets and stars.

    The new signs were revealed at an event at Linlithgow Burgh Halls and received a positive response from the public.

    Tania Johnston, senior public engagement officer at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, explained: “Until we created these, people had to finger spell the planets. People know what the planets are but they don’t really get an idea what they’re like.” […]

  176. says

    Pharmacists are disobeying the law when it comes to providing contraception to teens:

    […]In the study, researchers called pharmacies in several different cities around the country posing as teenage girls seeking emergency contraception. Approximately 20 percent of the pharmacy staff they contacted wrongfully informed the callers that because they were teenagers they could not legally have access to emergency contraception at all. Of the remaining 80 percent of respondents, only about half of them got the exact age requirements for Plan B correct.

    Even more interesting were some of the other things pharmacy staff told the callers. Many cited ethical reasons or personal religious beliefs for not offering the medication. Other pharmacists inaccurately told the callers that a parent or guardian would have to come with them to pick up the medication (even if they had a prescription) or that an older friend or boyfriend above the age restriction could not buy Plan B over the counter for them. In fact, some callers were even told Plan B wasn’t sold to men, which also isn’t true. […]

    http://www.salon.com/2014/02/09/americas_plan_b_problem_the_contraception_misinformation_epidemic/

    Yeah, not a good way to avoid unwanted pregnancies, and not a good way to reduce the number of abortions.

  177. Pteryxx says

    Miscellaneous links:

    Billmoyers: POC prisoners more profitable for private prisons

    Why would African American and Latino prisoners be cheaper to incarcerate than whites? Because older prisoners are significantly more expensive than younger ones. “Based on historical sentencing patterns, if you are a prisoner today, and you are over 50 years old, there is a greater likelihood that you are white,” Petrella explained to BillMoyers.com. “If you are under 50 years old — particularly if you’re closer to 30 years old — you’re more likely to be a person of color.”

    ——

    (warning for rape)

    MIT prioritizes confronting sexual assault after an anonymous grad student describes being raped by a research mentor. (TW – this link is her firsthand account.)

    —-

    For the hand-egg tolerant, The Big Book of Black Quarterbacks, which may be the only comprehensive collection to date, including as many stories as the Deadspin staff could find. Black QBs have often been redirected into other positions, such as wide receiver, rather than allowing them a shot at the star role; and the Seahawks’ Russell Wilson is only the second black QB to have won a Super Bowl. (The first was Doug Williams in 1988.)

  178. Pteryxx says

    and environmental wise:

    Rachel Maddow slams mishandling of ongoing West Virginia water crisis

    That Wednesday segment on youtube

    Friday follow-up, direct Maddow show link

    Schools have been closing due to sickness and chemical smells, residents are still melting snow, and neither the EPA, CDC, National Guard, or state or local officials seem to be on the same page or even communicating with each other. Testing results for the (one known) chemical are inconsistent from day to day and don’t match up with reported symptoms, leading to suspicions that *the testing* is less accurate than people’s sense of smell.

    Regardless, Tomblin and officials from the Center for Disease Control and the Environmental Protection Agency insisted to the public that the water is safe, leading to a scene at a press conference where local reporters pushed back against their claims.

    “There’s a big issue in the community — there’s no faith,” one reporter was heard saying in a clip played by Maddow. “There’s no faith in the water. There’s no faith in the system. Clearly, one of the issues is, people would like their homes tested. They’re worried about the pipes.”

    For context, the EPA regional chief thought homes *were* being tested. He found out otherwise from a local reporter who interviewed him.

    “My understanding is that a lot of different types of monitoring and testing have been done in the schools, at the taps, in homes, and in distribution systems and finished water leaving the plant,” Capacasa said. “We’re encouraged by the fact that it shows diminished presence of these chemicals in the water, if not non-detect.”

    Told that neither the state nor the water company had been testing inside homes, Capacasa responded, “I can’t speak definitely to it, but I’m aware of the school sampling, which I think was taps. I know all of the sample results have been published online for review. I’m encouraged by that.”

    Asked for specifics of the home testing he referred to, Capacasa finally said, “You bring up a good point. Let me do my homework on that before I comment. If that’s a concern, we certainly will track that down and make sure we are getting the best information possible.”

  179. Pteryxx says

    Moral Monday: Pics from the massive progressive protest you didn’t hear about this weekend

    Somewhere between 80 to 100,000 people from 32 states turned out to protest four years of drastic state Republican initiatives in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Saturday.

    The “Moral March on Raleigh,” organized by Historic Thousands on Jones Street (HKonJ), marched from Shaw University to the state capitol to push back against the “immoral and unconstitutional policies” of Republican Gov. Pat McCrory during the 2013 NC General Assembly session.

  180. Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. says

    For those wanting a little artistic relaxation, Li Hongbo. Art using the technology of paper lanterns.

  182. Nutmeg says

    Survived small-town Alberta; thanks for the well-wishes. The wedding was so heteronormative that, when I finally saw another lesbian in the Edmonton airport, I wanted to rush up to her and hug her and admire her asymmetrical haircut and sensible shoes. But I restrained myself. :)

    Weddings are exhausting just to attend. I don’t know how the couple getting married survive. By the end of the rehearsal dinner, I was feeling all out of social energy. And then the music and dancing started. I don’t dance, and I can’t hear very well with background noise, so in those kinds of situations I’m reduced to smiling and nodding at people and hoping that that was the appropriate response to whatever they were saying.

    I had to flee the room twice. The first time, one of my aunts started physically hauling people on to the dance floor. If she’d tried it on me, I would have broken her hold and possibly harmed her before I knew what I was doing, and I didn’t think that would have helped family dynamics, so I went and hid by the coat check. The second time, I had a headache and went to the bar for a glass of water, and my cousin tried to buy me a shot and he didn’t seem to be listening to my refusal. I was already overstimulated and overwhelmed and I couldn’t think of a polite way to stop him so I just ran away. I’m hoping he doesn’t remember it later.

    I wasn’t even that anxious about everything (at least to begin with; yay for making progress on anxiety), it was all just overwhelming after a certain point. I felt like I was completely out of ability to smile for pictures and make small talk and cope with loud noises and people in my space and being in an unfamiliar place. Just done. And I couldn’t leave because I was the designated driver and everyone else in my car was still having fun.

    I’ve been paying more attention to my nervous gestures lately, and I basically could not stop moving my hands after a while last night. Lots of wringing and hard stroking and pinching and digging of fingernails into skin (I know I should stop doing that, but it doesn’t do any lasting harm and it seems to help when I want to claw someone’s eyes out). I’ve mostly broken the habit of rubbing the back of my neck when I get nervous, because I hate how obvious it is, but even that was making a reappearance when no one was watching.

    If I ever have a wedding, it’s going to have to be completely different from that. Traditional weddings, with the ceremony then the pictures then the reception, are not at all introvert-friendly. They’re basically torture, and that’s just as an attendee. I can’t imagine what it would be like as a member of the wedding party.

    (I did enjoy seeing the extended family. But, dear non-existent god, wedding receptions are supposed to be FUN? I do not grok.)

  186. rq says

    Nutmeg
    Yay for surviving! That sounds like a tough situation, even without anxiety issues. Congratulations on doing so well! Now I hope you get lots of time to recover from the event.
    Also, I hope you find someone who also wants a quiet wedding, for introverts. :) To make sure you have a wonderful day.

    I cried from exhaustion at my own wedding, because two hours after I’d been quietly suggesting to Husband that we should be making our exit, we had to sit through more relatives doing small performances and presentations (not speeches, those ended with dinner) and then when I really wanted to go, Husband’s dad decided it was the perfect time to go sing some depressing love songs, ostensibly for Husband’s mum. So I cried, because I’d wanted to be alone and asleep for at least an hour already.
    The difficulty lay in the fact that Latvian weddings are very structured and organized, with games and activities that everyone is supposed to participate in throughout. I hate this, I hate the games, I hate the forced atmosphere of participation, and I told Husband so during planning – I love free time and random dancing for those who wish, and we had lots of that, but unfortunately, I was unable to stop all the games and performances. Which is fine, because some structured things towards the beginning are okay, especially if tasteful. They tend to descend into drunker chaos as the evening progresses, though, and that’s the part I dislike. And then random people decide to organize an activity or game, and yeah… (The haters sat around being bored throughout free time, waiting to be forcibly entertained – my side of the family had an amazing time.) [/metime]

    Thanks for the link to Li Hongbo, Ogvorbis and Chas!

  187. birgerjohansson says

    Simple technology could help solve gun crimes:
    “How confetti knowledge took down Universal Knowledge Allah. And his friend Salah.”
    http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/02/08/tracing-tasers-rachel-maddow/

    “DNA evidence frees two men after 21 years in Attica” http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/08/dna-evidence-frees-two-men-after-21-years-in-attica/

    70-year-old Swede kept 557 weapons at home http://www.thelocal.se/20140205/70-year-old-swede-had-557-weapons-at-home-cops-fear-blast
    Merka is not the only place with gun nuts.

  188. birgerjohansson says

    PS. Universal Knowledge Allah should have checked his weapon did not provide clues. Just like succesful kidnappers don’t use a letterhead with their address for the ransom note.
    The universal knowledge part seems questionable. And I don’t think he is The Lah. Lah smites people with more deadly force than stun guns. And a smiting would include a few dozen dead kids.

  189. Thumper: Token Breeder says

    Um… when I signed in, cloudflare checked my browser for DDoS. This has never happened before. Is this happening to anyone else? Is this a new thing?

  190. rq says

    Thumper
    It’s been happening to me on and off all weekend and today, too. *shrug* I hope it stops soon, I think it eats comments!

  192. rq says

    Yes, the DDoS page eats comments.
    Anyway, I’m bringing out the Lounge sledgehammer; anyone have any useless old junk lying around that needs a good smash?
    (One of the more publicly influential popular psychotherapists in Latvia is a raving misogynist and not afraid to say so publicly – yes, women should leave politics because they’re too emotional; yes, women are defined by their menstrual cycle (and should not, under any circumstances, try to learn physics and math during PMS – too taxing on the concentration); in a matriarchy, eveyrone is treated as children, but it’s okay, because all those men politicians are making the real decisions in the old boys’ club, outside of government buildings, and informing women how they should vote; real misogyny is denying women the chance to develop their femininity (yes, house and childreeennn!!!); once the Parliament reaches 50% women, we will discover it is obsolete because nothing will actually occur there (it’s a great place for women to go and sit in interesting company, though – but not a real man’s job! – personally, on this one, I wouldn’t mind women taking over the government and letting the men go off to their old boys’ club, only to discover things keep running smoothly and better without them…). …
    Ad major nauseum.

    And then someone wrote a refutation, about men – how they promote intransparency, because they’re taught to be so introspective and undemonstrative, which leads to them being unable to discover and reveal their goals, so chasing the goals of men is pointless because they’re always some mysterious, esoteric, indefinable, ‘heroic’ thing… Men are defined by their lack or existence of morning erection, it may put them in a bad mood for the rest of the day and thus we cannot trust their judgment on any given day… The crowning piece was the reply to the original’s appeal to Rhea, who gave her children to Cronus, who ate them (she apparently did this out of an instinct that children’s place is with their father…???? talk about misguided). The reply called upon Cronus, as a fine example of masculinity that acts without thinking of the consequences (another reason not to trust men!).
    It’s funny, it’s good, but not enough to remove the anger.)
    So, smashables? :)

  193. rq says

    This title is actually funny: oh, look, it’s Darwin! (My brother is on the team – once again, opposablethumbs, the same one you met. :) One day he’ll be famous and that meeting will be worth a lot of money in unauthorized biographies. :D)

  195. carlie says

    I cried from exhaustion at my own wedding, because two hours after I’d been quietly suggesting to Husband that we should be making our exit, we had to sit through more relatives doing small performances and presentations (not speeches, those ended with dinner) and then when I really wanted to go, Husband’s dad decided it was the perfect time to go sing some depressing love songs, ostensibly for Husband’s mum. So I cried, because I’d wanted to be alone and asleep for at least an hour already.

    We had an afternoon wedding/reception, with reservations to eat out late at a fancy restaurant in the Big City. Got to the hotel to check in/refresh, and I freaking. broke. down. All of the nerves worrying about everything going right all day, the stress (albeit welcome) of being friendly to everyone and talking to huge numbers of people, the minute we went “offline” it all came crashing down. I had to inform my brand-new Spouse that not only could I not handle driving 40 minutes to somewhere we’d never been on the strength of some handwritten directions (no GPS then!) to deal with waiters and manners and stuff, I couldn’t even bear to drive 5 minutes down the road to the strip of chain restaurants, so if we were eating it was going to have to be something that could be delivered directly to the room. So, we had Domino’s for our wedding dinner. And tap water in plastic disposable hotel cups.

  196. rq says

    So, we had Domino’s for our wedding dinner. And tap water in plastic disposable hotel cups.

    Actually, that sounds quite pleasant. :)
    I’m just not happy with not being listened to (esp. regarding the menu) and people getting angry because we didn’t do things the way they wanted it done. But I’m so glad that we got rooms away from the reception (and a cousin to drive us there), otherwise there would have been no escaping the ritual waking-of-the-newlyweds the following morning, even though that is one thing I very specifically said I did not want. But some people always believe that tradition is more important than individual desires. :/

  197. says

    @Nutmeg:

    I’m living the fun part of planning a wedding now. Combine that with also having to find a new place to live and getting a car all within the same short time period (I’m half pondering just staying at the apartment we currently live in and asking for a six month lease just to be able to save more money – it’s going to be a crazy commute, but cheaper overall.)

  199. opposablethumbs says

    Double-triple-multiple yay for your brother, rq! That’s a great showcase for their work :-)

  200. rq says

    opposablethumbs
    Apparently they’ll be on Discovery Channel at some point (not that that’s a positive endorsement these days). :) I’m very happy for him.

    +++

    Weirdness: I have comments showing up in the ‘Recent Coments’ sidebar that aren’t there when I go to the respective page. Anyone else?

  201. Dhorvath, OM says

    rq,
    I have had that happen for years. Give it time to finish thinking and the site will eventually display them.

  203. cicely says

    Merka is not the only place with gun nuts.

    But we do it best.
    USA! USA! USA!!!
     
    *ahem*
    Sorry ’bout that, folks.
    –

  205. says

    Moments of Mormon Madness, “callings” category. Because the LDS church fudges its membership numbers every which way, it is often hard to tell how many people are leaving the fold.

    One indicator is that more and more mormons are complaining about being saddled with multiple “callings.” These callings are “volunteer” positions in which members are called to serve by their bishop.

    I turned down a calling about three years before I left (because I already had two) but the first counselor called me from the pulpit anyway. I raised my hand to object, though, and after a hasty sidebar with the bishop (different bishop from when I was an RS pres) they announced that “an error had been made” and went on with the meeting. It’s hilarious to think about now, but at the time I was humiliated and wept through the sacrament.

    TSCC [The So-Called Church] is hurting. They’re scrambling for willing and able participants. They also refuse to reorganize and consolidate because it would reflect poorly on the number of congregations they have. TBMs [True Believing Mormons] are growing frustrated. TDMs [no idea] and NOMs [Name Only Mormons?] feel a sense of impending doom. Many are jumping off the fence and it isn’t to TSCC side.

    The fact is that there are less and less willing horses to go around these days, meaning fewer and fewer willing members are getting more and more callings.

    We had an RS president request to be released after only 1 year in office because of all the extra expectation that was heaped on her by the bishop and his lack of integrity in ecclesiastical privilege. A few years later and she has 4 “lesser” callings. The bishop called her in to add a fifth. She said no. He called her from the pulpit anyway.

    http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1165814

  206. says

    So, finally screwed my courage to the sticking-place, and got through phoning my dentist. And then, while flush with the feeling on unwonted grownupness, also got through calling my optometrist. Apparently, the last time i went to the dentist was 2006. I’m surprised it was that recent; I’d thought it much longer.

    The optometrist said it was 10 years since I’d been; coincidentally (it’s not a coincidence), this was also the time that Ontario delisted optometry from the public health service except for diabetics or other potentially vision-affecting illnesses.

    The Orwellian “Ontario Works” (welfare or relief or pogey, by any other name) does provide dental care, optometry services, and a decent drug plan. Iit covers most of my meds; would cover all but for the “newness” of the anti-abuse formulation the government forced on everyone a couple of years back, which puts me on the hook for $135/month in still-patented fees for a drug which is medically identical to the same 30-year-old drug – no longer patented, of course – that they force-replaced it with; let no one say the class war hasn’t yet begun, we just haven’t started to fight back yet.

  208. says

    Oh, and appointments are tomorrow with the oral barbaric torturer surgeon, and Wensdy with the eye-poker.

    Not that I have a bad attitude about their loving care, or anything. I just happen to think that the only significant differences between 1814 and 2014 dentistry is better anaesthetic, better antiseptics, and it’s not done in barbershops. Otherwise it’s still hammer-and-tongs, basically, blacksmithery of the mouth. Evil sadists.

    But no bad attitude here, nope.

  211. says

    rq @ 209, holy mother of all skiers! That is one scary course. No thanks. Not going down that, let alone trying to go down it as fast as possible.

  212. says

    Cost-cutting at Walmart finally backfires:

    Wolfe Research, an equities research firm, downgraded Walmart in a new research report, citing understaffing, among other problems.
    The firm lowered Walmart from a “market perform” rating to an “underperform” rating, pointing to three main causes: understaffing, an erosion of its price advantage against competitors, and costs associated with intensifying pressure from worker organizing. […]

    http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/02/10/3271221/walmart-downgraded-understaffing/

  213. rq says

    CaitieCat
    Well, all I got outta that was an appointment with the oral. Sounds intriguing! :D
    (Good luck with all the appointments – and at least the things you list are better! Clean torture. :) Making the world a better place!)

    Lynna
    Yup, the one Latvian skier in the competition was hesitant about his chances of even finishing it… Skiers reached speed exceeding 135 km/h. For a ski hill, that’s pretty damn fast!!!

  214. opposablethumbs says

    CaitieCat, I wish you all the best care and a bushel of spoons to get through the dental treatment. Just got a crown last week, told the dentist I thought modern anaesthesia was one of the greatest achievements in the world …

    Hope it goes smoothly for you, with plenty of the good juice.

  215. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    Well, all I got outta that was an appointment with the oral. Sounds intriguing! :D

    You need an appointment for that? D:

  216. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    The neighbor who had been piggy-backing on my WiFi just got her own WiFi network installed today. I think I finally banhammered a friend of one of her son’s who blabbed the password to my guest account. So, other than my Apple TV and iPad, there is nothing else on my system. *sigh of relief*

  217. Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. says

    Nerd:

    Good news.

    One of the unsecured networks that occasionally shows up, very weak, as a wireless option on my computer is one called “Use This One For Porn”. I really wonder how many computers on my street are pirating off of that one. (totally unrelated, but your travails with your piratical neighbor keep reminding me of that)

  218. chigau (違う) says

    In my neighbourhood, there don’t seem to be any un-passworded wirelesses.
    clever names, though:
    the two across the street use their house numbers
    next door is a “bestfriendsforever” (the originators departed, in tears, long ago)
    across the alley, somewhere, is a hexadecimal string
    me, my name

  219. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    but your travails with your piratical neighbor keep reminding me of that

    The neighbor that has been using our WiFi is the same one that does the Redhead’s hair. Like many minority families, she has the degree and professional job, which allows her to work from home in inclement weather. I didn’t mind her use, and even gave her the 40 character password for the secure main account. It was when her two teenaged sons got the password things got messy. So I changed the password for the main account, and shoved them out to the guest account, which meant they only had internet access, and not access to my shared files. When I showed her the airport utility showing seven devices connected, when I only had two, it started her thinking.
    I plan to keep her work computer information available so I could turn it on in case their router goes down. Anything else will be banhammered.

  221. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    So, it looks like I’m on track to have the smaller of my student loans paid off as of April, two months before it comes due, provided nothing of an epically bullshit nature happens in the meantime. >.>

    Yay.

  225. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    Majorité Opprimée (Oppressed Majority)
    A short little movie with male and female roles reversed. It’s so ordinary you get chills.
    (warning: guy gets sexually assaulted by a gang of women, and neither police nor his wife have much sympathy)

    My “favorite” part: He gets hot while riding a bike. Note how very self-consciously he undoes the top button of his shirt, looking around himself. Yeah. The little things…

  226. chigau (違う) says

    I strongly urge everyone to watch the video linked at Beatrice#225.
    really really really
    really

  227. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    We’re such a pathetic little country. A year or two ago, government invented legalization of all buildings. Meaning, all have to have been built according to plans, to a centimeter. All. Including something built forty years ago, at the time a lot of plans were often something general, and you adjusted a bit when building (especially when building on irregular terrain, where you had to adjust because of structural strength, for example).

    Or maybe, you just lost documentation from so long ago, and of course, the government could have lost it too. Tough luck.

    You might lose the building. Oh, it’s a shack where you and your family live? Sorry. You should have hired someone to check your documents and construction plans when it was time. to submit documentation for legalization.
    No money? Well, the submission was for free.
    Oh, you mean no money to hire someone? Well… Sorry.

    Yeah, this is just an action to force people to put some money into the failing building sector, where business owners have been going down like flies with this recession.

    It makes me so angry. Regulation is nice and all, but this is just plain stupid.
    You’re seriously going to tear down (for example) a thirty years old two-story house because the roof is falling under a greater angle than in the plan? Are you fucking kidding me?
    No, seriously, I hope they are kidding. I hope someone sues the whole damn country if they go through with this.

  228. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    I mean, when it comes to pouring money into the construction business, the plan is brilliant. If your family built something forty years ago, you can’t be sure it’s all according to plan. So you have to hire someone to measure everything. Just in case.
    Brilliant.

  229. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    um, sorry for the wall of text.
    Just watch the movie in #225 and ignore the unrelated blathering.

  230. rq says

    Yup, the link @225 is excellent. Just, maybe, not the best way to start the morning.
    (Interestingly, it fits in with a couple of Melanie Rawn novels I’m in the process of reading – the flip in society, that is.)

  231. rq says

    Stupid fish (‘cept when I was little we had a cat that did the same thing).

    I’ll admit, I’m not much of a hockey follower (even for the Olympics) but the coach of Latvia’s national hockey team has certainly placed us in our best position in years.

    So, what’s your favourite position? With nice answer.

    I was going to link to the Samuel L. Jackson interview, but I see PZ is ahead of me on that one.

    An interesting rebuttal in support of Sochi. I can understand the point behind it, but there’s just one thing: Sochi was supposed to be the site of an international, high-profile series of competitions, and with all that money spent, they should have got things together – at least for the duration. My greataest quibble? The fucking point on translation – it is not so fucking difficult to get a good, professional translation done, to avoid errors in understanding and reading comprehension – any decent translator of Russian-to-English (and vice versa) should know the ins and outs of each language, and be able to translate without causing additional confusion. That’s the whole point of hosting an international event: you’re supposed to be capable of it, as advertised.
    (I do agree, though, that once the Olympics leave, the locals will still be dealing with the issues listed. And that’s a situation that needs attention. I don’t see how the ridicule of journalist accommodations and understanding of local issues are mutually exclusive.)

  233. rq says

    Here’s a potato joke for Crip Dyke:

    Two man in Latvia see spider on potato. One eat spider, one eat potato. Both die. Is rotten potato. Australian man laugh, he rot potato.

    (via imgur, it’s in the comments!)
    Hope you are well!! *hugs*

  235. Portia, walking stress ball says

    ‘rupt
    but I’m really sad about Shirley. I know now that her movies are by and large irredeemably racist.
    I grew up on her songs and her movies and I’m still pretty sad.

  236. Portia, walking stress ball says

    I’m reduced to smiling and nodding at people and hoping that that was the appropriate response to whatever they were saying.

    I once did that when someone turned out to be telling me about a death of a friend. (*change facial expression NOW*)

    Glad you survived Nutmeg. Sorry it was so unfun. *hugs*

    –

    Confetti and champagne and all manner of congratulations, Azkyroth, for your impending freedom from student loans.

    :D

    –

    I won a jury trial yesterday. The biggest victory was getting through jury selection, openings, six witnesses, closings, and jury deliberations, in 3 hours!

    –

    hugs for Cait and the dental discomfort :(

  237. birgerjohansson says

    Researchers discover ‘epic’ new Burgess Shale site in Canada’s Kootenay National Park http://phys.org/news/2014-02-epic-burgess-shale-site-canada.html
    -Bring me more Hallucinogenia Sparsa fossils!

    — — — — — —
    George Orwell was hailed a hero for fighting in Spain. Today he’d be guilty of terrorism http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/10/george-orwell-was-hailed-a-hero-for-fighting-in-spain-today-hed-be-guilty-of-terrorism/
    Fucking Brit politicians.

    — — — — — —
    GOP senator to Fox news: providing access to health care just makes people lazy. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/09/gop-senator-to-fox-news-providing-access-to-health-care-just-makes-people-lazy/

    — — — — — —
    Hedonistic Raelian UFO cult to build Africa’s first clitoral restoration hospital
    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/10/hedonistic-ufo-cult-the-raelians-behind-africas-first-restoration-hospital/

  238. birgerjohansson says

    BTW the Raelians are nuts but they seem a benign kind of nuts. I don’t know if they run mormon-type scams.

  239. Thumper: Token Breeder says

    So, a friend of a friend is doing this, and I think it’s pretty fucking cool :)

    You’re all going to think I am more mental than before with this status but here goes… Last night I was out in Dalston and came across a very sweet homeless man. We got chatting (as you do) and I offered to give him some money etc…Anyway, he didn’t want money or booze he just said he loved a ginger beer, so I went and got him a ginger beer and a sandwich. He told me that he is 64 and came over to England with his mum for a better life. Unfortunately his mother passed away and he found himself homeless with no funds. He told me that all he wants more than anything in the world is to go back to Jamaica where he says he will be fine and happy again. I have promised this man that this time next year he will be back in Jamaica and that I will make it my personal mission to make it happen. Anyway, let’s #getmichaelhome spread the love, thank you xxx

    They already have more than enough (they needed £800 for the plane tickets, they have nearly £8000 last I checked) but any extra will go to Michael to help get him set up when he gets home.

  240. Thumper: Token Breeder says

    @birgerjohansson

    The Raelian sect believes that humans were created by extra-terrestrials to experience joy. It promotes world peace, democracy — and sexual satisfaction.

    Well, they seem to believe the right things, albeit for the wrong reasons :) And the operations are free for the patients, so while I am massively skeptical of the claim that they can restore feeling to the mutilated clitoris, I see no harm in giving it a go if they and the woman want to. Good for them.

    I’m deliberately ignoring the Orwell story; I’ve already been pissed off by it once today, and am now happy again.

  241. Portia, walking stress ball says

    Ginger beer, excellent choice ^_^

    That’s a great story, thank you for sharing Thumper :)

  242. Thumper: Token Breeder says

    No worries Portia, it cheered me up no end :) I chucked a fiver his way, shared the link in a couple of places, and now I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

    And ginger beer is indeed an excellent choice, especially when used to top up a glass full of ice and Gosling’s Black Seal rum :)

  243. David Marjanović says

    *heap of fluffy hugs for everyone!*

    I strongly urge everyone to watch the video linked at Beatrice#225.
    really really really
    really

    Around 1:50: école paternelle – kindergarten is école maternelle.

    Around 3:40: “tacky” in the subtitles… I’d simply say “ugly” for moche.

    You might lose the building. Oh, it’s a shack where you and your family live? Sorry. You should have hired someone to check your documents and construction plans when it was time. to submit documentation for legalization.

    *headdesk*

    “Governor Chris Christie betrayed by his staff yet again“. With a funny poll at the end.

    “CBO: Really, GOP, we didn’t say Obamacare would kill 2.5 million jobs” Image legend: “CBO Director Elmendorf, explaining it like we’re really stupid.”

  244. rq says

    Around 1:50: école paternelle – kindergarten is école maternelle.

    I think that was the point?

    Thumper
    Thank you for that wonderful story, I hope it concludes with great success and the happiness of Michael in Jamaica! :)

    Portia
    Congratulations on yet another win! You’re turning into a real powerhouse – *fireworks&orchestra*
    And *hugs*. ;)

  245. Portia, walking stress ball says

    My alma mater is three minute drive from my office. I told my old professors that if any of their students wants to talk about law practice or law school, they can contact me. One of them did. A sophomore who knows he wants to do “divorce law” ….I’ve never met anyone who wanted to do divorce work before they even went to law school. I mean, I do a LOT of it, and I don’t mind it, but I can’t picture aspiring to it. I guess that’s just me though.

  247. David Marjanović says

    Horses and peas nest in threaded comments.
    This Must Not Be!!!

    QFT.

    *pouncehug* ^_^

    Pokemon: helping people see past stereotypes.

    I approve. :-)

    Finnish speakers, is this true?

    It looks like the kind of sarcasm I’ve come to expect from Finns. B-)

    Despite their strong pro-family values, evangelical Christians have higher than average divorce rates — in fact, being more likely to be divorced than Americans who claim no religion, according to findings as cited by researchers from Baylor University.

    So that’s why Catholicism has never allowed divorce!

    Earth is Mars’ evening star. And I wouldn’t have thought the Moon would be that visible from Mars! (hahaha… visible…)

    So much awesomeness!!!

    Pharmacists are disobeying the law when it comes to providing contraception to teens:

    And lying on a huge scale. Why is there so much evil in the world!?!

    Sigh.

    The quote, I mean.

    …I don’t really understand why it seems to surprise so many other social-justice minded people that taking words everyone already knows and using them to mean something different leads to being misunderstood.

    I don’t understand this particular example, though. I’ve always understood “privilege” in the sense of “privilege of the nobility”, something certain people have and can’t do anything about (unless they manage to completely disguise themselves).

    To answer the question that the example is meant to answer: yes, women are systematically privileged over men in very few, very specific situations – and ironically that’s entirely because of patriarchal prejudices.

  248. David Marjanović says

    I think that was the point?

    Yes, exactly. I’m pointing it out for people who may have overlooked it and/or don’t know enough French.

  249. rq says

    Ah. :) I wasn’t sure. Personally, I laughed (a bit painfully) at that point. And the ensuing conversation with the newly-hijabed friend…

  250. says

    chigau/Nerd circa @218 For a long time I didn’t bother locking down or even renaming my wireless … I mean, what’s the point, why should I care — at least for me I wasn’t hitting any caps or seeing a load, I don’t expose any file system via the wireless. It was only much later when I noticed that there was some funniness going on. I’d turn off the router and still see “linksys” on the available list. Only then did I figure out the neighbor had the same thing going on and I think it was actually causing issues. So I knuckled under and password protected it as “getoffmylawn”. Everyone else around me seems to be stuck with the “WIRELESS[0-9][0-9][0-9]” that their provide must set them up with. Boring.

    Now my biggest wireless issue is the printer. It supports wireless connectivity (but only to send it print jobs), but it insists on using the same radio channel as the main router. Change the router … it follows. But
    two access points using the same channel: interference and clashes = slower (or spotty) throughput.
    Also seems to broadcast louder than my (now) two real routers and my iPod Touch keeps trying to connect to it for internet to the world … for a fail. Some days I just hate technology

  251. says

    Finnish speakers, is this true? If so, I am also adopting that word.

    No, it’s not and don’t. Mulkvisti is a variation of the word for cock, and you might just as well call them an asshole.

  252. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    I don’t understand this particular example, though. I’ve always understood “privilege” in the sense of “privilege of the nobility”, something certain people have and can’t do anything about (unless they manage to completely disguise themselves).

    Whereas most Americans, at least, have encountered it the context of expressions like “wealth and privilege” and thus it has a connotation akin to “spoiled brat.” And/or in the context of sayings like “driving is a privilege, not a right” and thus it has a connotation of a sort of license or allowance being explicitly granted, which doesn’t fit with their experience at all. Then, as they gradually come to understand it, they’re told it refers to unearned advantages people have because of belonging to certain groups, and therefore think it actually means that at a specific/situational level, rather than the usage where it can mean those at a specific/situational level, but only for people who have a net unearned advantage summed over all situations, relative to membership in a specific group…?

  253. says

    Don’t watch Beatrice’s link at work *ahem*

    So I made the decision. I’ll stay at my apartment for another year rather than worry about the security deposit. I’ll still have to get a car, but meh, that’s a minor problem. Fiancee has one, and her work is right across the street. It’ll just have to be made a little more ‘road-worthy’ since it’s got some problems with overheating.

  254. rq says

    Weed Monkey
    :O Okay.
    Thanks for the heads-up! :/ (I’m going to go educate everyone else on my FB now…)

  255. David Marjanović says

    Afraid of drop-bears? Take comfort (or not) in the fact that crocodiles routinely climb trees! (pdf)

    Whole Paycheck fired a woman for not showing up to work once. During a snowstorm. She was taking care of her sick child. Petition to the CEO: “Reinstate Rhiannon Broschat and amend your policy to make room for family leave.”

    Two petitions to raise the US minimum wage to 10.10 $/h and index it to inflation.

    Save the sage grouse.

    Mulkvisti is a variation of the word for cock, and you might just as well call them an asshole.

    Oh. That goes beyond the snark I’ve come to expect from Finns. :-) I have much to learn!

    “driving is a privilege, not a right”

    …Yeah, that’s a very different usage.

  256. says

    Oh. That goes beyond the snark I’ve come to expect from Finns. :-) I have much to learn!

    The base word is mulkku. Any word can be swetisized by appending -kvisti, to resemble the pronunciation of some Swedish surnames – Ahlquist, Nordquist for example.

  257. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    Portia,

    Congrats on another success in the courtroom!
    —-

    I’m cycling moods like you wouldn’t believe. From being scared of offending my own shadow to being all hyper in just a couple of hours. Oh well, I hope the hyper bit lasts. It’s much more useful.

  258. rq says

    Beatrice
    *chocolate*
    To keep the bloodsugar high. :)

    +++

    And since when does “goodlooking” mean “romantic”? Today’s silliness brought to you by tvnet.lv: the title was “The 7 Most Romantic Men!!”, so I read it, hoping to see some sweet stories about how they’re just so damned romantic and flower-generous and dropping chocolates like rain all over their Beloveds’. But no, it was just a list of ‘hot’ men, no actual romantic activities described – strangely enough, 6 out of the 7 were on the Hottest Men!!! list that was going around when I was in high school (all hail new-comer Benedict Cumberbatch)… I feel cheated.

  259. cicely says

    *pouncehugback* for David.
     

    Take comfort (or not) in the fact that crocodiles routinely climb trees!

    *gulp*
    What about…alligators?
    –

  260. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    rq,

    You remind me, there are a couple or rum chocolates left. (don’t tell chigau)

  261. cicely says

    “[…] and American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) in
    USA (Shawn Heflick pers. comm.) have been observed
    on tree branches 0.5-1 m above the water. A photo of a
    sub-adult American alligator perched on a tree branch
    2-3 above the water (Fig. 1) was obtained at Pearl River
    Delta, Mississippi (Kristine Gingras pers. comm.). “

     
    *big gulp & wide eyes*
    –

  263. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    rq,

    That list is somewhat disappointing. And the same as when I was in high school (with the exception of Sherlock Cumbersomething)

    (we are close in age, right?)

  265. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    *exchanges chocolates with rq*

    Um, what’s wrong with the photos? They look pretty adorable to me, the couple doing the series of photos all through the pregnancy.

  266. says

    Home from dentist, she was lovely and not at all judgey, which was awesome and is the reason I ever went to her at all. Scheduled an extraction of the busted toof for month’s end, thankfully at an oral surgeon whose office is about 200m from my apartment. No need to arrange a ride or get buses, I can walk that. In the meantime, antibiotics should help settle the pain until we can reach the yoinking point.

    Optometry tomorrow. First time I’ve had my eyes chequed in ten years. Be interesting to see what they say.

    I’ve decided I don’t like being a grownup anymore, so I’m going to go play PS3 for a while. I’m not sure whether I intend to shoot things or to move some chainy thingies up and down the side of a grassy expanse for a while. Mass Effect 3, or NCAA Football 2008, continuing my legendary career as a HiB for Wisconsin’s Badger-people. HiB is much easier to play than MiLB. On the other hand, Shep looks like me, and that’s pretty awesome too.

  267. rq says

    Beatrice
    “Here, I’ll just magic a baby into your womb!”
    Well, the thought is cute. I don’t like the woman’s expressions.
    I may be reading too much into it, though, considering the current background noise I’m coincidentally experiencing on and off Pharyngule/FtB.

    CaitieCat
    If your eyes say anything at all, I think you should apply to have a few scientific journals write about them. ;)

  268. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    Ah, the “what the hell?!” and “you fix this!” faces.

  269. says

    What, your eyes don’t talk?

    Is that everyone?

    Huh. The things you learn online. So when it sounds like my eyes are talking to me, is that the ‘voices in my head’ thing they talk about?

  270. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    So when it sounds like my eyes are talking to me, is that the ‘voices in my head’ thing they talk about?

    I’m choosing to read this as your eyes warning you about the voices in your head.

  271. rq says

    CaitieCat
    If your eyes talk, and are warning you about the voices in your head, you may consider speaking in tongues. Sounds like you have a latent skill that should be developed!

  272. rq says

    Beatrice
    Yah, those faces. I get the point, but they make me a bit squeamish right now. Different expressions, same pictures, I’d be okay with it. :) Eh. Don’t mind me, need more rum and balzam chocolates! (Yum.)

  274. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    …also, unless her partner is an obstetrician they really need to reverse the roles for the second trick. >.>

  275. blf says

    Take comfort … in the fact that crocodiles routinely climb trees!

    Unless the mildly deranged penguin is around. If she is, then the alligators and crocodiles and oysters and other vicious sea monsters take off like a Saturn V, except louder, faster, and without a boring countdown. The closest a Saturn V-cum-alligator has been known to land is on one of Saturn’s moons. The one that had the TMO in the book. It was moved to one of Jupiter’s moons in the film since it was a bit embarrassing to have your extraterrestrial movie set wiped out by an incoming Earth reptile.

  277. says

    I am having a massive issue with my fiancee’s cat. She’s peeing right next to the litter box. I know it’s likely cause she’s been attacked while in there by the boy cats, but I don’t know what to do about it aside from getting rid of her or the boys. I’m not willing to do either of those, but every day I come in and there’s a big pee spot right next to or behind the litter box. There are two others, but she’s not willing to use those either, she spends most of her time next to the table in the dining room.

    I seriously think the best thing for her is to give her away because she’s clearly unhappy here, but that’s so heart breaking.

  278. says

    rq, nutmeg:
    (re: marriage)
    I had a brief conversation at work with guests recently about marriage ceremonies. The couple were telling me about a recent wedding they attended that was held at a restaurant (on Super Bowl Sunday). The bride and groom wanted to wear their favorite jersey’s, but the bride’s mother *insisted* that she wear a dress. That made me roll my eyes and simply say “who’s wedding is this?”
    Hearing both your stories makes me want to pull out my non-existent hair.
    The social and familial pressures on couples getting married is aggravating. It should be they who make the decisions and choices. If they want dancing and games, if they want dresses/tuxes or nude ceremonies…it should be up to them!.
    I take one look at wedding ceremonies and the frustration of many people and all I can think is “Fuck tradition and rules”. If I ever get married, its gonna be on my (and my partner’s) terms.

  279. says

    Has anyone heard of Elio Motors?

    Elio Motors is an American startup transportation company.[1] It was founded in 2008 by Paul Elio, an engineer, who is its CEO.

    Its first vehicle in development is a three-wheeled model (two wheels in front, one in back) that is planned to get 84 mpg-US (2.8 L/100 km) on the highway and to retail for US$6,800. Standard features would include air conditioning, power windows, and stereo. It would seat two (one in front, one in back) with 3 airbags and a reinforced roll cage. Company executives predict that it will receive a 5-star safety rating. Although it will be fully enclosed like a standard automobile, its three-wheel design falls under US government classifications as a motorcycle; licensing and safety requirements to operate such a vehicle vary by state. The design features three-wheel anti-lock disc brakes, an inline 3-cylinder, 55 hp engine, and front-wheel drive, with a top speed of over 100 miles per hour, accelerating from 0 to 60 mph in about 9.6 seconds.

    Here is an interior shot.

    Here is an exterior shot

  280. Nutmeg says

    Tony: Yep. I can’t count how many times this weekend that I thought, “I’m so glad to be gay.” Because being gay gives us almost an automatic ability to write our own script for weddings (and relationships, sometimes). Opposite-sex couples are often stuck with a bunch of heteronormative traditions, even if they’d prefer something else.

  281. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    Tony,

    Agreed on the couple having their dream wedding, not what their families desire, but I’d put a little caveat in: whatever their dream wedding consists of, they should leave an “out” for the guests.

    You don’t want to dance or play games? It would be nice if the bride or groom didn’t pull you out of the crowd or call your name on the microphone.
    I’m all for making the couple happy, but only if being happy doesn’t mean being assholes about it.

  282. rq says

    Kevin
    Is there any practical way of moving a litterbox next to the table in the dining room, in her safe space? And slowly moving it back out? :/ I hope you work something out with her / for her.

  283. ajb47 says

    Kevin, 友好火猫 (Friendly Fire Cat) *277

    I’ve heard that putting aluminum foil down where the cat pees can help stop it. They don’t like the sound, apparently. Also, a spray that claims to get rid of the deep down pet odors can help, so that she doesn’t pick up the scent of pee and think that’s where she’s supposed to go.

  285. says

    Beatrice:
    I agree completely. I don’t think anyone involved in a wedding (whether those getting married or the guests) should be *forced* to do anything (whether it’s dancing or wearing a dress or throwing flowers).

  286. rq says

    Tony
    We tried doing it our way. It’s just that things got hijacked in the process (the cook was a great friend of Husband’s mother, and she didn’t like my food ideas; random people decided to announce activities that we hadn’t asked for; etc.). So while it wasn’t all bad, it wasn’t what I wanted it to be. The vast majority of our guests enjoyed themselves, though – although our planners/best people* were reduced to tears by Husband’s parents at one point for ‘doing things wrong’. Either way, if we ever redo our vows, we’ll be doing in very, very small company. Says me. :)

    * The tradition here is that the couple chooses two people (best man / best woman), who may or may not be a couple themselves (originally, these were the people you chose whose marriage you wished to sort of emulate – which is why they’re called the vedēji, which translates loosely to ‘the guides’ or ‘the leaders’), and they do most of the actual physical work of planning (within the wishes of the couple to be married). Basically, my Husband and I made a list of things we wanted, and they did all the actual organizing and phoning and such, plus took care of most of the MCing and scheduling of the actual event. No bridesmaids, no henchmen, no fuss. I rather like the idea, since it doesn’t involve giving away the bride – the couple to be married walks in together, hand in hand, following in the steps of their ‘guides’.

  287. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    rq,

    the couple to be married walks in together, hand in hand, following in the steps of their ‘guides’

    As far as traditions go, this one sounds quite lovely.

  288. says

    birgerjohanssen:

    GOP senator to Fox news: providing access to health care just makes people lazy.

    I can’t even understand how this is supposed to make sense.
    “Here is a selection of healthcare companies to choose from and various policies they have.”
    “Gee thanks. I think I’ll quit my job and lay around and be lazy all the time.”
    “Um, how are you going to pay for your healthcare if you quit your job?”
    “Oh, good point, I guess I didn’t think that through very much.”

    I mean, it takes seconds to see how illogical that idea is.

  289. says

    Vultures perform a value service. India has found out just *how* valuable:

    Vultures feed on the carcasses of dead animals, helping lessen the chance of disease outbreaks – a fact that was starkly revealed in India over the last few decades. Widespread use of a drug to treat livestock ended up poisoning the birds. “We think we’ve lost somewhere around 40 million birds in the space of two decades, it’s probably the biggest population crash that has ever happened,” says Jemima Parry-Jones, director of the International Centre for Birds of Prey.

    In this film, Parry Jones, Dr Ananya Mukherjee of the Saving Asian Vultures from Extinction (Save), Dr M Sanjayan of The Nature Conservancy and environmental economist Pavan Sukhdev reveal what happened next. Without the vultures, carcasses rotted, creating a breeding ground for diseases and leaving a terrible stench. Feral dogs thrived, bringing with them a rise in rabies; India now has the highest number of rabies cases in the world.
    http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140210-vultures-halting-killer-diseases

    The more you know…

  291. Portia, walking stress ball says

    I rather like the idea, since it doesn’t involve giving away the bride – the couple to be married walks in together, hand in hand, following in the steps of their ‘guides’.

    OOOoooooOOOOh I like it too.

    I like the sentimental element of walking down the aisle with my dad, like you’re “supposed to” …but I like this more egalitarian version so so much.

  292. says

    Ok, this timeline of the future is really cool.

    Some bits that I liked:
    •Chernobyl is safe 20,000 years from now.
    •Niagara Falls disappears 50,000 years from now.
    •The titanium in your Macbook dissolves 100,000 years from now.
    •Men may be extinct 5 million years from now.
    •The entire galaxy could be colonized at sublight speeds 50 million years from now.

    Actually, there’s a lot of cool stuff on this chart!
    (and I learned how to make bullet points to boot!)

  295. rq says

    Egalitarian Latvian-style wedding entries is a tradition I would love to propagate throughout the world.

  296. says

    How do you find a ghost ship?
    For that matter, what *is* a ghost ship?

    Right now, a huge object worth a million dollars is somewhere in the ocean – and according to the law of the sea, it could be yours if you can find it.

    The bounty in question is a 1,400-tonne ghost ship, called the MV Lyubov Orlova. In February 2013, this 100-metre long derelict ocean liner was accidentally lost en route to the Dominican Republic after a tow line broke. It drifted off into the Atlantic without a crew or a tracking beacon – and disappeared.

    {…}

    But how could it be possible to lose such a big ship? In an age of global surveillance, why don’t we have the technology to spot it?

    My ignorance was exposed at this point, bc I was asking the same questions. My automatic reaction was “not possible”.
    Needless to say, I was quite wrong.

    You might think a camera on one of the many satellites orbiting the Earth would be a better option. But unless you know where to look, the resolution of the cameras over the ocean is too low to see a ship. This is a big problem for coastguards and the navy. From quota-dodging fishing vessels to pirates, governments and coastguards are desperate to develop better ways of keeping track of what happens at sea. It’s still a Wild West out there.

    {…}

    There is another type of satellite technology that could help. One of the most promising options for tracking the ship – employed by the Irish coastguard fearing an incoming vessel on their shores – is to turn to “radar” and “automatic identification system” (AIS) satellites. First, radar satellites comb the sea surface in great swathes, and all the vessels captured show up as blips like on a ship radar screen. Then, you cross-reference this data with AIS satellite maps, which show the positions of all the active ships on the ocean (see them right now, here). This process could, in principle, reveal a single derelict ship. Why? The Orlova’s beacon was switched off; it’d be the only radar blip not broadcasting.

    This article was cool.
    BBC, you’ve sucked me in.

  298. says

    rq:
    I think so.
    From the same BBC article:

    This week, the British media reported that it is carrying “disease-ridden cannibal rats” and on a collision course with the UK shore. The first part probably isn’t true, but it could still pose a threat to European coastlines or oil rigs, because prevailing currents are carrying it towards Ireland or Scandinavia.

  299. says

    For Doctor Who fans (I believe there’s a bunch of ya’ll in here):
    http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20131119-doctor-who-travels-through-time

    To celebrate the 50th anniversary of this iconic sci-fi programme, we at BBC Future have created our own version of time travel by tracking the Doctors’ trips in one interactive infographic. What do the Doctor’s journeys through time look like? Click on any doctor to see their journeys; click on each path to learn more, and to see images or video clips from the episodes.

  301. Nutmeg says

    I rather like the idea, since it doesn’t involve giving away the bride – the couple to be married walks in together, hand in hand, following in the steps of their ‘guides’.

    At a couple of the weddings I’ve been to in the past few years (the curse of being a 20-something), the bride and groom have each been walked down the aisle by their parents, one parent on each arm. I like this because it’s less patriarchal than the bride being walked down the aisle by her father, and it acknowledges the contribution of the parents in raising their children to maturity. But of course, this wouldn’t work for everyone – some people’s parents are no longer around, and some people may not feel comfortable with involving them in the ceremony.

  303. rq says

    the bride and groom have each been walked down the aisle by their parents, one parent on each arm

    Oh, that’s nice, too! Of course, as you mentioned, this does not work for everyone, but it seems like a nice, viable, non-patriarchal option.
    I saw a combination of this and the Latvian version at a wedding years ago, where the bride and groom each followed their own parents down the aisle along parallel aisles.

  305. says

    So one of my coworkers apparently thinks “jewish lightning” is a perfectly fine way to refer to a suspicious fire.

    A senior coworker, and I’m trying to get that promotion, so not the best time to challenge that. But seriously, what the hell? Made me miss Connecticut- while racism and other such bullshit does happen, it’s not quite as common and people don’t as readily assume you are ok with it.

  309. ajb47 says

    I wish my wife and I had thought of having both sets of parents walk us down the aisle, such as it was (we were married in a campground lodge by a judge.) We did manage to word our invitations as (with names redacted) “[My name and my fiancee’s name] together with [her parents names] and [my parents names] invite you… blah, blah, standard invite phrasing here.”

  311. rq says

    [curious] Is it standard to put parents’ names on the invitations? It never would have occurred to me, since it was (ostensibly) our (my and Husband-to-be’s) wedding. [/curious]

  312. Nutmeg says

    rq: It seems to be pretty common around here. It’s often phrased as “[Bride’s parents] and [groom’s parents] are proud to invite you to the wedding of their children, [bride] and [groom]”, or something to that effect.

  313. ajb47 says

    rq @311:

    It’s a holdover from when the parents father used to be the one who had to pay for the wedding. Most of the ones I saw growing up were of the “Bride’s parents invite you to the marriage of their daughter to the groom.” A quick search of sites that sell invitations seem to show that may be in the minority nowadays.

  314. Esteleth, [an error occurred while processing this directive] says

    I found one of my parents’ wedding invites in a box once, along with the various announcements in newspapers. The format was:

    “Mr. and Mrs. [Mother’s Sperm Donor] wish to announce/welcome you the wedding of their daughter, [Mother’s name] to [Father’s name], son of Dr. and Mrs. [Paternal grandfather’s name].”

    The invites continued with time, place, etc. The announcements continued with stuff like, “the bride is a [year] graduate of [college] and works at [place]. The groom is a [year] graduate of [college] and works at [place].”

  315. says

    Azkyroth:
    Given Adam Lee’s history, I’m inclined to think he based his comment on the history of said commenter. It was still distateful, and definitely not what consent means.
    OTOH, I don’t think he should allow the comment to stand without discussing *why* unenthusiastic “consent” is *not* consent.

  316. says

    ajb47:
    Along with a host of other ‘traditions’ related to wedding ceremonies, I think it’s time to do away with the groom’s parents pay for this and the bride’s parents pay for this. Obviously if that’s how the couple to be-and their respective parents-want to do it, then that’s ok. But the expectation? Uh uh.
    While we’re on the subject, I wonder how much the average median cost of a wedding is.

    Apologies to those for whom this is basic knowledge, but the distinction apparently eludes not only the media but some of the people responsible for the surveys. I asked Rebecca Dolgin, editor in chief of TheKnot.com, via email why the Real Weddings Study publishes the average cost but never the median. She began by making a valid point, which is that the study is not intended to give couples a barometer for how much they should spend but rather to give the industry a sense of how much couples are spending. More on that in a moment. But then she added, “If the average cost in a given area is, let’s say, $35,000, that’s just it—an average. Half of couples spend less than the average and half spend more.” No, no, no. Half of couples spend less than the median and half spend more.

    When I pressed TheKnot.com on why they don’t just publish both figures, they told me they didn’t want to confuse people. To their credit, they did disclose the figure to me when I asked, but this number gets very little attention. Are you ready? In 2012, when the average wedding cost was $27,427, the median was $18,086. In 2011, when the average was $27,021, the median was $16,886. In Manhattan, where the widely reported average is $76,687, the median is $55,104. And in Alaska, where the average is $15,504, the median is a mere $8,440. In all cases, the proportion of couples who spent the “average” or more was actually a minority. And remember, we’re still talking only about the subset of couples who sign up for wedding websites and respond to their online surveys. The actual median is probably even lower

  317. katybe says

    A friend of mine just last year had [Mr and Mrs bride’s father] invite you to wedding of their daughter [bride’s full name] to [groom’s full name]. RSVP to [bride’s parents]. And not only were they both in their 30s and financially independent, but it was the second time around for her and her parents had already done that once for her first marriage, plus I knew she was being non-traditional enough to keep her maiden name for professional reasons – I was really shocked by the invite when I read the format.

  318. says

    katybe:

    (the following isn’t meant as a criticism of anything you’ve said)

    [Mr and Mrs bride’s father]

    I wonder if this is another religious concept. Referring to a married couple as “Mr and Mrs John Doe” makes the woman secondary (if not almost invisible), and seems like a way to enshrine religious notions of who is in charge of the marriage.

  319. says

    Dear Americans,
    Astrology is *NOT* scientific.

    According to data from the National Science Foundation’s just-released 2014 Science and Engineering Indicators study, Americans are moving in Perry’s direction. In particular, the NSF reports that the percentage of Americans who think astrology is “not at all scientific” declined from 62 percent in 2010 to just 55 percent in 2012 (the last year for which data is available). As a result, NSF reports that Americans are apparently less skeptical of astrology than they have been at any time since 1983.

    http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2014/02/public-opinion-astrology-dumb

  320. rq says

    Interesting. I find the concept kind of weird… Sort of the feeling that my parents invite my friends for me. Or that they are inviting the people they deem appropriate – like throwing a birthday party for a child, I can’t make my own guest decisions. But these are my personal thoughts, others may have different feelings about this.
    Dunno. Some traditions are weird. :)

    Anyway, done is done, I am finally off to bed. Good night!

  321. rq says

    PS Tony
    Not religious per se, just patriarchal. A woman marries into the man’s family, basically giving up her own family to become a part of his. In addition, she now more or less belongs to him, because her father handed her over, therefore – she is unimportant. But that’s patriarchy, not just religion.

  322. ajb47 says

    Tony! The Fucking Queer Shoop! @316:

    Yes. In our case, we paid for everything, since we were in our early thirties. My wife bought her dress on eBay, we bought most of the supplies, such as napkins and plastic “glasses” and centerpiece components also on eBay. We bought our food in catering bundles that just needed to be heated. We had friends and family help out with the serving of said food. Heck, my dad spent time behind the bar mixing drinks (he doesn’t dance, and he had a bum knee at the time) just because he got to talk to almost everyone at one point or another.

    My wife paid a bunch for my ring, not much for hers, since I had paid a bunch for her engagement ring, and the wedding was not much more than what we paid for our wedding rings. We pulled that average way down back in 2001.

  323. A. Noyd says

    rq (#258)

    But no, it was just a list of ‘hot’ men, no actual romantic activities described

    You just reminded me how I keep seeing these Valentine’s boxes of Snickers or M&M or other completely common candies. I just don’t get those. Like, why would anyone who thinks chocolates are romantic get the same kind that are sold in a fucking vending machine or at a goddamn gas station?

    ~*~*~*~*~*~

    Kevin (#277)

    I am having a massive issue with my fiancee’s cat. She’s peeing right next to the litter box.

    A couple things you can try:
    1) Confine her to a different room with her own litter box for a few weeks. See if that breaks her of the habit. You might have to do a slow reintroduction with the other cats. If she’s getting harassed by them, that wouldn’t be a bad thing, though.
    2) Temporarily remove that litter box, scrub the area really well, and put the cat food there instead. If her behavior changes, move things back after a few weeks.

  324. cicely says

    Clearly, the mildly deranged penguin is in some (possibly psychic) way related/connected to The Luggage.
    –

  326. says

    I’m sitting in bed with the radio on in the background (mistake, I know, given that I’ve heard the same songs at least 5 times today), and I’ve heard ads for President’s Day sales. For the first time in the history of ever, I’m wondering what the purpose of President’s Day is (at least in the US). So off I go:

    The first attempt to create a Presidents Day occurred in 1951 when the “President’s Day National Committee” was formed by Harold Stone bridge Fischer of Compton, California, who became its National Executive Director for the next two decades. The purpose was not to honor any particular President but to honor the office of the Presidency. It was first thought that March 4, the original inauguration day, should be deemed Presidents Day. However, the bill recognizing the March 4 date was stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee (which had authority over federal holidays). That committee felt that, because of its proximity to Lincoln’s and Washington’s Birthdays, three holidays so close together would be unduly burdensome.[citation needed] During this time, however, the Governors of a majority of the individual states issued proclamations declaring March 4 to be Presidents’ Day in their respective jurisdictions.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington%27s_Birthday

    To honor past presidents? Why is that something to be done?

  327. Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. says

    cicely:

    I dunno. I find he MDP much more frightening. After all, the luggage is single-minded — protect the owner. The MDP seems much more, shall we say, random? Chaotic? Unpredictable?

  328. Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. says

    Tony:

    To honor past presidents? Why is that something to be done?

    All are/were wealthy men (not all 1%ers, of course). All are/were straight, cis-gendered. All but one are/were white. And we all know that wealthy, straight, cis-gendered, white men are ignored by historians, so having a President’s day gives them attention that they would never, ever get in any history books, history classes, national parks, statues, libraries, or books.

  329. cicely says

    Tony!: The Luggage, from Pratchett’s Discworld books. It’s best mood is “bloody-minded malevolence”.
    –
    Ogvorbis: Perhaps they only share stomping tips.
    :)
    –

  330. Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. says

    cicely:

    I dunno. Stomping tips sounds kind of cheesy.

    Which, considering the MDP, is about right.

    I think the MDP is more into kinetic destruction rather than trampling.

  331. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    The last 24 hours have been interesting from the temperature standpoint. I monitor two stations, one near the lake, and one about four miles inland. The inland station has been 5-7 degrees colder last night and all day today. But the wind is still so we at Casa la Pelirroja match the warmer near the lake station.

  333. says

    No, really. We have enough churches in the United States. We don’t need another.

    For centuries, European and American missionaries have gone to Africa to spread the word of Christ. That trend is now working in reverse, with a Nigerian minister in Texas who plans to build churches as numerous as Starbucks coffee shops.

    Drive an hour north-east of Dallas, and you will find yourself staring off into a barren, flat horizon. One out-of-place building rises above the landscape: a 10,000-seat auditorium.

    It is the centrepiece for the Redeemed Christian Church of God in North America, a Pentecostal movement that started in Nigeria in 1952.

    It is one of Africa’s largest and most influential Christian movements, claiming more than five million followers worldwide, mostly in Nigeria.

    {…}

    That divine spot is Floyd, Texas, an unincorporated community with a population of 220. Church leaders have grand plans for the property, which now spans 700 acres (283ha): a university, sports complex, even a golf course.

    Fadele radiates with excitement describing his vision for future events at the auditorium: “Crazy people for Jesus, people who are in love with Jesus, shouting ‘hallelujah’, praising Jesus, having prayer vigils, having fun, giving each other high-fives.”

    Fadele’s goal is to establish a church within every 10 miles (16km) in North America, to take as many people as possible to heaven.

    “Because heaven is real, God is real,” he said. “And that is why we want to plant churches like Starbucks.”

    Although we probably have enough Starbucks, I’d take 100,000 more of them over 1 more church.

  334. ajb47 says

    Tony! The Fucking Queer Shoop! @ 326:

    I always thought Presidents’s Day was a general celebration of two of our best presidents — the first and the guy who made sure the Federal government’s rules applied to the states. And it just happened to be on or about the birthdays of those presidents.

    Yes, despite the questions about them, Washington and Lincoln are arguably two of our best presidents. In my opinion.

  335. says

    ajb47:
    I suspect for a lot of people in the US (I’m not referring to you) Washington and LIncoln are great simply because of the biased way they are presented in schools. The focus is on the good things they did, while glossing over or completely ignoring the unsavory things they did.
    I guess I don’t like the idea of President’s Day bc it holds up, as heroes (or pillars of excellence), complicated human beings who were not perfect. That said, I have far less of a problem with President’s Day than I do Columbus Day.

  337. bluentx says

    No, really. We have enough churches in the United States. We don’t need another.

    Tony‘s right Pastor Fadele. Also, we already have something like this in Texas, usually in the middle of nowhere. They’re called Cowboy Churches, if you can believe it. Never seen any horses tied up out front on Sunday though.

  343. says

    Scott Lively makes me furious!

    An infamous Christian pastor is labeling a viral video depicting horrific anti-gay violence by Russian thugs and neo-Nazis a “hoax” perpetuated by gay Nazis. Scott Lively, currently on trial in U.S. federal court for human rights violations, has outright dismissed the video, compiled by the well-known organization Human Rights Watch.

    Lively, writing on BarbWire, the new website of anti-gay religious extremist Matt Barber, tries to obtain some credibility for his inane claim by stating, “I am NOT saying all of the incidents described the video are fakes,” but concludes it is just another piece of “deceptive Machiavellian ‘gay’ propaganda.”

    Fuck you Lively.
    The hate you spread…the lies you spew…the bigotry you embody…you have helped create the climate in Russia. You and people like you have the blood of queers on your hands and I hope you get convicted and thrown in jail for the rest of your life.

  344. ajb47 says

    Tony! The Fucking Queer Shoop! @ 335:

    I know. Flaws personally, but they helped push the Constitution in the direction those who wrote it wanted it to go, as far as I have learned. Although, for me, it is just another day my kids don’t have school at this point.

  345. ajb47 says

    Tony! The Fucking Queer Shoop! @339:

    Wow, that is a great cast, if that’s how it works out.

    And just to tie in things that worked out fabulously — Mark Hammil as the Trickster led him into the best Joker (Batman the Animated Series) until Ledger’s.

    And if you aren’t watching Arrow, you are probably missing the best views of abs on TV (and I say this as a hetero male — Arrow’s main star has got the best chest and abs I have ever seen!)

  346. A. Noyd says

    Tony (#338)

    What do you get when you cross a vibrator with an alarm clock?

    Probably a yeast infection.

  347. says

    ajb47:
    I haven’t had cable in a long time, so I haven’t watched Arrow.

    Yes, I say this realizing that I have a laptop, two tablets and a smartphone :)
    I’ve never been a big Green Arrow fan though, so there’s just not much there to appeal to me. However, I am a fan of the Flash, so that’s enough to get me to watch the show. Mr. Shipp might be enough to keep me interested. To be honest, I say that half heartedly. I don’t think I’m that shallow. The show actually has to keep me entertained, have reasonably good dialogue, and interesting stories. I hate cliched/hackneyed/stilted dialogue and cookie cutter plots. If they have a good show on their hands that’s enough for me. Good looking actors are a plus.

    ****

    A. Noyd:
    Ha ha! No I don’t think that’s quite the answer to my question :)

    ****

    A BBC article by Chana R Schoenberger titled “When cultures clash: How to say no to shocking gifts” caused my jaw to drop.

    Q. A company client took my boss and I out for dinner. After the meal, he brought two women to the table, and announced they were ours for the night. Neither my boss nor I had any interest in engaging the services of these ladies, and we sped away in a taxi. How should we have responded to the situation?

    This is not a shocking gift.
    It’s disturbingly misogynistic.
    This is a man treating women as if they’re objects to be given out as gifts. Like they’re part of a business transaction. Yes, I know that other cultures have other their own values, but when those values violate basic human rights, they get my disdain and middle finger. I’m not going to respect your values when they denigrate women.

    What’s the advice given?

    To deal with this in a broader sense, you have to decide how comfortable you are with stepping across a line you wouldn’t cross at home. For example, you may not be a big drinker, but when travelling to meetings in places where drinking is an important part of socializing for work, you might choose to have two or three drinks instead of the one you might have at an outing or evening meeting at home, to avoid offending your hosts. Other activities, though, might have a line you’d never be willing to cross.

    Prostitution crosses that line for you. (This, too, is cultural. In a handful of countries, it’s legal; in others, it’s not considered a big deal. In the US and large parts of Asia and Africa, on the other hand, prostitution is extremely taboo.) In this case, Golden advises that you could have thanked your client for his offer but explained that you can’t accept his gift. And keep in mind, too, that accepting such a gift might very well be a fireable offence for many executives anyway.

    Advice Grade- ‘F’.

    I also find the comparison between social drinking and treating women as objects to be massively disgusting.

  348. ajb47 says

    Tony! The Fucking Queer Shoop! @347:

    I haven’t had cable in a long time, so I haven’t watched Arrow.

    Yes, I say this realizing that I have a laptop, two tablets and a smartphone :)
    I’ve never been a big Green Arrow fan though, so there’s just not much there to appeal to me. However, I am a fan of the Flash, so that’s enough to get me to watch the show. Mr. Shipp might be enough to keep me interested. To be honest, I say that half heartedly. I don’t think I’m that shallow. The show actually has to keep me entertained, have reasonably good dialogue, and interesting stories. I hate cliched/hackneyed/stilted dialogue and cookie cutter plots. If they have a good show on their hands that’s enough for me. Good looking actors are a plus.

    Arrow is on the CW, which, at least here in Southeast PA, USA, is a plain old channel, not cable related. The guy who is going to be the Flash guested on Arrow a couple of weeks ago. “Arrow” – the TV show, is pretty good as far as comic book — TV shows go. It is probably in the second tier of shows my wife and I watch.

    Based on what was said during Smallville, I think Batman is not available, and the closest “Superhero” to what Batman represents is Green Arrow. So that is what they used in Smallville, and I am guessing that is why there is a Green Arrow show rather than a Batman show — they just don’t have the permission.

  349. ajb47 says

    I forgot to mention in my last post about Arrow Vs Flash that it is time for me to go to sleep. I’ll be back in the morning, eastern standard time.

  352. Hekuni Cat, MQG says

    rq:

    *pouncehug*!!! (Gotcha!)

    Eeek! Aaah, this is nice. *returnpouncehug*

    [This belated reaction is the unfortunate result of more than a week of migraines.]

    cicely:

    I’m going to be a grandmother!!!

    Congratulations, cicely! *pouncehug with champagne and confetti*

    Portia – More congratulations on your legal victories. *pouncehug*

    David – *long pouncehug* I’ll gladly take one of your fluffy hugs!

    Quietly leaves a pile of *hugs* for anyone who needs one (or two or three).

  353. says

    Thanks to Daily Kos’ Dave in Northridge, I came across this article. The effects of poverty on the poor are diminished when they are given a stipend:

    Growing up poor has long been associated with reduced educational attainment and lower lifetime earnings. Some evidence also suggests a higher risk of depression, substance abuse and other diseases in adulthood. Even for those who manage to overcome humble beginnings, early-life poverty may leave a lasting mark, accelerating aging and increasing the risk of degenerative disease in adulthood.

    Today, more than one in five American children live in poverty. How, if at all, to intervene is almost invariably a politically fraught question. Scientists interested in the link between poverty and mental health, however, often face a more fundamental problem: a relative dearth of experiments that test and compare potential interventions.

    So when, in 1996, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina’s Great Smoky Mountains opened a casino, Jane Costello, an epidemiologist at Duke University Medical School, saw an opportunity. The tribe elected to distribute a proportion of the profits equally among its 8,000 members. Professor Costello wondered whether the extra money would change psychiatric outcomes among poor Cherokee families.

    When the casino opened, Professor Costello had already been following 1,420 rural children in the area, a quarter of whom were Cherokee, for four years. That gave her a solid baseline measure. Roughly one-fifth of the rural non-Indians in her study lived in poverty, compared with more than half of the Cherokee. By 2001, when casino profits amounted to $6,000 per person yearly, the number of Cherokee living below the poverty line had declined by half.

    http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/18/what-happens-when-the-poor-receive-a-stipend/?_php=true&_type=blogs&rref=opinion&_r=0

  354. Hekuni Cat, MQG says

    Tony:

    If I ever get married, its gonna be on my (and my partner’s) terms.

    That was my husband and I did. We were married at the courthouse with no fuss at all. We talk very fondly about waiting for the registrar’s office to open in a very cold (but still warmer than it was outside) Subway, being forced to hear horrible talk radio, and sharing a cup of bad tea in an effort to warm up. It took longer to inform our families that we were married than it did for the actual ceremony itself. :D And a reception* was very much out of the question. Each of his sisters insisted she bake us a cake (and, without talking about the matter to anyone, both were angel food, despite their brother’s very well known love chocolate).**

    *Many years later I learned that our two of our nephews were really disappointed that they didn’t get to dance at our wedding. It had never occurred to us that they would want to do such a thing.

    **The other sad thing is at that time I was having a terrible time eating practically everything, but desserts were about the worse of it. I was scheduled to see a surgeon about having my gallbladder removed two days later. Two weeks after that I was free of my gallbladder and on the road to rediscovering what foods I still liked to eat now that I could again.

  355. says

    Hekuni Cat:
    Out of morbid curiosity, do you recall what talk radio shows you were listening to?

    ****

    I think I’m done for the night. But one last link:
    http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/poll/2014/feb/11/neknominate-facebook-ban-drinking-game-deaths-social-networking

    The NekNominate drinking game, thought to have originated in Australia, involves participants filming themselves completing dares and “necking” alcohol and other potentially harmful substances. The film ends with the participant nominating a friend, and then posting the video on Facebook with the hashtag ‘neknominate’.

    A Northern Ireland-based NekNominate webpage was shut down after complaints from the family of Jonny Byrne from Co Carlow in Ireland, who died after jumping into the river Barrow in Carlow after allegedly taking part. The deaths of Isaac Richardson, Stephen Brooks and Ross Cummins have all been allegedly linked to the NekNominate game.

    The game has seen people drink blood from the severed artery of a deer; alcohol mixed with dog food, olives and soy sauce; a live goldfish; and large mixes of spirits. Dares have included riding into a supermarket on a horse, stripping naked in public and jumping naked into snow.

  356. opposablethumbs says

    At the risk of repeating what you already know – petition against FGM to be hand-delivered to Gove in a couple of weeks, initiative of a 17-year-old school student called Fahma Mohamed.

    Sorry for the long long urls; there’s some more info on the petition site, and it’s been in the Guardian etc. lately http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/feb/07/how-do-we-end-female-genital-mutilation-fgm?commentpage=1

    This is the petition:

    https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/educationgovuk-tell-schools-to-teach-risks-of-female-genital-mutilation-before-the-summer-endfgm?utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=48268&alert_id=PNxnkIisXp_EuUzeFWbwa

  357. katybe says

    @ Tony! The Fucking Queer Shoop! and rq

    Whilst the family was nominally religious and my friend wouldn’t have felt right getting married outside of a church, I’m inclined to agree that it’s more of a patriarchal thing, with a healthy does of the British class system in there (of course religion traditionally props both of these up anyway) – does anyone even know (without looking it up) what “Princess Michael”‘s own name is, for example? People often seem to revert to the formality of the 1940s when it comes to wedding planning, and just occasionally that involves the forms of address too. It’s uncommon enough now that it stands out when someone does it though.

    And if I ever do, I definitely want something informal and easy. I think the best idea I’ve had is hiring the function room at the local zoo, so there’s something totally unrelated to the wedding crap for people to go and do while they’re there (not that I’m planning some hypothetical future wedding in great detail, more that I’ve been to a few in recent years where I’ve come out thinking “well, not like that I wouldn’t”).

  358. rq says

    the local zoo, so there’s something totally unrelated to the wedding crap

    Nonsense, a wedding is just like the zoo, with everyone on exhibit. Especially the happy couple. :)

    Hekuni Cat
    *extra pouncehug with anti-migraine magic!!*
    I’m glad you’re feeling better.

    +++

    This is what I’m looking forward to on Friday and Saturday. Cannot wait, even though watching will have me on pins and needles.

    Kids reading to shelter cats. Well, in my opinion, there’s only one real cat in that bunch. See if you can spot it!

    More later!

  360. birgerjohansson says

    @40 echidna, @ 45 anuran in the ”My wife has enslaved me! She wants sex without babies!” :thread
    (posted here because my comment is not directly concerned with the odious James Taranto)

    “No, I’ll speak for you, too. Your deepest, darkest thoughts and fancies? The ones at 2:30 in the morning? The ones you have when your internal censor is turned off and it’s all unfiltered? The ones moving slowly and powerfully below the thin layers of reason and language unconstrained by convention? I’ll bet anything you care to name they’d be horrifying if they were dragged out into the light, just like everyone else’s.”
    .

    I recall that the terrifying aspect of the alien intellect’s meddling in “Solaris”
    (the original book, not so much the film versions) is that it brought out these thoughts as bona fide anthropomorphic personifications of flesh and blood.

    Kris Kelvin was lucky his bad conscience “merely” manifested itself in the re-creation of his late wife, dead by suicide. It is hinted at that other members of the space station crew faced more repugnant things. Kelvin’s predecessor even killed himself when faced with the reminder of his past.

  362. birgerjohansson says

    Regarding LePague,
    we could apply that reasoning to other fields. If we try to save smoking lung cancer victims, we just give them a reason to think they can feed their addiction with impunity.

  363. rq says

    I found bagels!!! Or at least the closest thing to a proper imitation. That’s one step closer to True Civilisation!

  364. birgerjohansson says

    Bagels are sign of civilisation*. Alongside fermented herring, pitepalt and other North Swedish food.

    But don’t forget The Science Of Discworld, where the discovery that the exinct sentient arthropods practised slavery was proof of intelligence. They were mean, but not unintelligent. Also, see Vogon use of poetry for torture.

  366. rq says

    fermented herring

    That’s one aspect of civilisation that I hope never spreads as far south as Latvia. We’ll take our herring marinated, thanks. (If that’s a sign of weakness, we embrace it! With sour cream and onion chives! On black rye bread!)

  368. Portia, walking stress ball says

    Flaws personally, but they helped push the Constitution in the direction those who wrote it wanted it to go, as far as I have learned.

    Well, depended on the day.

    I wouldn’t call holding slaves a “personal flaw,” if that’s what you meant about George Washington.

    –

    Hekuni Cat:
    Good to see you! Thanks for the grats :D Hugs back. And glad you feel better.

  369. birgerjohansson says

    Burn, Thatcher, burn

    Thatcher’s policies condemned for causing ‘unjust premature death’ http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-02-thatcher-policies-condemned-unjust-premature.html
    The richest 0.01% of society had 28 times the mean national average income in 1978 but 70 times the average in 1990, and the rise in UK poverty rates from 6.7% in 1975 to 12% in 1985.
    “Towards the end of the 1980s we were seeing around 500 excess deaths each year from chronic liver disease and cirrhosis. We also know that there were 2,500 excess deaths per year as a result of unemployment caused by Thatcher’s policies.”

    — — — — — — — —
    Idaho cop shoots disabled man’s service dog at son’s 9th birthday party
    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/11/idaho-cop-shoots-disabled-mans-service-dog-at-sons-9th-birthday-party/
    disturbing dash cam video shows the dog was not a danger to the police.

    — — — — — — — —
    Complex networks: Study suggests banks could learn from monkeys to avoid collapse http://phys.org/news/2014-02-banks-monkeys-collapse.html

    — — — — — — — —
    Highly porous organic polymer shows promise as CO2 trap http://phys.org/news/2014-02-highly-porous-polymer-co2.html

  370. ajb47 says

    Portia, walking stress ball @368:

    I wasn’t meaning personal flaws, I meant a flaw in his person — I just wrote it poorly. I was trying to say they were flawed, as all humans are, but that they managed to do some good things for the USofA. Probably a rather bland statement now that I look at it.

  374. Portia, walking stress ball says

    Cait –

    with all that code in your #372, gmail thought you were a spam bot ^_^

    ….are you a robot?!

  375. says

    ILLOGICAL! ILLOGICAL! DOES NOT COMPUTE! I AM NOT A SPAM BOT. No, wait, I mean I’m not a robot at all. That’s what I meant. Totally that last thing.

    /Turing reset initiated

  377. Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. says

    Portia:

    Sometimes the cover is better than the original.

    Case in point: I love Pete Seeger’s cover of Hard Rains Gonna Fall from his Bowdoin College concert. Much better than any of the Bob Dylan versions.

  379. blf says

    Gee, yer all talking about the mildly deranged penguin like she is worse than an Ebola infection during a nuclear war whilst the Sun is going supernova, there’s only peas to eat, and yer being trampled by horses.

       (Thinks about it for a minute…)

    She’s not quite that bad. The Sun won’t go supernova. Otherwise, that is about right, especially when there is a shortage of cheese, MUSHROOMS!, cheese, vin, and of course, worse and most dangerous of all, no cheese.

    You would have to offer her a lump of British Industrial Cheddar before it’d be as bad as all that with the Sun (and the rest of the stars, plus a few planets) also going supernova.

  380. Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. says

    Sorry, blf. No BIC foR THE MDP. But I do have some fine Processed American-Style Cheese Food Product that the MDP can have.

    The Tilsit and Vermont Extra Sharp Cheddar are mine, though.

  382. says

    Re Tony’s post @333, yet another crazy fundie cult migrating to Texas. Reminds me of FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs moving part of his flock to Texas, the better to rape 12 year old girls under the guise of spiritual marriage.

    The fundie cults coming out of Nigeria have probably been influenced by the likes of Scott Lively, who is also mentioned up-thread. African petri dish for christian craziness is now exporting the crazy back to the USA.

    I do wonder what it is about Texas that they find so attractive. Whatever it is, I expect more trouble from Floyd, Texas.

  383. Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. says

    I didn’t know Asian/Siberian origins of people in North America was controversial.

    There is still some resistance to the idea that a culture with such refined and beautiful points could have come from Asia — if it is beautiful and elegant, it must be from Europe. Same sort of mindset that looks at Mayan architecture, the Nazca lines, the Mexican pyramids and declare that they must have had help — no way could a bunch of Indians make something that beautiful. Must have been Egyptians, Stone Henge peoples, or ancient aliens. That mindset, among professionals at least, is fading (not gone, of course). It will live on among non-professionals, non-academics, forever.

  385. says

    CaitieCat:
    I see through your facade now.
    You’re really The Robot!

    The Robot: The Robot is a Class M-3 Model B9, General Utility Non-Theorizing Environmental Control Robot, which had no given name. Although a machine endowed with superhuman strength and futuristic weaponry, he often displayed human characteristics such as laughter, sadness, and mockery as well as singing and playing the guitar. The Robot was performed by Bob May in a prop costume built by Bob Stewart. The voice was dubbed by Dick Tufeld, who was also the series’ narrator. The Robot was designed by Robert Kinoshita, whose other cybernetic claim to fame is as the designer of Forbidden Planet’s Robby the Robot. Robby appears in LIS #20 “War of the Robots”, and the first episode of season three; “Condemned of Space”.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_in_Space

    Now that your cover is blown, it’s nice to meet you. I enjoyed many an episode of Lost in Space as a kid.

  386. says

    Republicans continue to look for ways to restrict voting rights. I think these shenanigans are going to have an effect on the 2014 elections, and that effect will not be good. Emphasis in excerpt below is mine.

    The Manatee County Commission [in Florida] on Tuesday voted 6-1 to approve a cut in the number of polling locations by almost 30 percent, despite pleas from speakers to delay the plan to provide more time for public vetting.

    Commissioners OK’d plans submitted by Manatee Supervisor of Elections Mike Bennett to trim the number of precincts from 99 to 69.

    Josh Israel noted that it was a party-line vote — commission Republicans supported the move, the Democrat did not — and during the public-comment section of the meeting, local residents insisted the reduction would disproportionately affect minority-heavy precincts and make it harder for voters without cars to cast a ballot.

    Of course, it’s not just Florida. Republican officials in Georgia intend to cut early voting; Missouri is moving towards a new voter-ID law; and conservatives in Nevada are pushing the same idea

    […] we’re also seeing some begin to argue that democracy benefits when fewer Americans participate in an election. […]

    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/new-voting-restrictions-ahead-14-midterms

    From the reader’s comments: “There is increasing noise from right-wingers about allowing input only from ‘stakeholders.’ That’s code for ‘rich-people-who-pay-more-in-taxes-than-the-rest-of-you.’ “

  388. David Marjanović says

    *chocolate for Beatrice*

    Many years later I learned that our two of our nephews were really disappointed that they didn’t get to dance at our wedding.

    They were what???

    Yes, the DDoS page eats comments.

    Not really – it simply gets stuck, delivering you to comments.php but no further. Go back and try again.

    For years I’ve been pressing Ctrl+A and Ctrl+C before submitting any comment to Pharyngula (or actually anywhere else).

    Linguist explains doge [meme] grammar

    Links to a thesis and a paper on lolcats. Both completely fail to notice the Engrish component of lolspeak, even though the instructions to the biblol translation project spell it out. I can has disappoint.

    A few clicks on: look at the ribs!!!

    The base word is mulkku. Any word can be swetisized by appending -kvisti, to resemble the pronunciation of some Swedish surnames – Ahlquist, Nordquist for example.

    Interesting.

    (They’re all spelled with qv, though. Even Systema Naturæ has qv and gv all over instead of qu and gu; example: Igvana.)

    flower-generous

    What a Homeric word! :-) Does Latvian do this routinely?

    Ok, this timeline of the future is really cool.

    Not as cool as this one!

    •Chernobyl is safe 20,000 years from now.

    Not enough! We need 30,000!

    Egalitarian Latvian-style wedding entries is a tradition I would love to propagate throughout the world.

    Uh, the father bringing the bride in isn’t some kind of standard. It’s a very English-and-former-colonies thing. In the weddings I’ve been to, the parents attended but didn’t do anything in particular.

    And I don’t think any of them have been in a church or other place big enough to have an aisle! The last two definitely didn’t. :-)

    Is it standard to put parents’ names on the invitations?

    Not over here. ~:-|

    For example, you may not be a big drinker, but when travelling to meetings in places where drinking is an important part of socializing for work, you might choose to have two or three drinks instead of the one you might have at an outing or evening meeting at home, to avoid offending your hosts.

    If your hosts are offended by that, aren’t they perhaps too stupid to do business with? Just perhaps…?

    Gorbachev Threatens ‘Daily Show’ Reporter Who Asked Him To Rebuild Berlin Wall

    Christ, what an asshole.

    The reporter, in case that’s not clear.

    Highly porous organic polymer shows promise as CO2 trap http://phys.org/news/2014-02-highly-porous-polymer-co2.html

    Sounds good.

  390. Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. says

    Now that your cover is blown

    Like William Shatner covering The Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds? or Madonna covering American Pie? or Miley Cyrus covering Nirvana’s Feels Like Teen Sprit? That kind of a blown cover? Or am I pushing this attempted joke too far?

  391. says

    The MDP cannot have any of my cheese. My son sent me excellent cheese that I normally can not afford, Rogue Blue.

    There will be MDP juice on my kitchen floor if attempts to steal this cheese go forward.

    In other news, here is good news from Kentucky:

    Nearly a decade ago, Kentucky voters approved a ban on marriage equality that included a specific and important provision: if a same-sex couple gets legally married in another state and then moves to Kentucky, the Bluegrass State will not recognize that marriage.

    Today, a federal court ruled that the law is unconstitutional. […]

  394. says

    David M:

    If your hosts are offended by that, aren’t they perhaps too stupid to do business with? Just perhaps…?

    I’d say stupidity/lack of intelligence is not at play here. It’s more complex than that. All cultures have their own traditions and I can see why it is expected of people to adhere to certain traditions in the proper circumstances. Mind you, I don’t agree with that. I just understand it.

  397. David Marjanović says

    I didn’t know Asian/Siberian origins of people in North America was controversial.

    It’s not. There is, however, the idea that there’s an additional contribution from Europeans who crossed the Atlantic along the edge of the sea ice last glacial maximum (18,000 years ago), based on similarities between Clovis artefacts and Solutrean artefacts.

    And no, Ogvorbis, I’m not aware of any reason to think that racism is involved. This is not sarcasm.

  398. David Marjanović says

    “Submit a comment before March 7: Keystone XL is NOT in our national interest”

    My link was bigger

    Oh yes, but it lacks the prediction for 2101. :-)

    I’d say stupidity/lack of intelligence is not at play here.

    I do think it is. Taking offense at people not liking (more) booze only makes sense on the assumption that everyone loves booze – that everyone’s tastes are identical. What other than stupidity could drive anyone to make this assumption?

  400. says

    David M:

    What other than stupidity could drive anyone to make this assumption?

    The expectation that guests to another culture should follow certain traditions in that culture.

    Business culture and etiquette

    Operating in a country with a history of thousands of years — and ways of doing business that go back as far — it is valuable to develop insight into China’s business culture and social etiquette to avoid misunderstandings that could scuttle deals and harm working relationships.

    One key aspect of Chinese culture is the concept of “face.” In “China Uncovered: What you need to know to do business in China,” professor Jonathan Story describes face as a mix of public perception, social role and self-esteem than has the potential to either destroy or help build relationships.

    Story says that a foreign CEO can give face by attending meetings, accepting invitations, providing suitable expensive gifts and showing sensitivity to Chinese culture.

    In contrast, entrepreneurs can lose face by insulting someone in public, refusing invitations and gifts or by behaving inappropriately, like losing their temper or crying — acts that are seen as lack of self-control and weakness.

    Business outsiders can impress with their knowledge of local customs, acknowledging hierarchy, offering gifts, addressing people by their designation — especially when dealing with state representatives — and appreciating the food. Such awareness of cultural nuances illustrate respect and sincere interest, says Roll.

    On the flip side, Chinese business people generally respect cultural differences and won’t expect westerners to be fully customized to their tradition, analysts say.

    “At the end of the day, the Chinese are very pragmatic,” says Perry. “If you have something they want, they’ll do business with you no matter whether you can hold chopsticks or not.”

    http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/21/business/china-business-investors-culture/

  401. cicely says

    I have decided that the only sensible way for me to deal with the unexpected-and-unwanted knowledge that crocodilians nest in trees, is to displace all arboreal-alligator-related anxieties onto the very next group of Player Characters I run through the mill an Adventure.
    –

  402. Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. says

    David:

    And no, Ogvorbis, I’m not aware of any reason to think that racism is involved.

    Sorry. Just going by personal conversations with one professional archaeologist (retired) and a couple of amateur archaeologists who work strictly on privately owned land. From those three, racism seemed to me to be a major part of their contention that Europeans showed up to teach the Asians how to make tools that not only worked but were also beautiful. And I stand by my assertion that racism is a factor in the ancient aliens/Egyptians in Mexico/etc. ideas regarding MesoAmerican architecture and whether or not the Aztecs, Incas or Mayans could have done it on their own. Von Danniken’s writings are a perfect example.

    Please note that I was not arguing that there is a significant group within professional archaeology or academic archaeology that bases a European root to Clovis culture.

    I will try to be more exact in my phrasing in the future. I will fail (I’m good at that) but I will try.

  404. says

    Ogvorbis:

    And I stand by my assertion that racism is a factor in the ancient aliens/Egyptians in Mexico/etc. ideas regarding MesoAmerican architecture and whether or not the Aztecs, Incas or Mayans could have done it on their own. Von Danniken’s writings are a perfect example.

    I stand next to you in supporting that assertion :)
    One of the many lessons I’ve learned here was that racism is often a factor (and a significant one) in comments about how ancient cultures needed outside help and couldn’t have created the architecture they did.

  409. Nutmeg says

    Tony:

    The expectation that guests to another culture should follow certain traditions in that culture.

    I can see both sides of this. In general, yes, of course I’m going to try to respect the culture I’m visiting by following their customs. But there would be some exceptions. When it’s something that’s not ethically okay in my eyes (like the example with the prostitutes above), I would find a polite (or not-so-polite, if necessary) way to bow out.

    I think the question of alcohol consumption is maybe a little different. It’s not quite the same as eating the food of your host culture (which of course you should try to do, if you’re able to). I think that mind-altering substances can legitimately be a step too far for some people. When I thought of how I would feel about being expected to drink in a foreign culture, my reaction was “Oh hell no! There is no way I’m impairing my judgment, in an unfamiliar situation, just to make someone else more comfortable!”

    It might mean that I would be a terrible anthropologist or diplomat, if I wasn’t willing to try the recreational substances of my host culture. But I’m okay with that. The idea that someone else expects me to alter my brain chemistry in a way that makes me less able to react to any situations that arise? Not so okay.

  410. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    I tried toffee popcorn flavored yoghurt today. O.o

    Yum.

  412. says

    There. Like my new t-shirt? I think it expresses my take on the “is Caitie a robot?” question succinctly.

    I got my eyeballs quiet enough today to get to the optometrist. In an unusual bit of health news, everything was both hunky and dory. Retina clear, optic nerve healthy, no signs of blood pressure issues, eye pressure good, 20/10 both sides. Very slight astigmatism, but correcting for it made it harder to read, so no issues at all. :)

    And, in little things I love about Canada, my local transit company had some very public issues with bad service complaints a few years ago, and they responded by putting a hard push on to hire people with strong customer-service skills, and teaching them to be drivers, rather than the more usual hiring people who want to drive, and hoping they bring or can develop enough customer-service skill not to annoy the people right off the buses.

    The upshot today, that as I came home from the opto, I met a young woman at the bus stop, who in a brief conversation I realized was living rough (she snuffed her smoke before her bus came, a good sign of someone living rough on very, very little money), so I gave her some change I had, a few dollars. I thought I had a bus ticket in my purse, but after she’d taken (a different route to mine) her bus, I realized I didn’t have one after all. So all I had was a $5 bill, and the farebox gives no change for the $3 flat fare.

    I stuck my $5 in, ruefully commenting that I didn’t have any other change, and just went to sit down. And as I got off the bus, the driver handed me a yellow slip, saying “Excess Payment of Fare”, listing $5 and the $3 fare, and that I was due an overage of $2. She explained I could claim it at the bus terminal during any business hours. I didn’t even know such a thing existed, and certainly hadn’t asked for it. But she’d not only done so, but tracked it and made sure to catch me before leaving the bus, proactively.

    I’m going to mention the good job she did when I go to make the claim, next time I’m downtown. Because that’s just good service.

    I’m looking forward to the LRT they’re installing over the next two years. I’ll live between two stops, which will make me about 1km from either of them, not bad. And with them, I can get anywhere from one end of the region to the other, including easy access to both farmer’s markets (my small city is in the middle of some of Ontario’s richest and most productive farmland).

    Also, my opto had this wicked-cool microscope with a digital SLR attached, with which she took pictures of my retinas, and it was AMAZINGLY COOL. She didn’t know how to download the images to JPEG, but would have let me take pictures with my phone, if I had a phone. I so want to paint images of my retinas. Two one-foot-square canvases, one for each.

  413. says

    CaitieCat:
    I agree. That was excellent customer service on the part of that driver.

    ****

    AlterNet has an the article about the things rape victims have been told by the police:
    . Let’s take them one by one.
    #1- Rape can occur whether or not someone under the age of 18 drinks or not. Because rapists rape.
    #2- Your attorney was a pissant of the highest caliber. To claim that being raped is somehow easy shows a complete lack of respect for or a severe misunderstanding of bodily autonomy.

    #3- Rape is non consensual sex. She didn’t consent, so he raped her. Raping someone is far more devastating than simply being a jerk. Stop making excuses for rapists.

    #4- If she was your daughter, you’d have killed her…why? You woulnd’t punish the fucker who raped her, but you’d kill your daughter because somehow she violated her own bodily autonomy? WTF?

    #5- Women should be able to participate in society to whatever extent they choose. Rapists are the ones that should be removed from society.

    #6- There is no scientific evidence (only wishful thinking and post hoc fallacious thinking) to substantiate karma. There is, however, a wealth of evidence to show that rapists rape. Stop victim blaming.

    #7- So you accept HIS word, but no hers? Why is that? Why does a woman’s account of her rape become invalid simply because her rapist says he didn’t rape her?

    #8- The sexual history of a rape victim has absolutely no bearing on her rape. What does have bearing is the fact that she was raped by a rapist.

    #9- All these damn rules to govern womens activities ostensibly to protect them from rape–if enacted–would result in women being pushed out of the public and back into the home WHERE THEY WOULD STILL FACE RAPE, because the majority of rapes are committed by someone known by the victim. The age difference between two people in a relationship has no bearing on why the victim was raped. What has bearing is the fact that the asshole whom she dated RAPED HER!

  414. says

    Also, I liked your jokes about covers, Oggie.

    If I’m a cover, then let it be The Specials’ cover of Toots and the Maytals’ Pressure Drop. The second ska song I ever heard, on a mix tape a friend played me, right after he’d played A Message To You, Rudy, which stole my sound card heart from rock and new wave and gave it to ska and reggae and their derivatives, forever and ever until the end of my runtime time. Later, I discovered Toots and the other grandfathers of ska, and later still, the joy of reggaeton and dancehall, and music that makes my body bounce involuntarily no matter what my mood.

    If you want to bring my mood up, any time I’m ever around, you can rarely go wrong with a cuppa and a few minutes of ska.

  415. Portia, walking stress ball says

    Tony:

    That Alternet article really got on my nerves with their memification of the survivors photos. They could have posted them unaltered, and instead they chose to LITERALLY talk over the survivors (who are taking a huge step speaking out!) and on top of that making them into a meme trivializes the seriousness of the topic. So annoyed. (Obviously, I agree with you analyses and don’t mean this as a criticism of you in any way). Project Unbreakable (TRIGGER WARNING) has been going strong for many months, I have followed it for almost as long, and this co-opting and rebranding is just fucking disgusting click bait from Alternet, imnsho.

    –

    four children with boxes of cookies just invaded my office unexpectedly. Usually no one I don’t know gets past the receptionist, and no one but three or four people walk in without warning. Major social anxiety moment – or introvert moment – or something. I bought two boxes, but I was annoyed at the intrusion. Am I a curmudgeon or what? ha.

  416. Portia, walking stress ball says

    Cait –

    Those paintings sound really really cool :D

    I have a lovely mind-picture of them.

    and that’s a nice thing you did for that person, and then the bus driver, too! Nice to have a chain of goodness.

  418. says

    Portia:

    They could have posted them unaltered, and instead they chose to LITERALLY talk over the survivors (who are taking a huge step speaking out!) and on top of that making them into a meme trivializes the seriousness of the topic.

    Dammit. I didn’t even think about that. Male privilege at work again. I know you weren’t being critical of me, but I’m still sorry.

  419. Portia, walking stress ball says

    Tony:

    Thanks for, as always, listening and hearing and contemplating perspectives that aren’t your own. You really make me happier about the state of the world, and I always appreciate both your willingness to tackle the kyriarchy and acknowledge your place in it. *bighugs* I wish there were more like you in the world.

  421. Dhorvath, OM says

    I bought two boxes, but I was annoyed at the intrusion. Am I a curmudgeon or what? ha.

    Err, I sell shit for a living. In a store. You know, where people can choose to come and buy shit if they want to or stay out if they don’t. I hate pressure sales like that, (especially kids,) seriously, it plays on our desire to be polite to make more sales.

  422. Portia, walking stress ball says

    I bought two boxes, but I was annoyed at the intrusion. Am I a curmudgeon or what? ha.

    Err, I sell shit for a living. In a store. You know, where people can choose to come and buy shit if they want to or stay out if they don’t. I hate pressure sales like that, (especially kids,) seriously, it plays on our desire to be polite to make more sales.

    Exactly! The kid element reeks of manipulation, and I understand it’s tough to fundraise, and a LOT of people really like the cookies, but I don’t like the whole idea of putting kids in that position either. Ick.

    Not to mention, S’s daughter is in GSA and now I’m going to have even more cookies that I don’t particularly care for. Sigh.

  425. says

    Portia:
    If you’d like, I can send you one of the bracelets when they come in. The invoice says they won’t ship for 2-4 weeks. I was intending to give four of them away anyway.

    Also, if you feel pressured into buying any cookies, I’d be willing to reimburse you for any lemon cookies or do-si-dos if you don’t want them. I don’t know any parents of Girls Scouts in my area, and without a vehicle, I can’t make it to the local GS HQ.

  426. rq says

    re: weddings

    It’s a very English-and-former-colonies thing.

    Hmm, I seem to recall Muslim weddings have a distinct hand over the woman!! aspect which could use some egalitarian Latvian fixing. :)

    CaitieCat
    If your retinas ever shut up enough for you to take pictures of them, I hope you share the photos! I’d love to see them!
    Also, yay for awesome bus driver. That’s a rather unexpected helpful thing that happened!

  427. Portia, walking stress ball says

    Tony!

    That’s a very kind offer! It’d be fun to exchange packages with you :D I opened these lemonade cookies already (curiosity got the better of me), but I will get you a fresh new package of those and do-si-dos, if I can find some do-si-dos, that is. This idea is so fun!

  430. says

    blf

    worse than an Ebola infection during a nuclear war whilst the Sun is going supernova, there’s only peas to eat, and yer being trampled by horses.

    . This scenario is so unrealistic … the Sun is never going to supernova, it just too small. Engulf the Earth when it reaches the red giant stage of its evolution, but not supernova. The rest of the items are a concern. ‘specially the horse trampling. And the peas, but only if they’re cooked peas; fresh ones are tasty.

  431. rq says

    So, today I saw this Dove ad and figured the company can’t be all bad (men with kids… a new thing!).
    And then I saw this men’s shampoo commercial, which was ruined by the fact that they didn’t run with the ridiculousness of showing women the same way in shampoo commercials. It was fun until they got to the whole ‘women’s shampoo isn’t for men’ part. :(

  432. says

    rq:
    I’m dyin’ here. Those animal pics are so adorable.
    I like the one with the dog watching over the chicks. And the one with the dog grooming the rabbit. And the one with the turtle and the dog. And the raccoon giving scritches to the dog.

    (I couldn’t recall what animal that is in the second picture and then all of a sudden ‘capybyra’ hit me, and a Google search confirms that)

  433. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    @rq, 233:

    ♥

    I’m okay. Haven’t had the spoons for engagement with serious matters lately, but I’ve thrown some one-liners out (mostly on Ed’s blog).

    I know I’ll be back full throttle eventually, making do with potato jokes until then.

  434. rq says

    And this song from Channel 4 made me giggle.
    It seems that everyone has something to say against Putin and his atrocious anti-gay law, except those people placed where it really, really counts (lookin’ at you, international political stars!)…

  435. says

    rq:
    I don’t remember what I thinking about, but the other day I found myself wondering why some things are marketed to women and men as if they’re only *for* one or the other. I understand the gender essentialism work, but I’ve found myself wondering why a razor (for instance) ostensibly made for women, cannot be used by a man. Or, as you mentioned, why can’t men use women’s shampoo and vice versa.

  438. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    Best comment on that imgur thread about spider bites linked by rq in 233?

    After a whole host of inane “shots fired” comments alluding to a comedy war between Australia and Latvia, we get in the final comment:

    Barbed hairs fired

    Bio-nerds rejoice!

  439. rq says

    Crip Dyke
    I’m going to find an extra-special potato joke for you tomorrow, probably one dealing with skeleton as well (women’s runs begin tomorrow).
    ♥
    I’m a collector of spoons (that is, I filch them from professional locations such as seminars, hotels, restaurants, etc. – the one rule is it can’t be paid for to be accepted into my collection (my star piece is a silver spoon that I got for free at an antique’s market because the guy didn’t want to ask me money for just the one spoon)), and I wish I had a way of passing some along to you. *hugs*!!!

  445. says

    rq:
    I found this at Sunny Skyz:
    http://www.sunnyskyz.com/blog/124/This-Father-Stood-Up-To-The-Entire-Fashion-Industry-After-Visiting-A-Makeup-Aisle-You-Have-To-See-What-He-Wrote

    Dr. Kelly Flanagan is a clinical psychologist, married with three children, and loves to write. He has an amazing blog, where you can find fascinating articles about various topics such as marriage, family and parenting, and mindfulness. This particular article about the fashion industry really stuck out to me and I thought it needed to be shared.

    He wrote the following letter first for his young daughter, but also for every woman who needs to hear the words of a father:

    (yeah, I clipped the excerpt to create a cliffhanger)
    There are a few things I’d quibble with in the letter, but nothing that overshadows the intent of his message to his daughter, which incidentally, brought tears to my eyes.

  446. says

    Remember David Eckert? He was the New Mexico man who was pulled over and forced to undergo humiliating and unconstitutional state sponsored exams (3 enemas, 2 probes of his anus, 2 x-rays and a colonoscopy). Such state sponsored rape is absolutely unconscionable (and all of it “justified” in the eyes of the officers involved bc they trusted a drug sniffing dog). Eckert filed a civil rights lawsuit:

    The city and county will pay Eckert $1.6 million, which amounts to $200,000 for each of the increasingly intrusive searches performed on Eckert at Gila Regional Medical Center in Silver City: two X-rays, two digital probes of his anus, three enemas, and a colonoscopy, none of which discovered the slightest trace of the drugs that police claim to have thought he was hiding inside himself. Eckert also sued various Deming and Hidalgo County police officers; the hospital, which billed him more than $6,000 for these indignities; and two physicians, Robert Wilcox and Okay Odocha, who executed the elaborate assault under the cover of medicine.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2014/01/14/victim-of-dog-authorized-anal-assault-receives-1-6-million-settlement/

    ****

    Dallas sports anchor Dale Hansen comments on Michael Sam’s revelation that he’s gay. It’s not what you think. Listen to the video. I’m glad there are people like him out there, in the media, making the points he has made.

  447. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    [mild rant]Get the warmed over planovers on the table, and the Redhead gets a phone call. Guess which takes priority. But sigh, she doesn’t get enough phone calls from friends, they just need better timing. [/mild rant]

  448. Markita Lynda—threadrupt says

    It seems that Scientopia is off the air today. I wonder if that DDoS is going around. I can’t even raise a response from a server.

    I was looking for an article by Marty Robbins about ‘The return of Bora Zivkovic,’ called Missteps on the road back with the subtitle, “‘Not sexually harassing women’ is not optional; it’s not a ‘bonus extra’ in the job description.” Maybe I can get it tomorrow.

  449. Markita Lynda—threadrupt says

    I wonder what kind of settlement probing with a transvaginal ultrasound wand would command?

  450. Dhorvath, OM says

    (I wish there was a way loan or give away spoons)

    Yeah, that would be useful. Our good friend is having a hard time with her partner, it’s rubbing off on her child, and she came over to visit recently. I come down the stairs to find a cat ensconsed on step four and say “I really wish you wouldn’t.” to my feline obstruction and continue on down. What does she ask? “Don’t you ever lose it?” If there is anyone who needs my spoons, it’s her, but I know not how to share.

  451. says

    My roommate/best friend, E, just brought a smile to my face.
    He shared a story about a serious event that happened at his job recently. Apparently a guest had fallen and was having trouble getting up. E was nearby and offered his assistance. While helping the man back to his feet, E noticed there was a little blood on the floor. When the guy was fully upright, the blood began flowing from his leg. A lot of blood, from what E said. He called for help from a some of the hosts in getting the man to a booth, grabbed some towels to apply pressure to the wound, and ran to get management. At some point, two guests became aware and offered their assistance. They were nurses, thankfully, so they this was an area they had experience in. When paramedics came, they said it was a good thing the guy was in a location where people were around. Apparently the amount of blood he was losing could have resulted in his death.

    E told me that he didn’t hesitate to help the guy, although a few servers avoided the area (he said they were spooked by the blood). E said he also kept him company until the ambulance arrived. Apparently the guests’ wife expressed her thanks to E as well.

    I looked at him and let him know that what he did was a good thing and I’m incredibly happy he was there and willing to offer assistance.

    I’m incredibly lucky to have him in my life. E is a really good person.

  452. says

    Markita @449:
    Are there any figures available for how many women have been subjected to those invasive ultrasound procedures?
    I’m curious to know how many women would receive a settlement if civil suits were filed across the country.

  453. says

    Barney’s is using 17 transgender models in its spring marketing campaign:

    In a departure from its traditional spring marketing, luxury retailer Barneys is launching a campaign to raise awareness about transgender issues. Barneys’ campaign, called “Brothers, Sisters, Sons & Daughters,” is the latest in a long history of trans-acceptance by the fashion industry.
    […]
    “While the lesbian, gay and bisexual community has made enormous strides in this country in this last five to ten years, it has always been glaring to me that the trans community has been left behind,” said Dennis Freedman, Barneys’ Creative Director. “It seemed an important time to do this.”

    I’d say it’s long past time to do this-and more.

  454. FossilFishy(Anti-Vulcanist) says

    We rage and we rail at the bigotry in the world, it raises our* blood pressure and keeps us awake at night. We put great emotional weight on the negative and so it sticks with us. And then there’s this. May it linger in our emotions too.

    *Well, me anyway.

  456. chigau (違う) says

    I am aware of all of the issues about coming into contact with other people’s bodily fluids.
    I have been taking First Aid courses since I got my Girl Guide merit badge (45+ years ago).
    In my life, First Aid certification has been a job-site recommendation or requirement for at least 25 years.
    The only alternative to NOT helping is to stand there and watch someone bleed to death.
    Not my style.
    Tony! Please give E a *hug* from me.

  457. says

    Does anyone here know anything about failure rates of IUD vs failure rates on Depo? More importantly, what are the chances of getting pregnant with an IUD, because I don’t even want to take the risk, but there are concerns about bone density with long-term use of Depo.

    Blargh.

    If I had my way, I’d have my uterus removed.

  458. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    I believe they’re about the same except in unusual cases. I guess that isn’t much help. :/

  459. says

    FossilFishy:
    Yup. That video brought sniffles to my eyes. I especially appreciate the part where he acknowledges that he doesn’t always understand issues facing homosexuals, but that doesn’t prevent him from treating us as humans.

  460. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    …fucking HELL. Why the fuck isn’t there a Smartphone “copy” command accessible except by pressing and then holding your finger completely fucking still for two seconds? I want an app to repurpose that useless fucking Magnifying Glass button on the frame that leads to me typing every tenth heartfelt text in the Search function when I bump it by mistake, with a command that brings up a Copy and Paste menu. >.>

  461. says

    Had a chat with my parents tonight (one which referenced so much that I’ve learned here). They told me they think it would be a good idea to start a blog (they both follow me on Facebook and like much of what I comment about). I’m rather iffy on that, given what I’ve been told by several people. Anyone have a set of pros/cons wrt to blogging?

  462. Pteryxx says

    Markita Lynda: I can send you the text of that article if you contact me at my nym at the g m.

    WMDKitty: according to Planned Parenthood’s comparison chart, the IUD has an annual failure rate of less than 1%, while Depo has about a 2-6% failure rate due almost entirely to the difficulty of scheduling shots on time every 12 weeks. If the shots are on time Depo’s failure rate is less than 1% also.

    Main information site: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control-4211.htm

    Comparison chart: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control/birth-control-effectiveness-chart-22710.htm

  464. bluentx says

    You have to click on the green link mid-page to get to the actual recipe. Don’t know why it doesn’t link directly. *shrug*

  465. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    WMDKitty: There’s one of those rare fractions-of-a-percent rate comparisons here though I can’t absolutely vouch for its accuracy Perfect-use failure rates for Depo are about 0.3%/year vs. 0.5%/year for the copper IUD, and 0.2% for the hormonal IUD.

    …also, will someone PRETTY FUCKING PLEASE make me a male birth control implant? D:

  468. bluentx says

    rq @ 381:

    I didn’t know Asian/Siberian origins of people in North America was controversial.

    What Ogvorbis said. But most important of all: You can’t be a good Mormon and believe that Asian connection thing! The Native Americans are a lost tribe of Israel don’t cha know!

  470. says

    Trigger Warning: Rape
    (this is also a long post)

     

    Via Salon, I just learned that 13 women came forth in 2004 alleging that Bill Cosby drugged and sexually abused them.
    My first reaction was “oh no, not him”.

    Then I thought about everything I’ve learned here, and especially what I’ve learned in the wake of Dylan Farrow’s allegations.

    The positive image I’ve created in my mind of Bill Cosby stands in stark contrast to the multiple charges of sexual assault against him. This is a man who played a warm, friendly, knowledgeable, intelligent character on the Cosby Show. He has long been considered a talented comedian. How could someone like him have sexually assaulted anyone, let alone 13 women?

    ‘Like him’? What does that mean? He played a character on tv. That doesn’t mean he’s anything like Dr. Huxtable. His comedic talent also has no bearing on whether or not he is a rapist.
    I don’t know a thing about who he is as a person. I don’t know his values. I don’t know his political views. I don’t know if he champions equality for LGBTQI. I don’t know if he’s a supporter of women’s rights. In fact, I know precious little (probably as much as the average person on the street).

    Here’s a secret: I’ve never seen a Woody Allen movie (actually I may have, but not known it). I don’t have any special attachment to him. So when I watched people reaching to defend Allen, it was obvious to me they did have an attachment and it skewed-if not outright blinded-many people to the fact that they don’t know Allen, yet they throw their support behind him. It was not difficult for me to believe Dylan Farrow’s accusations (especially with the many things I’ve since learned about Allen).

    With Bill Cosby, it’s different. I grew up watching the Cosby Show. I’m not sure how (or if at all) the show affected me, but I do know I’ve long held an image of Bill Cosby as a nice guy. I do have an attachment to him.

    Or, rather, I think I do.

    The attachment I have is to a character he played on a tv show.

    I don’t know Bill Cosby.

    I do know that sexual assault and rape are commonplace. I know that we live in a Rape Culture that among other things, makes excuses for rapists, trivializes sexual assault, and disbelieves victims. I know that while men and women have been the victims of rape, women are sexually assaulted and raped in far greater numbers than men.

    Knowing all of that, is there any difference between Cosby and Allen? Is my initial, kneejerk reaction- “no, not him. He couldn’t have raped these women”-justified?

    No.

    There is another factor that prevents me from accepting my initial reaction as justified: the knowledge that women are routinely disbelieved when they come forward about being sexually assaulted. For me to hold the view that Bill Cosby couldn’t have raped those women says that I think those women are lying. That I think Barbara Bowman lied when she said:

    I was assaulted a number of times from age 18 to 19. Cosby would warn me before out-of-town trips, “You aren’t going to fight me this time, are you?”

    Once in Reno, Nevada, he flew me out for a celebrity ski classic. He got me in a hotel room and fed me a lot of alcohol. He pinned me down in his suite on the couch, and he had me masturbate him. He really intimidated me, and I panicked.

    From them on, I would be praying and begging to God that it was in my imagination, it didn’t happen. I’d sit on the plane and say “Please God, please God, this is really about my career–I’m lucky.” And then I’d get there and he would just intimidate me and make me so scared…

    The first time I was drugged for sure was in New York, when he invited me to dinner at his apartment. There was a chef, a butler; we had dinner, it was all fine. I had one glass of wine and then I blacked out. I woke up throwing up in the toilet, and he was standing over me, pulling my hair out of my face. I was wearing a white t-shirt that wasn’t mine, and he was in a white robe.

    I think the final time I was assaulted by him was in Atlantic City. He took me there for a show and got me very drunk. Later, [the hotel] lost my luggage, so I was on the phone with the concierge and [Bill] had an absolute fit that I was on the phone, and went ballistic. The next morning, he summoned me into his room and started berating me and calling me names and yelling at me, telling me I had embarrassed him, and he threw me on the bed and blocked me with his elbow and got on top of me and started taking his pants off and I was screaming and crying and begging him to leave me alone and I fought so hard and I was screaming so loud that he got mad and threw me aside and got away from me, and that was it.

    I was ditched. I was dropped like a hot potato by my agent. I was thrown out of my housing. They pulled the plug on me and said I had embarrassed [Cosby].

    Cosby said “I better never ever hear your name or see your face ever again.”

    Do I think she lied? Do I think the other 12 women lied?
    The answer to both questions is an emphatic NO.
    I’ve read many stories from women who have opened up about their sexual assault. I’ve had my eyes opened to the tremedous courage many women have displayed in discussing their stories. I’ve become aware of some of the costs victims of rape have dealt with when telling their stories.
    Being triggered.
    Having people pour over the details of their lives.
    Recounting their rape multiple times.
    Facing their rapist.
    Being shunned.
    Being rejected by their family.
    Being blamed for their rape.

    What’s harder to believe: that a celebrity sexually assaulted 13 women or that 13 women lied about being sexually assaulted by said celebrity?

    There is nothing special or magical about Bill Cosby that elevates him from human being to guy who can’t possibly have raped these women.
    I have no reason to think those women lied.

    I believe these women.

    Fuck you Bill Cosby.

    ____

    My apologies to everyone. Although my initial reaction was short lived, I fucking hate that I had it to begin with.
    ____

    Here is a 2006 article from People with additional information provided by three women who were sexually assaulted by Cosby.

  472. rq says

    Tony
    I didn’t know about Bill Cosby, either, until the recent allegations by Dylan Farrow against Woody Allen. I’d thought I was safe in thinking that hey, he’s still one of the good ones, for much the same reasons you point out.
    The truth is scary.

    +++

    Commas for clarity! [/unrelated]

  473. bluentx says

    Yeah, Tony. I saw a link to a story about this in another thread yesterday. I DO NOT remember hearing anything about this in 2004! I believe the women, too.
    I just keep thinking how did this not get more press at the time?!

    –

    …I grew up watching the Cosby Show.

    Great! Make me feel old why don’t you? I remember watching first run broadcasts of I Spy!

  475. rq says

    Wow… Just watched a piece on the Latvian Olympic team, a total of 58 athletes in various disciplines – and you know how many women they interviewed? One. Who got about 15 seconds of talking time. Nope, nothing sexist here to see, nothing at all. *sigh* I was hoping for a few words from the Latvian woman skeletonist, but they interviewed our top women’s lugist. For 15 seconds out of 15 minutes.

  476. carlie says

    Other considerations re: IUD v. Depo, anecdotes from someone who’s had both:

    Your sensitivity to progestins may play a big factor. I became seriously depressed on Depo, which cleared up entirely after switching to an IUD. Even though the Mirena also has progestins, it’s a much lower dosage (and is delivered and used on-site, as it were, so less circulates into your brain).

    Timing of the shot is pretty critical with Depo, even to the point that the office gets worried if you try to reschedule to the next day. You have to be able to make the appointments exactly.

    I gained, oh, 30 or so pounds on Depo.

    I am obviously a fan of the IUD, but it also has its drawbacks.

    Although the pregnancy rate is almost none, they make zero promises if you do. There have been no studies on what could happen to you or the fetus if you either try to get the IUD removed with a pregnancy, or carry on a pregnancy with it there. The maker recommends abortion in all cases of accidental pregnancy, so you really should have solid access to it just in case.

    The pain on initial insertion can be excruciating. I felt like I had a butcher knife stuck in my lower back for about a week, and the pain itself continued for about 3 months straight, then was intermittent for the next 3 months. I’ve heard of women who had it removed because they couldn’t stand it. But, 6 months seems to be the magic mark – after that it subsides greatly, to none at all by about a year in.

    Disclaimer: all effects not necessarily typical.

  477. carlie says

    Tony – I have also seen stories that he was a jerk to his writing team, and to other people in general he deemed “not important”, so yeah – our tv impressions are not reality. I was trying to hammer that into what’s his name on the Woody Allen thread, to no avail

  478. birgerjohansson says

    Alligators: we should give them opposabole thumbs, so they can really start climbing (in terms of genetic tweaking this should be relatively doable).

  479. ajb47 says

    Tony @461 re: starting a blog:

    I have no real advice for you. I started one for my wife and I back in January after thinking about it for half of last year. There isn’t much there yet — a couple of recipes that utilize bourbon, some posts with my photography hobby pictures, my wife’s thoughts on losing her grandmother and my mother. I think I need to start reading news sites in addition to reading here so I maybe can come up with posts that have more of my own thoughts in them.

  480. opposablethumbs says

    Alligators: we should give them opposabole thumbs

    um … no. I really, really don’t think so. ;-)

  482. says

    Hullo
    Things are calming down around here, last exam for this term done and today I’m not doing anything beyond making dinner.
    Sorry again for completely losing it here, especially to esteleth. Next time I notice I’m on the edge before exams I need to get myself off personal discussions before I go down the rabbit hole again.

  485. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    My first reaction was “oh no, not him”.

    Interestingly, on first reading your comment I parsed this not as disbelief but as a sort of disappointed/rhetorical “…why did it have to be him?” Which I think is a pretty understandable reaction in and of itself.

  487. opposablethumbs says

    Alligators are wonderful, just as long as nobody gets me mixed up with any sylvicultural pollices. I may be given to pomposity and pedantry, but not to alligators :-)

  489. Portia, walking stress ball says

    Y’all, I am coming unglued.
    This job is heartbreaking.
    Fuck this culture of violence against women.
    Fuck everything.
    Fuck this system.
    Fuck.

  490. says

    Boy, Republicans really hate unions. They hates ’em! The employees at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee want to going the United Automobile Workers union, their bosses and a-okay with plan. VW execs are used to working with organized labor. So, everything should be hunky-dory and full VW speed ahead, right?

    Wrong:

    State Senator Bo Watson, who represents a suburb of Chattanooga, warned on Monday that if VW’s workers voted to embrace the U.A.W., the Republican-controlled Legislature might vote against approving future incentives to help the plant expand…. A loss of such incentives, industry analysts say, could persuade Volkswagen to award production of a new S.U.V. to its plant in Mexico instead of to the Chattanooga plant, which currently assembles the Passat. […]

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/business/automaker-gives-its-blessings-and-gop-its-warnings.html

  491. says

    Rand Paul is such a libertarian that he thinks your work product should be his, all words are free. You create the text, he freely plagiarizes it.

    You can’t make this stuff up. Sen. Rand Paul, who endured a multi-chaptered scandal involving his plagiarizing speeches and book chapters, is now accused of stealing the work of constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein for his lawsuit against the National Security Agency. […]

    http://www.salon.com/2014/02/13/rand_paul’s_sloppy_tea_party_showboating_another_plagiarism_mess/

  492. Pteryxx says

    Portia, you’re not alone, and you don’t have to do all of it yourself. You deserve the time and room to protect your own headspace. Strategic retreats. Heck, most of us don’t take on fighting injustice as a full-time job.

    —–

    Been hoping for this – the text of Greta Christina’s reading, the first of Godless Perverts story hour during FTBCon: “To Give Itself Pleasure”

  493. birgerjohansson says

    “opposabole thumbs”
    Me haz no spel czhech.

    Anyway opposabole thumbs are bloody useful for fighting off ents and huorns.

    .
    Re. reptile with opposable thumbs, I recall the animal in the video to “Right Here, Right Now” that climbed a tree and evolved so fast it was a mammal by the time it reached the canopy.
    And at the end it turned into a really fat guy with glasses, proving that I am the logical endpoint of evolution

    — — — — —
    From Ed Brayton’s blog:
    NC Regulators Shielded Duke’s Coal Ash Pollution
    http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/duke-energy-issues-apology-nc-coal-ash-spill-22426667?singlePage=true
    -Remember that coal ash retention pond owned by Duke Energy that leaked nearly 30 million gallons of toxic slurry into a river in North Carolina? Well the government agency that was supposed to regulate that company’s facility was instead helping protect it. And the governor worked for Duke Energy for 28 years.
    I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

  494. Portia, walking stress ball says

    Pteryxx:

    I appreciate the resources. They will come in handy. And thank you for the support.

    TRIGGER WARNING

    –
    –
    –

    One of my clients was found last night, murdered.

    It’s in the news as of a few minutes ago.

    It’s like a punch to the gut.

  495. opposablethumbs says

    Portia, many hugs and I hope you’re OK. Is this to do with a particular case, like the one with the major arsehole you had to alert the court officers about, or more in general – seeing a lot of cases/how normalised this is?

  498. Portia, walking stress ball says

    opposablethumbs,

    It is not that case, not that threatener. You are on the same page as my whole office though, they all thought it was that guy. My rage is more generalized, yes. And thank you.

    –

    Nutmeg:
    Thank you, *hugs*.

    –

    I’m going to go have lunch and probably chain smoke.
    I’m not dangerously angry or sad. I’m just really really angry and sad.
    Three kids. Without a mother.

  500. says

    Giliell
    *hugs* welcome back. Just finished my own midterms, such as they were. (One of my courses doesn’t have one, just a series of papers, one of them I dropped, so I only had one actual exam.)