My dream
This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly.
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
[Lounge #461]
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
My dream
This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly.
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
I don’t know why you’re complaining about the drugs.
That’s a good dream.
X-posting due to the portcullis, Oggie I enjoy researching computers, if you email me at rawnaeris at the Gmail, I’d be glad to assist.
birgerjohansson
Off the top of my head, and limiting it to alternate versions of real cities,
London’s also home to John Taylor and sometime base of operations for Eddie Drood It’s also Peter Grant’s manor(although while magical I’m not sure he’s gothic per se), and Bob Howard lives there. (And that’s not to mention John Constantine, or Richard Mayhew; London’s very popular for this sort of thing).
Toronto: Vicki Nelson (assisted by Henry Fitzroy)
Vancouver: Tony Foster (assisted by Henry Fitzroy)
San Francisco: Charlie Asher, Abby Normal, October Daye
Portland, OR: The Wyldes (historical)
birgerjohansson from last thread:
Harry Dresden.
There’s also Mercy Thompson in the Tri-Cities in Washington. (Patricia Briggs)
Rawnaeris:
(Doing this on the thread so others can learn too?)
I use my computer for games (Civ, Sim City, Blitzkrieg, Medieval Warfare, chess (not the musical, the board game)), my checkbook, surfing the intertubes and paying bills, keeping my digital photos, and doing minor graphics wrork. I like Win7 (professional) — I use it at work and it works.
Simple, but I think I need a medium sized hard drive but want a fast processor.
Any help?
Multiverse under assault by God
I think it’s disprespctful of them to label his sincerely held religious beliefs as mental illness.
birgerjohansson @638 previous:
Latvian. Most commonly mistaken for Greek.
Greek? With a J in it? How bizarre.
Oggie, Yep, next thing I need is budget, post here or email, as you prefer.
Donald Sterling’s Illiberal Zionism Part of Racism Controversy with Magic Johnson
and
Modern racists just repeat conservative talking points: Donald Sterling, Cliven Bundy and the ugly face of GOP policies
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*hugs* for Dalillama.
Depression Lies.
It is important to remember this.
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Weed(less) Monkey:
Or a casserole.
You can make a casserole out of anything. Just put a top-layer of those french fried onion things on it. Boom!
Mind you, deliberately in-taking Evil Substances cannot help but Do You No Good.
By definition.
–
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CaitieCat:
You’d think so, but I’ve been asked by more than one Greek. We’ve even had people knock on the door and launch right into Hellenic sales patter.
Iumpin’ Iupiter*! Someone iell for the iatro!
* I KNOW! I’m making a silly joke. Roll with it.
I know that experience.
I assumed Lithuanian when Rob first began commenting here. Lithuanian ethnocentrism on my part, I guess.
I’m somewhat Mediterranean-looking thanks to my Croatian heritage, so not only am I often mistaken for Greek, people simply don’t believe me when I tell them I’m not. μαλάκες!
Anthony @13: That’s about the only modern Greek word I know. Quite right too.
μαλάκες!
LOL! Lots of Voulas and Nicks in my high school, so I didn’t even have to look that one up. :)
It was nice around ζόμπι Ιησούς Weekend, though, because just about everyone had a neighbour who’d put up a lamb. Which, if you’re not vegetarian, and like roast meat, is a Very Good Thing.
Mmm. ζόμπι Ιησούς lamb. Mmm.
Now I’m hungry.
I normally don’t participate in Lounge posts, but I am amused by the image PZ selected. I’m not sure that a monkey, sitting with hindquarters exposed as if preparing for the poo-flinging to start is quite the best message for a heavily moderated thread.
Rob @11:
I used to get a phone call about once a year trying to sell me cheap long distance rates to Greece. They’d launch right into rapid-fire Greek. Were they scanning phone books for possible Greeks, I wonder?
I’m mostly kidding about the μαλάκες though. I’ve found it to be a compliment, most times, when people assume I’m a member of their ethnic group.
So very, very true.
Hugs for those dealing with that mind-monster.
May 19 is Victoria Day in Canada, the “official” unofficial birthday of the former English queen. It’s the last Monday on or before May 24. If any Americans are inclined to visit, you’re welcome.
http://youtu.be/vIx65Vb568M
I have no use for royalist garbage, but any excuse to start summer early is fine with me.
Rawnaeris:
$400 to $600 range.
I once saw a gorilla on a rock like that at Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo (Same rock? Same gorilla?) reach back between his legs, poop in his hand, and commence to picking out morsels and eating them. In front of a crowd of little kids.
Shoutout to Modusoperandi, if you come here:
A couple of days ago in Ed’s post about the loony WA state legislature from Spokane, you suggested Snohomish is worse. You got my attention and curiosity, but alas the thread is now too old to be active. What’s the deal with you and Snohomish?
Huh, I just always assumed the east side is worse than the west side as far as legislature goes…
Is it time for the World Body Painting Festival already? Nice photo.
Here’s a bit of gruesome octopus science from the Guardian.
On that note, a classic.
In these western parts, we refer to the day as ‘maylong’, and it’s the de facto start of patio season. We have a queen?!
Usually known as the “May Two-Four” hereabouts (southern Ontario west of Toronto), “two-four” being a Canadian slang term for a case of bottles of beer (which has twenty-four bottles), with this holiday marking the start of the summer beer-patio-camping-cottage season.
That might be a working-class thing, though.
Dear Horde,
Please talk me out of this if you think it isn’t a good idea. We’ve been living in the San Bernardino mountains for almost 6 months now. I have 2 very good friends here, both of whom are fairly rational people, although one of them believes in astrology. There are about thirty churches here for a population of about 10,000. There are ‘Murican flags flying everywhere.
I want to start a social/study group for local freethinkers. The point being that I want to try to FIND some local freethinkers. I can try to start a meet-up group, or I can place an ad in the local newspaper and see if I get any response.
The thing I’m worried about is possible backlash. One, I’m a pretty introverted sort and am not very good at debate, or even self-defense. Two, I don’t want to become locally infamous. I cherish my anonymity. My credo is sort of “If you don’t love me then leave me the fuck alone.”
Waddaya think?
Kindly? What the hell fun is that?
Ben, I sort of agree. If I had any confidence in my ability to verbally clobber Xians it would be fun. I just don’t want to get up in front of ideological enemies and get clobbered myself.
morgan ?!, I am too cowardly to advixe you.
–
*sigh*
And here’s an ‘s’ to replace the rogue ‘x’.
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In previous editions of the Lounge thread we’ve had quite a bit of fun examining rightwing Benghazi!!! propaganda. I just thought you’d like to know that Fox News in still on the case, and they ran a new poll. Here’s the Benghazi question:
Ummm, yeah. You just claimed the administration lied and then asked if the administration knowingly lied. Poll question slanted? Yes.
Still, they only got a 51% yes vote on that, so their efforts to pump up Benghazi fever are slipping, and they’re slipping thanks to the facts. The online video was not a sole cause, but all Benghazi reports so far have found that it played a motivating role and that President Obama’s administration did not try to deliberately mislead anyone.
Much to the chagrin of Faux News, the poll also indicated that 63% of the respondents think Republicans are pursuing the Benghazi story for partisan gain and not for the truth. Shooting themselves in the foot … again, in other words.
A few examples of other Fox News poll questions:
After running these bogus polls, Fox News covers the results for hours on end. That’s not news, that’s lying within a faux news platform.
Bobby Jindal wants you to have a sidearm with your meal. Guns in restaurants. Yeah, Governor, that sounds like a great idea for Louisiana … not.
Washington Post link.
morgan, Wander around a bit on the weekends, by foot or bicycle, sniffing the air for the smells of a baby barbecue…
Which is another way of saying: Might there already be a group in the area ?
St. Louis Post-Dispatch link.
Another damned oil spill, this time in Los Angeles, California.
Rachel Maddow covered the decades-long record of oil spills that could have been prevented but were not, are not, thanks to toothless “this is just a suggestion” regulations.
A new Lounge! Hi, everyone!
Today I’m sad because Ken Ham is coming to a town near me, but not as a public speaker or debater. He’s just coming to run some internal lying-to-kids workshops at a local Baptist church. So I don’t have a real opportunity to show up and it wouldn’t be any fun if I did. Boooo.
I just started reading How Jesus Became God by Bart Ehrman and it’s pretty good — a really easy to understand introduction to how ancient religion is extremely different from contemporary American Christianity, for starters.
@29: Morgan, would one of your friends be willing to be the contact person for the new group? That might help you stay semi-anonymous.
I don’t know your town, so I can’t say for sure. But it might not be as big a risk as you’re thinking, especially if the group is discussion-based and doesn’t immediately start nailing communion wafers to church doors. Here in Alabama, the only people in the local freethought groups who get a lot of attention as Village Atheists are the ones who actively seek it out. A quiet group might be good for you and for any number of people in town who aren’t “out” to friends and family but would appreciate having someone to talk to. Even just starting a Facebook group might be a good start, if you use Facebook.
And re: depression — it lies constantly, about everything. I don’t recommend trusting it on any point.
blf, already did the sniff test. Nary a whiff.
I’ve searched high and low for any kind of group, to no avail. There is a group down the mountain but that is about fifty miles. Something closer would be nice. That is why I’m thinking of trying to start a group.
morgan, Perhaps a visit or call or e-mail to the 80 km–away group: Any suggestions? Anyone in your immediate area? A rotating place of meeting (some of which are bound to be closer to you)?
Salt Lake Tribune coverage of the Idaho same-sex marriage decision:
blf
Unfortunately when I tried to contact some of the members of the down-the-mountain group I got all of zero replies. No encouraging. But I will try that again.
barnestormer
Good suggestions. Maybe I am over reacting due to my shyness.
cicely
Cowards of the world unite! We have nothing to lose but our heads!
Yeah, they are needed for flavouring the horse-potato-pea chowder.
Horse-potato-pea-head of atheist chowder? Methinks it is missing something.
Several kilotons of garlic.
Yes! Never too much garlic.
Ok, so the basic recipe for horse-pea-potato-head of atheist-garlic chowder is:
Some horses.
About the same number of potatoes, by weight.
One or fewer peas.
A mound of atheist’s heads.
As many kilotons of garlic as you get.
About the same amount of MUSHROOMS!
Milk (needn’t be diary, but a soured milk (e.g., buttermilk) works great).
Some spicy sauce (e.g., Tabasco).
And some vin, such as a Zinfandel or Gigondas. Don’t worry about how much. you can drink what you don’t use.
Peel some of the garlic. When bored with that, inactivate, shave, and hollow-out the horses. Peel some more garlic. Discard the pea. Peel some more garlic. Shave the atheist’s heads. Peel yet more of the garlic. Wash the MUSHROOMS!, pat dry, and set aside. Peel the rest of the garlic.
Combine all the solid ingredients, except for the MUSHROOMS! and discarded pea, and chop / blend until a semi-liquid pulp. Mix in some of the milk and bring to a near-boil, stirring constantly. Immediately reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, and topping-up with milk and some of the spicy sauce from time-to-time. Add the MUSHROOMS! and vin shortly before serving.
Bloody missing ___: “As many kilotons of garlic as you can get.”
Last night, I made dinner using no garlic. But I did use potatoes.
The raping children cult in action, Chile: Catholic priests investigated over stolen babies:
An interesting new dinosaur in open access. Note that the abstract has a typo in the name.
In German: Protests and strikes in Turkey about the worst mining disaster worldwide in almost 40 years (282 dead); protesters calling for the government to resign; Erdoğan’s counsel Yusuf Yerkel has been photographed kicking a protester who is lying on the floor and held by two policemen – he confirms that the photo shows him, and says the protester deserved it.
You probably know this already: Pipeline breaks in Glendale next to LA, crude oil up to half a meter deep floods the streets, oil spreading for 800 meters and (duh) blocking traffic.
blf @50, mormon “social services” workers have been accused of the same thing. There’s plenty of documentation to support the fact that they pressure single mothers to give up their babies to “worthy” two-parent mormon families, and that they also encourage single mothers not to inform the father.
What is it with religious organizations? They think they set up what is basically a baby-selling market.
Sentenced to death for apostasy in Sudan, with a hundred lashes for adultery just for good measure:
http://news.msn.com/world/sudan-judge-sentences-christian-woman-to-death-for-apostasy
My dad’s first name is Miķelis. Often mistaken for Greek. Oh, the Plight of the Latvian (and Lithuanian)!
The Latvian candidates are debating in anticipation of the EP elections coming up. What a horrible bunch of people! Not to mention homophobic (with about one exception). And elitist. And just totally backwards. Ugh. My choices are limited, but at least my decision has been made for me.
Marco Rubio fails again. This presidential-candidate-wannabe is now defending his statements about climate change by claiming that he knows the science behind anti-abortion efforts:
Go right ahead, Marco, keep digging.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/05/15/3438179/marco-rubio-abortion-climate-science/
rq, Lurching and babbling consumes all of the brainpower of the potato-brained. The can’t even remember to breath. One minion must whisper in one ear “Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.” Another minion must whisper in the other ear, “‘Inhale’ means this” (demonstrates), then in a slightly strangled voice, “‘Exhale’ means this this” (demonstrates). …
Here’s another instance of rightwing religious leaders entering “yeah, like that will work” territory when discussing gays:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/pat-robertson-says-love-your-gay-daughter-refusing-accept-her
I think I found my first cavity. TOOTH cavity.
Mother Jones posted an article about the ways in which gun-rights activists have been targeting women who speak out for gun law reform. This includes spitting on women, stalking them, and threatening women with violence. Many of these women own guns but are asking for better background checks etc. Excerpt below:
rq, Nah, it’s just a potato’s nest.
Spitting, Stalking, Rape Threats: How Gun Extremists Target Women
morgan #29: If you are worried about backlash to atheism/freethinking, you might start up a group for “skepticism” or “rational thinking” and see if that flies.
Morgan@29 don t know if it helps but Google tells me that the Inland Empire atheists agnostics and freethinkers are having a BBQ this weekend (no not that kind of BBQ!). Their web page at meetups.com has a link to join their group. Looks like they do a hike in Riverside every Sunday too. Dunno if that helps but I hope you find a group of likeminded individuals. Don t worry about being introverted it does nit mean you are a coward at all. I feel brave if I can make out the door some days. Good luck!
This is a follow up my comment #41. Basically, it’s an “oh, crap” moment.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/world/57948840-68/gay-idaho-couples-court.html.csp
I really really want to eat something deliciously carb-y, like a giant piece of cake, smothered in ooey-gooey frosting, with sugar sprinkled on top for good measure.
Stoopid diet.
embraceyourinnercrone,
The Inland Empire group is the one I contacted and got no response. But I’ll try again. It is a bit of a trek to their events. And I love your ‘nym.
Reginald Selkirk,
Good suggestion… a bit of linguistic subterfuge.
De-lurkes:
AAAH! In a few short weeks I will no longer be living in Phoenix, and will be moving from my home state of Arizona, to Connecticut. Over 2,500 miles. Why the fuck not?
I am excited but also FREAKING THE FUCK OUT, lol.
How did I collect so much CRAP? And how did it ever fit in to this tiny little apartment?!
I think that’s normal
I’m absolutely certain that’s normal. Moreover, it seems to happen regardless of the number of things you own or the size of your home.
Cats.
marilove
Good luck with the move! Watch out for the Moving Gremlins. They’re terrible. And trust me, all that stuff will fit into the new place, too, along with a whole crapload of new stuff you’ll acquire soon after moving in. ;)
rq
Yep. It’s just a place for your stuff.
http://youtu.be/JLoge6QzcGY
Jill Abramson, the New York Times editor that was recently fired, may have been fired for raising issue of pay inequity for women.
Most of the coverage I’ve seen takes a lot of trouble to call Abramson “pushy” or “abrasive” or “brusque.” Those would all be couched in more complimentary terms if Abramson were a man. There’s some reporting that focuses on how open she was to talking to the techies running the technological side of the paper, how open she was to promoting women, how brilliant she was. But mostly, she was pushy and she got fired for not being nice enough. I smell a rat.
The NY Times won 4 Pulitzer prizes under Abramson’s tenure.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2014/05/why-jill-abramson-was-fired.html
WMDKitty
:D Ain’t that right!
+++
Graveyard of the deep.
Yes, I’m killing time until Husband is asleep. Why do you ask?
LykeX
Right? I feel as if stuff procreates. Stuff get down and dirty when we’re sleeping and have stuff babies. So.much.stuff.
rq
I am actually moving in with my aunt, who lives in Plainville. I have lived alone for the last 12+ years, so this will be an interesting adventure, to say the least! I really want to see the east coast. I figure I probably won’t stay in Plainville more than a year or so. Who knows where I’ll end up?
WINTER is going to be hilarious. I have never even owned a scarf, or rain boots, or snow boots, or a real coat. Hahaha. I am going to enjoy shopping for real winter clothes! I have three hoodies. That’s it. And three is probably overkill for Phoenix.
I am flying, so I’m getting rid of all my big stuff (some of it is going to the dump, because no one wants my disgusting couch — NO ONE — but the rest of my furniture is being given away to a friend who just moved into a house with her boyfriend, so yay!).
Then I have to figure out which books and dvd’s to give away/sell. That’s going to be the hardest!
And then I need to figure out what I want to ship — I can’t afford to ship more than maybe two medium media mail boxes (so books/dvds), and a couple small boxes of things I can’t bear to get rid of.
And then I’m checking in two bags, which should fit nearly all of my clothing.
Then I am also bringing my cat. On the plane. Oh, dear. I hope he does okay! Anyone have experiences taking a cat on a plane?
Slate covers the financial success Jill Abramson oversaw at the NY Times, as well as the awards for excellent journalism.
She was doing her job well, if “brusquely.”
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/5/4/youth-sue-governmentforclimateinaction.html
Today’s google topic is nice.
Is it just me, or has google been placing emphasis on previously-unknown (-to-me) women scientists and mathematicians lately? Either way, I like.
Hey Horde – I’m new here at commenting, but I’ve been lurking for years. Just wanted to introduce myself. First let me say how impressed I am by you all. I’ve enjoyed your destruction of many trolls, xians, MRAs…. I’ve come here many times to brighten my day.
I’m a newly retired aerospace electrical engineer (due to cronic illnesses). It was brutal work and brutal hours but I loved it. What I don’t miss is all the GOP bible thumping misogynist bigots in this red state ( I will throw in I worked at NASA as well as goverment contractors, they were all the same in attitude, very few liberals, all under cover). I’m also a closet atheist as I fear ( truly) any deviation from the norms here.
Forgive me my errors and correct me as needed.
Morgan@29 I have same problem here. No groups within local area. Good luck with trying to do something.
Why the horse stew? Poor pea (I like peas).
Big hugs to the depression folks (I’m one too). The voices always lie, just keep telling yourself that.
Just wanted to say hi!
marilove@72,
Well, someone once tried to take some MF’in snakes on an MF’in plane. It didn’t work out well for anyone if I recall correctly.
morgan:
Reginald Selkirk has a great suggestion, but I think you might want to distance yourself even further at first – tell people that your group is about scientific news, or even science fiction (if you’re into that). That sounds way less dangerous than “skeptic” or “freethinker”, is easier to back out of if things get unpleasant and there usually are many atheists amongst the science/scifi crowd.
I don’t know what attractions or public locations you have in your town, but judging by the number of churches, I’d say that anyone who is doing anything other than spending most of Sunday in church is likely good recruitment material.
Also, you’re not being a coward – you’re being smart!
ernezabet:
I’m also mostly a lurker, but I’m happy you’ve introduced yourself.
That’s really sad. One would hope that the people who study the wonders of the universe would be more open-minded.
A piebald feathered dinosaur was brought into my work a couple days ago.
http://imageshack.com/a/img844/3189/oa9g.jpg
I can now say that dinosaurs can have baby blue eyes. :D
Alexanderz – it is very sad. Really would not believe some of the stuff I’ve seen.. Buch pictures in cubes along with bible right on desk.. They actually carry them around to offices and at Pads.
I was told by many ” we begin our days with Drudge”.
Yea, I was there for the wonder of it all, silly me.
marilove @72 I’ve moved/flown with cats twice . Once from Guam to LA with my tabby and one from LA to Connecticut with that one and my new calico. I was really nervous but I read all the vet advice I could find about it.. I have very high strung cats and they did ok. I got carriers with attachable water bottles and taped a ziplock bag of dry food to the top of the carriers in case there was a delay. Also made sure their tags had my new address&phone and so did the carriers If you contact the airline in advance you may be able have you cat in the cabin with you.
Warning , my cats did not forgive me for the plane ride for a week. Hair ball throwup in my shoes in the morning..good times. Good luck with the move!
ernezabet @76 Hi !I can relate on the having to keep my atheist, liberal leanings to myself, I was never sure who it was ok to be open with when I was in the Navy. Its funny even now how many people can not wrap their heads around the fact I was in for 20 and I am the most leftleaning person they know,
I want to know something about people’s perceptions of the Spanish Inquisition. Shouldn’t’t there be some context? The fact is that Muslims invaded Spain and southern France, and would have gone further if not for Catholics who stopped them there. The next 700 years involved Catholics battling their way down through Spain until they finally regained all of their land back in the 15th century. This is when the Spanish Inquisition began. Is it wrong for me to “justify” their paranoia about the Muslims and Jews (the fact is that some Jews at that place and time had been involved in the Muslim invasion of Spain) who remained? Most of them were ultimately expelled rather than killed. What do you think? I know it’s not politically correct but I can understand their fears after 700 years of war, and their desire for normalcy and peace. Also the number killed was very low. So what’s the verdict?
Rowan @79 — I don’t even know why that bird is so adorable to me; it just is. I love all the Contemporary Dinosaurs, though. <3
morgan @65 Hope you have luck with finding or forming a group. I stole the name from the greeting card line with the cranky little old lady, Maxine. She’s who I want to be when I grown up(actually I am already almost qualified for all of those adjectives!)
marilove @66 Connecticut has wacky weather, Lewis Black once did a bit about it but I can’t find the Youtube. Example this past Sunday it was 81, yesterday it was 59….. However PZ is (was?) going to be speaking in Hartford on June 18th so maybe you can go see him in Hartford. I don’t know if he’s still going though. I just hope he feels better, surgery sucks…
Apologist…why should anybody be killed because they don’t believe in your fuckwitted and false religion. Never mind how fuckwitted and false theirs is…
diby sursch
That’s a topic for the Thunderdome, where you will find a response shortly.
diby sursch, take your contentious question to the Thunderdome, which is where it should have been posted, rather than the lounge. Sorry for my response….Mea culpa.
OK, sorry. Did not know.
Hey, cicely, may I ask why you said this (@632, Lounge 460):
I admire your dedication.
I didn’t get around to asking before the thread was closed, and I didn’t understand what you were referring to, so if you happen to remember, I’d be interested, cause I’m not often admired, and if it happens, it’d be nice to know what I did, so I can keep doing it and stay with the “being admired” thing. :)
@ 79 oh my gracious, you just stole my heart. I’m hearkened back to The Castefiore Emerald, the Tintin adventure in which a magpie features prominently.
Hi, ernezabet; Welcome In!
&nbps;
Horses are Evil.
Peas are not food. They are entertainment.
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CaitieCat, I’m a pain-wimp, I am. If I tried to walk 1/4 mile, to catch a bus, for instance, I wouldn’t get far before I would start losing the capacity for coherent thought, start to shake uncontrollably, and become nauseous. I know that your physical difficulties are much worse than mine…and yet, you walk to take a bus, so you can spend serious time, sitting in uncomfortable chairs, entirely voluntarily, for a cause you believe in, in spite of the pain.
I…can’t do that.
–
I think I finally understand thread ‘rupt, maybe, and I’m doing it here, sorry.
Has anyone here ever dealt with anyone with OCPD? Or read about dealing with someone with OCPD? I hope to be able to explain more in a couple days, but as the situation comes to a head, I am feeling quite stressed and would like… I don’t know what I would like. A way to release some pressure/stress? (Been holding it in for a couple few weeks now.)
Oggie, I’m still looking for a comp that I wouldn’t feel questionable recommending. Mostly, the trick is finding a machine that still has windows 7.
ajb74, a fellow common tater who I like quite a bit on Jezebel speaks out a fair amount about her OCPD. I’m also mentally ill myself but that’s not my particular malfunction, though I have in the past dealt with compulsive thoughts and gestures. Are you dealing with yourself or with someone who is currently suffering the symptoms?
Seize @94
Not me. My particular issue is alcohol. Just really attached.
It is someone else. I don’t think anyone fully involved reads here, but I don’t know if anyone who might be peripherally involved and who might recognize the situation reads here and might say something early. The whole “butterfly flaps its wings” thing. (I am probably being overly cautious, but I will not know for a couple days.)
It’s not an official diagnosis, it is some research (online and speaking to a professional) that fits a pattern of behavior.
ajb74 @
Ugh, I can’t read his books. All it takes is for Butcher (via his hero) to spout some anti-science, anti-reality bullshit before I throw the book across the room and start screaming every known English obscenity for about half-an-hour.
In this age of superstitious bullshit and continued religious barbarism in the face of modernity, my suspension of disbelief has long since crashed and burned. I will not tolerate it anymore, even in fiction.
EDIT: Ugh, I can’t read those books.
Does that apply to urban fantasy in general, or is there something particularly egregious about the ‘anti-science, anti-reality bullshit’ in that specific series? Because if it’s the former, I’m not really sure why you’d pick up a book about a wizard in Chicago to begin with, and if it’s the latter I can’t see that Butcher’s any worse about that than the usual run of urban fantasy. I will note that Peter Grant takes a far more rationalist, science-based approach to magic than Harry does, but then Grant actually finished high school, and is able to use the Internet for research, neither of which can be said for Harry Dresden.
Lynna, OM @63:
Idaho must be a very scary place. Here’s the above Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter looking mostly harmless in comparison to the other three people he’s “debating”: http://news.yahoo.com/idaho-just-hosted-the-best-political-debate-of-the-year-214051999.html
W.T.F. did I just watch?
Why do these assholes keep doing this bullshit, anyway? Why do they keep granting these stupid-ass stays, as though the bigots are suddenly going to come up with a magical bulletproof argument now when they haven’t been able to at any of the other fucking cases this has come up?
Dalillama @ 98
I guess it’s “modern” urban fantasy that . I can stand “magic” so long as it’s in a setting that doesn’t posit a materialistic, scientific setting like our own universe. Butcher leans toward “science doesn’t work, magic does and is better” even though his character’s drive cars, watch the telly, and use computers (well, except Dresden and his fellow virtuous wizards, that is). You can’t have it both ways. Either we live in a world of electricity, thermodynamics, chemistry, etc, or we live in a world of magic wooful dust and pixies. If you’re going to write fantasy, pick one or the other. Anything else is just the solipsistic “everything you know is wrong” post-modernist shit that’s fucking up the world.
EDIT… I guess it’s “modern” urban fantasy that set’s me off.
In that case, I kind of have to reiterate my first question: did you not read the dust jacket or something? What did you think you were picking up? (Or, as the case may be, is this the first Urban Fantasy* novel/series you picked up, and you didn’t know how much it would annoy you until then?)
*While I realize that the term is not necessarily clear, it is usually used to refer to books set in a world much like our own modern one, but in which magic does work to some degree. The term Wainscot Fantasy can also apply to the majority of them, in which the supernatural is, for whatever handwavy reason, a)real, but b)not any more publically accepted than it is in our own world (if not less so). There are some (like the Anita Blake books) where magic and technology openly coexist, which are Urban but not Wainscot. Confusingly, the term Urban Fantasy can also sometimes mean fantasy of the more traditional lower-tech, not set on Earth or anyplace that notably resembles Earth sort which takes place primarily in a specific urban location, rather than the wandering-through-the-countryside sort codified by Conan or The Hobbit. Many newer examples of this cross over with Steampunk, combining an 18th-19th centruy technoology with industrial magic etc. Examples of this type of urban fantasy which I would recommend include the excellent series The Necromancer Chronicles by Amanda Downum (not to be confused with The Chronicles of the Necromancer ; I haven’t read those and thus can’t recommend them), the Garrett, P.I. books, a Raymond Chandler pastiche set in a fantasy metropolis, China Mieville’s Bas Lag books, and many of the Discworld books. Also many of the Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories undoubtedly count, if you like your sword and sorcery old school.
On that note, I think you might still find the Rivers of London series (source of the aforementioned Peter Grant) less offensive; while there’s magic and the like, it does obey rules, and PC Grant is damn well determined to figure them out). Likewise with Stross’ Laundry Files, which postulate that magic is a function of certain types of mathematics allowing contact with inhuman things from dimensions not our own, a quite interesting twist on the theme of cosmic horror, or Wen Spencer’s Elfhome series, in which magic is a force akin to electromagnetism, just not one that’s strongly present in our dimension; when someone accidentally sends Pittsburgh to another dimension while trying to build an FTL drive, the situation is different. Possibly not, too; if it’s just not your thing, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Hello all!
I’d like to Horde-source some advice (or helpful information). I work with a woman (B) who is a single mother with a 7 year old son. We had a conversation tonight about sex education (among other things) and she wants to ensure her son is adequately informed before he becomes sexually active. Even though he is young, she’s aware that sex ed isn’t something that a lot of kids and teens receive. She said her mother didn’t teach her anything growing up (she told me she had her first period in middle school and was scared she was going to die bc she had no idea what was happening to her and no one had talked to her about women’s health–I almost cried), nor did her dad. She’s fairly certain her son’s father won’t talk to him about sex, and there’s no one else she is comfortable talking to. I told her about this place and how there are many parents here who have children and may be of some assistance. She asked me to ask around for some advice.
Basically, she doesn’t know where to start. She doesn’t know if 7 is too young to talk to him about sex, and even if she felt it was right, she doesn’t know what to tell him. She doesn’t know what material is age appropriate, either. One thing she *did* tell me: she’s taught him about consent (at least to some degree). She said she has impressed upon him the importance of not allowing anyone to touch him without permission as well as the reverse (this was the end of our chat about her son, which provided a great segue to a discussion about consent and sexual assault). Other than that, she feels lost on the subject.
I didn’t have any advice to offer, as this is outside my wheelhouse (though I did pass along one thing I’ve learned here: the importance of teaching children to be proud of their bodies and to be able to speak about their genitalia without euphemisms to minimize personal shame as they get older)
Does anyone have advice I can pass along to her, or resources she can explore?
ernezabet:
Welcome to the Lounge!
May I offer you a virtual cocktail?
ajb47:
threadrupt basically means not caught up reading the comments in the Lounge. Many people read most (if not all- in some cases, I’m sure) of the comments. The term is often used when people haven’t had the time to catch up reading here but want to leave a comment. I suspect for many people who use the term, they recognize that many of us share personal information (to one degree or another) about our lives from time to time and try to stay current as they’re able to.
Someone else can explain portcullis (took me years to learn)… :)
Oh, and maybe rq can explain the Pharyngula Commune :)
portcullis
In the two On-going Threads, there is a very loose tradition to move on to the new edition @ comment #666.
This almost never happens.
However
if you make a comment just before the new thread is opened (and the old thread is closed) you can claim to have been ‘portcullised’
meaning, untimely prevented from making your point
@105 Tony!
I don’t know if it’s the same everywhere, but the Unitarian Universalists have a good comprehensive sexuality education program here in Alabama (because somebody has to). Classes start at the kindergarden level & emphasize respect, safety, and inclusivity. If your friend has a local UU congregation, she might ask them if they offer something similar? Even if she’s not interested in putting him in a class, they might be able to recommend materials.
Good morning and hugs all around, loud “hello!” to all the newcomers.
Good luck with the move, marilove
Tony
We do a lot of sex-ed “on the run”, because I don’t feel like awkward “sitting the kids down” conversations are my thing (though we will need them some time later). Sometimes a “teachable moment” arises and we seize it. 7 years is NOT too young because her child is already a sexual being, only that at that age their sexuality is completely centered around themselves, so we have focussed a lot on “it feels good when you touch certain body parts, that is OK, that is good, but don’t do it in public and wash your hands before and afterwards”.
Another issue is consent, because it happens more often than you would imagine that a boy just thinks he can kiss them if he wants to, so we often talk that it is only OK if both want it. This doesn’t have to be in the context of other children, but also in the context of parental displays of affection: Everybody in this family is entitled to their body and their boundaries: They never ever have to kiss or hug us* or submit to our caresses. You don’t even have to talk about sex for that, but IMO it’s one of the most important aspects.
Next point is babies: We made sure quite early that they know how babies are made (for younger children Babette Cole’s Mummy laid an egg is fantastic, but 7 is probably too old), but we also make sure they understand that sex isn’t just for baby-making, because that was a big misconception for me when I grew up: I learned that people have sex to make babes and I thought that was it, like you’re cooking a meal to eat it. This is obviously easier when you’re in a (heterosexual) relationship so the topic of “will you have another baby” comes up naturally.
Last point is cis-, hetero-, and “you’re going to have children”-normativity. We don’t say “girls have a vagina and boys have a penis” but use “most girls” and “most boys” and “sometimes it’s the other way around”. Or I say “if you have a boyfriend or girlfriend when you get older”. Or “when you’re grown up you can decide if you want to have kids.” While those things are not exactly about sex as such, they are part of sex-ed and my attempt to raise well-adjusted kids who don’t freak out should they discover that they themselves or somebody else is not straight and cis.
*obvious exceptions apply
My parents lucked out with me. I watched so much discovery channel growing up that I understood the basics of sex and reproduction and how they were linked by the time I was 6 years old because I could extrapolate from animals mating to humans. Mom more specifically discussed periods with me when I was 9; what it was, how to deal with it, etc. Glad she did as I got my first cycle the month after I turned 11. *shakes fist* curse you puberty and making me be super tall super early and then not grow after I turned 13.
I wish I had some advice for your friend. :/
Photoshopping classical paintings
I don’t think that any of them is “improved”. Very interesting exercise.
Threadrupt but *waving*
Anyone else trying to follow the coverage of the San Diego county fires? Any suggestions for a good, frequently updated site? Any help would be appreciated.
My oldest sister and BIL live in San Marcos, CA and I haven’t been able to get through to them or find anyone who has been in contact since the fires and evacuations started.
A little anxious here.
Just as I learned (anew) about ‘icequakes’ this past winter, I’m now learning about ‘firenados’ :http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-california-fire-tornadoes-firenado-science-20140515-story.html
[I bet Ogvorbis and Portia already knew about those though.] :)
7…
Here’s a good place.
Here’s another.
It isn’t.
What I’ve found well is a combination of this series + more specific, sex-specific puberty-manual books, + assuming if they’re old enough to formulate the question, they’re old enough for a real answer.
New class of industrial polymers discovered http://phys.org/news/2014-05-class-industrial-polymers.html This is a bloody miracle plastic!
.
Climate warnings ignored with US elections looming http://phys.org/news/2014-05-climate-elections-looming.html No, really? (sarcasm)
.
One-nm-thick graphene engine mimics two-stroke engine http://phys.org/news/2014-05-one-nm-thick-graphene-mimics-two-stroke.html
Complex interactions may matter most for longevity http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-05-complex-interactions-longevity.html
.
“Going beyond the surface: New tech could take light-based cancer treatment deep inside the body” http://phys.org/news/2014-05-surface-tech-light-based-cancer-treatment.html
IR to visible light.Second harmonic generation? Four-wave mixing?
“There are no long-term side effects for PDT, it’s less invasive than surgery, and we can very precisely target cancer cells”
Bill Bayley ‘Britain is medieval compared to Sweden’ [in regard to equality] http://www.thelocal.se/20140514/britain-is-medieval-compared-to-sweden-bill-bailey
.
Making money from lignin: Roadmap shows how to improve lignocellulosic biofuel biorefining http://phys.org/news/2014-05-money-lignin-roadmap-lignocellulosic-biofuel.html
Azkyroth
Thanks for those book suggestions. It’s So Amazing looks like something that will be useful very soon in our household.
It’s not that we’ve been avoiding the question, it just hasn’t really come up yet.
Welcome to ernezabet! The Lounge Commune still needs a qualified dentist before it is up to all health and safety standards. I don’t suppose that you, as a rocket scientist, might know anything about fixing teeth…?
Have a cookie? :)
+++
Seeking Expert Bicycle Assistance!
So, in the past six months of riding season (we’ll ignore those three months of winter in between), I’ve had to replace the inner tube of my front tyre three times, and it looks like it will have to be done again. Why so often? Do we replace it wrong? Do I ride it wrong? Crappy inner tubes?
It’s a mountain-ish bike, with child seat, with trips generally taking place on the road, although there’s this one little patch of small-hill-roots-and-grass that cuts a nice corner. But a little rough riding shouldn’t do damage, should it?
Anyway, any advice much appreciated, because this is getting annoying, seeing as how the bicycle is my primary locomotive apparatus during the day with Youngest, and far preferable to walking and/or strollering.
Tony – I second Azkyroth’s book recommendations. We have the second one at my house. I was not comfortable talking with my boys about it all, so in true nerd fashion I researched what books were considered the best, bought that one, and just said “HERE READ THIS” and stuck it in their room. It seemed to do the job. The other book I threw at them when they got older is this one, which goes more into detail about sex when you’re a teen and how to get clear consent and what the hell is happening with your body etc.
@Tony – I seem to remember Libby Anne having a post/series of posts on how to do sex education for children. Here’s one as a starting point – http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2013/02/what-about-sex-ed-for-younger-children.html
bluentx @113 sdcountyemergency.com is pretty good they have twitter feeds also if you tweet.
http://www.ktla.com is one of the local tv stations. I don’t remember the others at the moment.
Fire season in Southern California is scary..but then so is flashflood and earthquake season.
I still miss San Diego despite all that. Hope they are all ok.
bluentx
*giant hugs*
+++
A piece of our roof (covering) just fell off. I don’t think that’s good.
At least the rains have stopped. :/
Thank you, embraceyourinnercrone . I appreciate the info.
Some of the evacuation notices have been lifted this a.m. Waiting to hear if sister and BIL are covered by those ‘lifts’.
In trying to look on the bright side: Could be worse. Another sister could still be living in Lompoc. They are currently having fire problems there, too.
Nope, sorry, Bright Side View did not help…
Hey rq. Bicycle Repair Man to the rescue!
Take a close look at your tyre. If you see lots of little nicks and cuts in the rubber it’s time to replace it. As time goes by the UV and I’m assuming some constituents of the air break down the rubber. When it gets brittle things cut through it easier and they also have a tendency to stick in rather than bounce off.
If you don’t see lots of cuts and nicks it might be bad luck, or it might be that there’s something still stuck in the tyre. Run you hand gently around the inside of it when the tube is out to see if there’s anything sticking through. This is vital practice for any puncture because a goodly number of times the thing that caused it is still stuck in the tyre.
Also check to make sure that the spoke heads, or the holes that those spoke heads are in, are properly covered all the way around the rim. Usually on cheap bikes there is a rubber rim strip covering them and it can sometimes split or get moved aside exposing the spoke head and causing a puncture when the tube is inflated. A visual check will usually spot this, but you can also tell if you inflate the punctured tube and the hole is on the inside of tube near the centre line.
You can also get punctures by under inflating your tubes. There’s a printed max/min pressure rating on the side of the tyre. If you inflate it below the minimum you can get pinch flats where the tyre is pushed in to the point where it crushes the tube against the rim. These holes will also appear on the inside of the tube but more towards the outside edge. Often they will be in a characteristic pair, hence the moniker: snakebite flat.
If the hole is next to the valve stem then it’s likely that you haven’t pulled the valve down far enough. Sometimes it will jam a little in its hole in the rim, usually because the rim strip is jamming it. Pull the rim strip up and put the valve through it first, then through the hole in the rim. It’s a good idea to grab the valve and pull it through wiggling it a bit once the tyre is up to pressure. Not too hard though, just enough to make sure it’s fully seated.
Yup, there are crappy tubes out there. When they fail, they tend to do so along a seam or next to the valve. The hole is usually very straight, though this isn’t absolute proof.
A floor pump with a gauge is essential kit for making sure tyres are correctly inflated not just to prevent pinch flats, but to make them roll well too. People generally underestimate just how hard a properly inflated bike tyre should be unless they’ve been using a gauge regularly.
You can put new holes in the tube when re-mounting the tyre to the rim. It’s best to use plastic tyre levers rather than metal ones, or that old standby: table spoons. When levering the final bit of tyre back onto the rim try not to lift the lever much above a right angle out from the rim. If you push it all the way up towards the top of the tyre you can put holes in you new tube even with plastic levers. This usually shows up immediately on inflating them, but it is possible to put a small nick that will deflate them later.
Gah, why can’t I ever write bike stuff concisely?
TL;DR
Check for lots of nicks and cuts, replace if found.
Check for stuff stuck in the tyre from the inside.
Carefully levering the tyre back on, only lift the lever to 90 degrees(ish)
Check that the rim strip is covering the spoke heads
Check for snake bite punctures/ make sure your tyres are inflated correctly
Tell me to go home from work now because it’s now 9:30pm and I’m stupidly tired. Yay for the 12 hour day!
Damn, meant to include a link
Er, that’d be check from the inside of the tyre for stuff stuck in it. Checking from the outside is almost futile because the tread pattern, wear, and dirt hides things.
Akira MacKenzie @101,
You might like the “Garret, P.I.” novels by Glen Cook, set in the fictional city of Tun Fairie. The technology and society are basically early 19th century, but since sorcerers can do a lot of stuff in place of technology, thechnologies like gunpowder production have never taken off.
Apart from this, the reader is encountering modern people (or as modern you can be when grown up in slums in a 19th century type city).
The rivalry between sorcerers (whose powers are hereditary) and the ordinary feudal elite is obvious, so is the rivalry with the up-and-coming mercantile class, but the century-long war with Venageti has kept friction between the various factions to a minimum, as well as making it necessary to integrate non-human species to take up the slack after so many humans have perished.
Likewise, the pressure of warfare has obviously speeded up early industrial efforts.
Ex-royal marine and PI Garrett is a fun acquintance, and so is his partner, The Dead Man.
Also re. urban gothic.
Richard Kadrey is giving his protagonist, James Stark, a lot of good lines.
When nephilim and sometimes PI James Stark investigaes a zombie outbreak, he visits his chief suspect but discovers someone else got there first. The man he wanted to question has beeen eaten and scattered all over the place. Stark finds a bottle of Jack Daniels and toasts the dead:
“You were a liar and a thief, but you did not deserve to end this way. I hope it was quick and you tasted like ass all the way down”
Goodamn it! This is poetry.
For those who missed the reference in FossilFishy’s wonderful post, Youtuboogle “Bicycle Repair Man” and Monty Python. Lovely somewhat obscure bit.
Also, you folk are kind of awesome.
The bicycle in its final form is a hundred years old now!
Freeman Dyson used the bicycle as an example of a technology that cannot be invented instantly, but requires several iterations of painful learning experiences before it reaches an optimal form.
The abortive attempts to invent new-tech, highly manouverable airships to carry huge loads is another example of how baby steps sometimes is the only way to go.
— — — —
Drunk people with handguns…maybe people living there should invest in coffin manufacture, anticipating an increased demand.
I know. It feels sometimes these days as though the right wing has taken on a strategy of “Well, if you think that’s degrading and stupid, try THIS!” as their guiding principle, like the doubling-cube is the only tactical concept they have.
Woman with beach ball-sized tumor turned away from four hospitals for lack of insurance http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/16/woman-with-beach-ball-sized-tumor-turned-away-from-four-hospitals-for-lack-of-insurance/
Bloody hell. I am so glad I live where I live.
.
Doctors cure woman’s tumors with re-programmed measles virus http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/15/doctors-cure-womans-tumors-with-re-programmed-measles-virus/
.
Hope for paraplegic patients http://mdicalxpress.com/news/2014-05-paraplegic-patients.html
Good news! Doctor says I might live. Everything is healing cleanly, finally, and I can stop taking Percocet. I do have to change the dressing twice a day, but otherwise, everything is back on track.
Actually, I don’t change the dressing. The wound is on an awkward spot on my back that I can’t even touch, so Nurse Mary is stuck with the job.
Curses! It’s so hard to find a reliable assassin these days.
Umm… I mean, good for you. Hope it heals quickly.
That’s why she’s a TrophyWife™.
That’s why? Damn. I thought it was because she looked good with her hair blowing in the wind as I drove to the country club in my convertible.
Idaho Statesman newspaper follows up on the Governor’s debate that included two nut balls:
http://www.idahostatesman.com/2014/05/16/3187324/theater-of-the-absurd-governors.html?sp=/99/1687/&ihp=1
Chris Hayes covers the Idaho Governor’s debate:
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/napoleon-dynamite-or-gop-idaho-debate-257133123671
PZed, I thought it was because she came with an attractive oak pedestal? Unusual dowry, to be sure, but a memorable one.
Old white guys who think it is okay to call President Obama the “N” word:
Think Progress link.
Conga rats on the good healing, PZ. I made a big pot of broccoli-cauliflower-cheese soup yesterday. Have some, please.
Hi Tony! Hi rq!
Thanks for the welcome. I’ll take the cocktail and pass on the cookie. Sorry just wanted to let you know where I come from. Always dislike “rocket scientist” thing. Just fun working on big blow-up mechanical things. I’ve done many moral contortion about who I worked for. Space science is the best high for me.
PZ hi and glad you feel better.
Fossilfishy enjoyed the link
News out of Utah about how their stay against the marriage equality ruling is affecting gay couples who wish to adopt children.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57949865-78/utah-state-court-adoption.html.csp
So glad to hear that PZ’s wound is healing. Mary is now on ooze and slime patrol. If anybody can do it, she can.
Blame Bluentx for this
[[[FIRE STORY]]]
Some years back, I was working night shift at a fire near Happy Camp, CA. In addition to keeping an eye on the fire camp, about every two hours, one of us would take a drive down the Klamath River highway to check in with the night watch crews and make sure that the locals weren’t causing any problems.
One evening, about midnight, I came upon a Type II engine crew gazing up at a ridge. There were burning trees and logs sliding and rolling down the thousand-foot-high ridge across the river. Up on top, two very large trees were torching — one had a left-hand fire tornado coming off the top and rising another 200 feet. The other tree had a right-hand fire tornado of almost the same height. In between, a full moon was rising. Throught the smoke, it was blood red.
And I didn’t have a camera that could have gotten the shot.
——
Good news, PZed!
——
LykeX:
Did you go through the Guild or did you hire a free-lancer?
I just realized what the origin of the word freelance is.
Funny the things one never thinks about.
I had no idea Armstrong was in jail. Was it for illegal drug use or committing fraud against the US government?
PZ, happy to hear the improving-state-of-the-wound news. Looking forward to getting the completely-healed news in due course.
Og
He has been pretty expensive.
Probably debtors prison.
Aw, feel better soon, PZ. Wound care is awkward and a pain, but—actually, there’s no but. It is awkward and a pain.
The case for a “soft atheism”; putting secular humanism before atheism:
Huh? What happened to all yer squidly appendages?
That just means you’ve exceeded the RRA (Recommended Reptilian Allowance) for Percocet, and put it to sleep. Now that you’ve stopped taking it, it will wake up and then, well, if you think this was “fun”…
A request to Horders in the UK (and please forgive me if I repeat this a couple of times in the next month or two, in the hope that it gets seen).
.
The following is just a thought, not absolutely definite.
.
OH and I have to be in Fleetwood in Lancashire for one evening in August, and it’s a bit on the too-late and too-far side to drive all the way back to the Smoke that same night. Is there anyone who happens to be in (or near) that part of the world who might consider letting two internet strangers (well, one internet stranger plus OH) sleep on their floor for one night? We wouldn’t need or even dream of feeding or anything like that, but a mattress on the floor would be heaven.
Um, rq has met me in person; other than that all I can say is that we are both left-wing atheists and moderately shy and retiring types in person unless of course discussing politics (OH) or religion (both) … and I’d be happy to chat via email; I’m just not quite sure how to give my email address (can’t remember how we did this with rq!)
(reason for going, is that SonSpawn is playing in an end-of-workshop gig; the gig is in the late-afternoon/early-evening, and we can either all drive south that night or we can collect him next morning, so he would not be with the two of us).
Just heard (via Facebook). Sister and BIL okay, been in a shelter the past two days. May get back in their house later today. Yay!
Always glad to be of service.
Great news that they’re safe, bluentx.
bluentx:
Good news on family safety.
Those SoCal fires are scary fast.
David Wilford:
I have some UNkind words to say about your ‘soft atheism ‘ link. This being the Lounge, I won’t add anything more.
*runs into Lounge*
We booked our holidays!!!
Yay Spain, I missed you so much.
Close to Barcelona, close to the sea and in motherfucking Spain!!!!
Did I mention we’re going to Spain?
Not that I have anything against France, but after 6 years in France, I’m really looking forward to Spain again.
Giliell:
Just stay away from the plains in Spain.
Yay for Giliell in Spain :-))))))
DaughterSpawn is finishing her 10 months work experience in Barcelona in 2 weeks time and coming back to the UK ….
(I love Barcelona)
I think I forgot to say a welcome to embraceyourinnercrone… :/ Sorry about that!
Just came home from performing in the first concert in this series dedicated to Bach, and all I can really say is the piece needs a better trumpet player. This guy may be professional, but I really don’t know how he remains employed.
The organ was nice, though. Really really nice. Really nice.
ernezabet
Sorry for the “rocket scientist” joke in poor taste, it was meant to be a humourous call for a dentist for the (imaginary?) commune for Lounge denizens in case the world ever does come to an end.
I’ll stick with just a “welcome in” then, ok? :)
ENDORSEMENT FOR opposablethumbs:
This here is a lovely, quiet yet stimulating, and without a doubt incredibly intelligent (and polite, for what it’s worth!) person and if anyone has a chance to meet her, converse with her and/or let her sleep on your floor, I recommend taking the opportunity; it will not be regretted. Have some ginger tea in stock, though. :)
It was like having a Lounge conversation… in real life. (And yeah, that’s a good thing!)
Lovely person (can’t vouch for the OH, though, but I trust opposablethumbs’ selection in the matter! ;) ).
::blushes furiously:: thank you rq! (I didn’t pay rq to say that, honestly I didn’t)
‘Rupt (kinda)
But it is good to hear that Our Squidly Overlord is on the mend again.
–
I should really be revising instead of posting this, but I’ve spent a lot of time revising lately and I have made weird discoveries about how I work. I should probably note that I’m an inveterate procrastinator of the Wait but why Instant Gratification Monkey style.
But I’ve noticed that I work best when I’m sitting in a position where it’s super-easy to get up, and also if I’m wearing something on feet that feels like shoes – so my slippers, which are like boots, are super helpful. Fluffy socks, like I wear for slippers at home-home, not so much. I find this bizarre.
Does anyone else have weird habits they’ve noticed like that?
Links to dump. All except the last in German.
Erdoğan is said to have beaten two protesters when he visited Soma, after the crowd booed him and he said “such accidents happen all the time”.
“Taner Kuruca told Turkish media that the prime minister had unintentionally beaten him because he was furious at the protesters and had lost control. ‘I won’t sue the prime minister. I only expect an apology’, said Taner Kuruca.”
The other one Erdoğan beat according to the newspaper Hürriyet was a 15-year-old girl who reportedly ran at him while loudly asking “what is my father’s murderer doing here”. Apparently there’s video somewhere in the innertubes.
The opposition is not amused.
Yusuf Yerkel, meanwhile, is “very sorry” for kicking that protester; he had, he says, lost self-control because of “provocations, insults and attacks”. Oh well.
Sepp Blatter is president of the FIFA. That makes him the most important man outside the US. He now admits it was a mistake to let Qatar be the site of the soccer world championship in 2022, clarifies that he’s not alleging bribery, but talks about “political pressure” from France and Germany and adds “it is well known that large corporations from France and Germany are working in Qatar, but they aren’t only working for the world championship”… oh, and Blatter confirmed that he’ll run again for president in 2015.
The Hindu/nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has won the parliamentary elections in India in a landslide: 272 seats are a majority, and it got 282; the Congress Party crashed and got only 46. The coming prime minister, Narendra Modi, won’t need to look for a coalition partner. However, that also means he won’t be able to blame a coalition partner if he can’t fulfill his many promises: 10 million new jobs, better infrastructure, money from foreign investors, more efficient bureaucracy and an end to corruption.
That last part promises to be difficult. Modi used a private jet and a helicopter to get from one of his 437 campaign events to the next, totaling 300,000 km (a light second). This was apparently financed by investors from in- and outside the country. Commenters in India say “Modi ows many favors to many people” and “clean work is impossible in India”.
In 2005, the US refused Modi an entrance visa because of his role in anti-Muslim riots in the state of Gujarat which he governed at the time. The article speculates that this might move Modi closer to Russia, while a commenter it cites says Modi will try to be a hardliner on foreign policy and will need allies for that – implying that he likely won’t get any.
“Please donate to D[emocracy ]F[or ]A[merica] now so we can ramp up our campaign to push back on corporate power and save Net Neutrality.” Only open to US citizens & green-card holders.
opposablethumbs
Well, it’s all true. :) I only wish I had more time in London that time, but I’m having heathinish thoughts about a ticket coupon which includes a London destination that I’d have to use up by early September…
Sarahface
Not sure about the slipper part, but I need at least two sources of (different) music to study well. Or TV and music. Something about the conflicting sounds becomes like white noise in the back of my brain (lots of space back there, empty as all hell!), and helps me be more focussed. That, and intermittently being on the computer.
+++
OH And I forgot the highlight of my evening, which may sound silly to the lot of you.
The Story: one of our National Opera soloists is travelling with the choir to Canada, and I needed to get some sheet music from her to send to Canada for the accompanist to prepare, so after our debacle at the Riga Dom (she was also soloing there, lovely voice for a soprano – sorry, sopranos, I’m just not usually a fan) we wandered over to the Opera, and she let me in through the back door and up through all the Sekrit singer/dancer hallways to her dressing room, but because a show was in progress, she snuck me down backstage (like back behind the real stage!!!!) to listen to a fantastically hilarious (if incomprehensible – it was in Italian) duet in the Barber of Seville. I was backstage at the Opera!! It’s a small thing, I know, but so very delicious. So very delicious.
PS I love you all.
Indeed. The trains in Spain don’t flood nearly as often.
On “rocket scientist”…
My father was one. Well, more accurately, a rocket engineer (mostly working on solid fuel engines), but that distinction is not important as such. Anyways, whenever someone said something about “rocket science”, my comment / reply was generally “Let’s ask dad!”
(No-one ever actually did take me up on that…)
If you do, you’ll let us know, right!? I’d love to try and catch up with you a bit more!
The Maddow Blog takes a closer look at Republicans as the “anti-science party.”
opposablethumbs
I’ll certainly let you know! :) I’d love to catch up more!
For all the people s(t)uck in USAlienstani, soon will be yer chance to experience a bit of Teh Real World™ yer about to be invaded by Kakapos: The New Zealand All Blacks will be having a disagreement with the Eagles at Chicago’s Soldier Field on November 1st. This is yer change to see a true football game.
It’s not the USAlienstani gridiron, where armoured refrigerators clank about and don’t use their feet, or soccer where they do use their feet but only because they are busy adjusting their makeup, this is real football. Well, Ok, not Real Rugby, and definitely not Real Penguin Rugby, but a slightly sanitized version where even edged weapons are disallowed. Which makes it harder to rip off heads, and hence most scores will probably be made with the ball.
2012 was way too late for them to try not being the anti-science party.
Not when using a rose-tinted periscope that only peers backwards into the past: 2012 is, even now, so astonishingly far in the future it’s absurd, like trying to claim Mr Noah didn’t recently disembark now that most of flud waters have drained away…
blf @172:
Well, that’s the price of looking fabulous while one sweats. After some rugby close-ups, obviously a price well worth paying. I’m all for rugby myself, but rugby league is more fun to play and watch.
It just occurred to me, any Pharyngulites in DC for WIS3 want to grab a beverage of choice some time this weekend? The health stuff prevented me from being able to go, but I’d still like to meet people.
blf, did we really need the “feminine=bad” shot about soccer players?
A) I’ve been a soccer player (and later referee/coach/league administrator) since I was 4.
B) I’m also a woman, and sometimes wear makeup. Is that somehow bad?
C) My male counterparts, when they’re playing, aren’t any more effeminate than any rugby player, and even if they were, it still wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Please don’t do that.
blf
I think that all team sports would be improved by a haka or similar by both teams before the match.
In fact they could skip the ball-kicking and decide the match on the basis of the preliminary performance.
CaitieCat @177: So you caught the “busy adjusting their makeup” but missed the “harder to rip off heads”? blf does whimsical irony. I’m guessing Christine Sinclair would have laughed, but who knows? If there’s real damage being done, I’d like to know how.
The real damage is in the continuing association of feminine with bad. I don’t care if it’s whimsical irony or not; it’s misogynist behaviour.
If suggesting that the soccer players were too busy “doing their makeup” wasn’t meant to be a slam, then I apparently have lost the ability to read English, no?
And if it is, as it so obviously seems, a slam, then what’s the slam about? It’s “these men are effeminate”. Well, why is it bad for men to be effeminate? Why is femininity bad? If it’s not misogynist, then it’s homophobic, and I don’t see how either is alright here.
It really isn’t okay, and I’m disappointed you’re defending it, Rob.
Move this make-up discussion elsewhere.
chigau @181 and CaitieCat @180: Yeah, I’ll post a response in thunderdome.
I have been having a difficult time working through “The Fault In Our Stars” because I have a bad habit of letting my tablet battery run down.
I suspect later on the whole teenagers with cancer thing will start making it rough going at some point, the first friend I had who died, died of liver cancer. He was 17.
Mostly I have no use for youtube.
but sometimes I find something like this
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3UASy-aY2T0
enjoy
I insist.
My link #184 is Leonard Cohen and Judy Collins singing.
sorry
Holy shit, they’re making pink Nerf bows now???
rq
whoinhell are
they
and why are they doing anything Nerf
Once again, solitary white man (more or less) saves world.
Be cause we don’t do that to adults, of course. Of course.
Rainbows for everyone!!
As I thought. Nerf Rebelle is obviously modelled on Katniss Everdeen. :P
chigau
They = those people who make nerf
and
Because obviously if girls are going to shoot something, it should be pink and sparkly, none of that bulky, heavy hardware.
rq
I am girl.
(well, wrinkly old lady)
I thought you meant ‘bow’ as in ‘tied ribbon’.
Not ‘projectile weapon’.
(I do shop at a store that sells wonderful backpacks and also *pink* rifles.)
While worrying about my own health recently, I just received notice that one of our best friends here in the US is dying of a rare pancreatic carcinoma in stage III.
She is 28 years old, just had her surgery to remove the tumors and various metastasis and is on a chemo that statistically doesn’t affect her cancer at all (but that is the only known treatment). She also doesn’t qualify for experimental treatments. Her chances of long term survival are purely hypothetical as of now.
Fuck that!!
Projectile (hair)bows should be a thing.
yubal
I’m so sorry, that’s terrible news. :( I can only hope that the hypothetical becomes reality somehow. :(
*[comforting gesture of choice, incl. hugs is desires*
@ rq
there are less than a thousand cases known for her sub-type of cancer. The standard treatment is morphine to take the pain away.
Oh, yubal, that sucks so hard :(
I can only offer the best wishes and thoughts of stranger, and the e-(comforting gesture) of your choice.
—
I also understood ‘bow’ to be ribbon/accessory of some sort, I was trying to envision what it could be. Maybe a one-shot you conceal in your hair? And then when in enemy territory you can take down one of your captors. (Maybe I’ve spent too long with the Assassin’s society…)
*hugs* to yubal
+++
opposablethumbs
I’ve only been to Barcelona once and that was with my classmates after our final exams for about half a day. You can imagine how much I got to see with people who went to McDonalds for lunch because they knew how that tasted…
the kids took teh change of plans well, we were a bit afraid that they would throw a tantrum because they were very fixated on going to the same place again as the last years, but we showed them pictures of the campsite, the beach, the zoo and the aquarium and they were delighted.
yubal
big *hugs*.
yubal I’m so, so sorry. I hope the palliative care is the godsdamn best that human beings are capable of providing. That is awful.
.
Giliell, I hope the girls love it! And that you all get a chance to see stuff you like. DaughterSpawn has only just been up to Tibidabo for a first-and-last time visit, now that she’s almost about to come home, and she said the views from the top are spectacular – plus of course there’s the funfair on top if you and the kids like those sorts of things?
So I follow @ Yes_YoureSexist on Twitter. They retweeted some guy saying if she enjoys it it’s not rape. I correct him, pointing out that enjoyment is irrelevant, it’s consent that matters. He shot back repeating himself.
Now he’s following me.
Now, I’m debating between blocking him and finding stuff to post on Twitter to mess with him.
Yubal, I’m so very sorry to hear about your friend. To paraphrase Robert, I stand silently and respectfully with you in support.
They went to a scarf-and-barf because they knew how it tasted???!?!!!
Monsters!
Largest dinosaur? Paleontologists unearth new heavyweight in Argentina: “Analysis of the 90-million-year-old fossil suggests the dinosaur weighed about 80 tons — the equivalent of 14 grown elephants”.
The new Godzilla cost $160m, these classic foes came in a lot cheaper: “Smog monsters, mutated cuttlefish, oversized kitchen utensils: the giant lizard has faced them all. We salute Godzilla’s no-budget battles”, but some reason, Penguinzilla is not listed despite having also being in a movie.
Well now, this really raises my ire, seems three people committed arson in California — they started those devastating fires on purpose.
Daily Beast link.
Atlanta Journal link.
Lynna, arson is the FIRST thing we think out here in the parched west whenever the Santa Ana winds blow and several fires start simultaneously. And unfortunately, we are too often correct. The hot, dry winds seem to stimulate some sick impulse in the minds of fools.
yubal:
So sorry to hear about your friend. My sympathies.
****
Link dump (apologies if they’re already been posted)
http://theweek.com/article/index/261503/can-the-supreme-court-be-rescued-from-politics
****
This article by Damon Linker criticizes the protests surrounding commencement speakers:
Condoleeza Rice.
Christine Lagarde.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Each woman received an invitation to give a commencement speech (Rice at Rutgers University, Lagarde at Smith College, and Ali at Brandeis University). Rice and Lagarde withdrew as speakers in the wake of protests and objections made by faculty and staff. Ali had her invitation rescinded.
I see no indication that the faculty and/or students at Rutgers, Smith and Brandeis hate powerful women. Nor does Linker present any evidence of such.
What was the opening sentence for this article?
Oh yeah:
If you don’t know the answer, then don’t start your article off with such a presupposition.
****
The power of Outrospection:
****
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/11/benjamin-sack_n_5291115.html
The level of detail is astonishing
Prints can be purchased here.
Bleh. So, I figured out why I’ve been feeling weird the last week. I fucking hate blister packs, and I tend to remove the pills from them and store them in an empty prescription bottle whenever I get one; this hasn’t been a problem in the past. I’ve had a cold, and been taking what I thought was 12 hour Sudafed-generic; apparently I was accidentally taking a leftover prescription of Norco-generic (5mg/325mg codeine/acetominophen), which had worked its way around in the medicine box, instead. >.>
I’ve also had a couple days this week where I’ve been out drinking and had 5 or so drinks over a (long) evening. It’s been a couple days and I feel okay. Anyone have any information about how worried I should be?
Azkyroth
As I understand it, you may have slightly increased your long-term chances of kidney disease, in the same way that if you had decided to spend the last week, say smoking 4-5 cigars a day you’d slightly increase your chances of certain types of cancer. That’s the acetominophen. Any problems with alcohol+codeine will pretty much show up immediately; the two effects combine synergistically and make you more impaired than either would alone. There can be worse effects, but once again they’d show up pretty much immediately.
Orange Coca Cola is a thing that exists, apparently. Had some at Five Guys today. I’m not sure what I think about it. It’s not instantly repulsive, but it’s a little odd.
Gworroll:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola_Orange
Ahh, never available bottled or canned in the US, guess that’s why I only just encountered it today.
Got the tablet charged up and reading “The Fault In Our Stars”.
At first, I was thinking “How do people like this book? These characters are annoying and pretentious and trying way too damn hard”. Then I remembered what actual teenagers are like, and realized that John Green clearly does as well.
Then the ramping of of “This book is about kids with terminal cancer” was timed *perfectly*, just as I allowed myself to connect to Hazel.
I’m expecting an emotional roller coaster later on, also(at the start of Chapter 7) to find the book worthy of the praise and myself in line on opening night for the movie.
Losing my friend RJ to liver cancer when we were 17 has made Monopoly(I’ve played it once since playing with him, and it was too difficult to play again) and The Lion King(his favorite movie) very difficult things for me. I’m 36 now. I don’t expect this to be an easy book to read. But so far, once I remembered what teenagers are like, it’s amazing. Sometimes the most worthwhile things can be profoundly uncomfortable.
Hi Lounge.
*bighugs* for yubal. I’m so sorry to hear that.
–
I’m irretrievably ‘rupt.
I’m drinking a large bottle of wine, and thinking about being social. I missed y’all. How is everybody?
You know you’re eccentric when you can make a bartender laugh.
Hi Portia
I’m fine.
I have rum.
This weekend is a long one in Canada and traditional (in some regions) for
**Planting The Garden**
So that is on the list.
I’m just …
I don’t know…
*sob*
Baby bluebird at the local park, courtesy of the Elder Daughter.
http://emilyd47.blogspot.com/2014/05/bluebird-nestling.html
*waving back* at bluentx.
How’s it goin’?
The Carlsbad/Camp Pendleton fires have my attention, ’cause that’s the area where I grew most of the way up. My info tends to lag, though.
(Later)
Good to hear that your sister and BiL are safe.
–
I can’t get into the Harry Dresden or the Garrett, P.I. books. Not sure why; they come enthusiastically recommended by people who know my tastes in reading material. Just…no interest.
I’ll take Bob Howard over either of them, any day of the week.
–
*hugs, or other, non-intrusive gestures of sympathy and support* for yubal.
I’m sorry about your friend.
Fuck cancer.
–
*waving* at Portia.
I’m doin’ okay. You?
–
Anne D:
Neat pictures!
–
cicely:
I’m….not okay, but not dangerously unokay, y’know? Processing break up feelings, but starting new creative pursuits I’m really excited about :)
yubal-
Scrolled past you at first, but yeah… chiming in with the others. Fuck cancer. Liver cancer took a friend when we were 17, brain cancer a cousin a few years later, and I’m constantly thankful that when my grandmother had breast cancer I was too young to understand further than “grandma got sick, grandma went to the hospital, grandma got better”.
*hug* for Portia. New creative pursuits are a Good Thing.
So is the resumption of old creative pursuits; I’ve finished a project I had to put aside, half-finished, about 5 years ago (my left thumb decided it wasn’t gonna hold onto small wooden objects while I painted them, any more), and a friend has asked me to paint a sewing box for his wife—also my friend—for their anniversary. Lucky thing I’ve been able to get some practice in!
–
cicely:
That sounds very cool :) I’ve got a combo of old and new going on, come to think of it :)
I’ve been reading but not commenting, much.
But I have rum, hugs and fire.
*share*
Catnip toy broke. But it’s good — it’s AAAAALL good. *bliss*
I’m gonna make off with one of those *hugs*, chigau, if you don’t mind. Oh, yes, and some of the *rum*, as well. I offer in exchange *mint chocolates* and/or *dark chocolate peanut M&Ms*.
–
WMDKitty, have you
smokedsnortedconsumed all of the catnip? At once??–
*chocolate* gooood
Ononononono, there’s plenty left. (And it’s good shit.) *passes out*
…so, it turns out Cracked.com recently published an article which is kind of hackwork to start with, but contains a shitload of lies about DDT and the banning thereof. I posted a comment, but I wonder if anyone else wants to weigh in….
Hmm. Anyone know anything about growing chervil?
Good morning
opposablethumbs
The kids would certainly enjoy a funfair, me not so much ;)
We’ll see what we get done. We have 2 weeks and some days will be dedicated to not doing shit at all. What we definitely want to visit is the zoo, the aquarium and the Dalí museum, because #1 paints like a young goddess anyway (she’s really good. at her not yet 7 years she can draw characters who move, characters who stand in realistic positions, characters who have facial expressions, scenes with a perspective) and I think that Dalí’s art is easily accessible for kids.
+++
*nomnomnom*7Went to favourite Greek restaurant last night. I thought the kids might explode afterwards because they ate and ate and ate…
Gaming has been around for a long time.
Hi Portia! *hugs* good to see you again.
I first read that as “… growing cheval“, which surprised since about the last thing we need are any more horses. Also, I didn’t think those four-legged buggers where grown on plants, I though they were some sort of an oversized virus, albeit I’m unawares of any vaccine to protect you from them.
Especially if you can do it without saying anything !
Damn you, dependence on technology!
Ah, the glorious life of Latvian CSI: investigating the Missing Cellar-ful of Potatoes. (Submitted evidence: swabs from the lids of jars of preserves. … Because the pickles needed a taste-test to see if they were good enough?)
[/true story]
Why? I mean, consider the alternative: Actually Finding a Cellar-ful of Potatoes.
Admittedly, if you then slammed the door closed quickly, and buried the entire
countycountrycontinent under several kiliometres of concrete, with glaciers on top, then you might have time to escape to orbit to commence the nuking option…blf
And thus destroy the Sacred Latvian Rite of Potato? Nuh-uh. Don’t think so.
I can recommend the SF novel “The first fifteen lives of Harry”.
For some people, you die, only to come back as yourself. But you retain the memory of your previous lives.
It is like that TV show, but on a grander scale, not just 24 hours of getting things right, but a whole lifetime.
Well written and the author knows his physics and medicine. Much recommended.
I don’t know if it is on sale west of the Atlantic yet, but it ought to be.
— — — — — — — — — — —
This week an 81-year old local from Västerbotten county erected a bona fide rhunesone in memory of his dead wife. He had help from local historians and archaeologists to get the details right.
— — — — —
““they are running the multiverses.” … In the charging documents, Baptist said he was a reincarnation of King Tut and Jesus Christ and lives in a world of multiverses where bad things happen to people, and they disappear because they are not real. … ”
We have the next Religious Right talk show host!
“the Sacred Latvian Rite of Potato?”
A Brit stereotype is that Irland is all about potatos (plural of potatoe, to quote VP Qail).
I am glad to see other countries uphold the noble tradition of honoring potatos. They got very popular in 18 century Sweden when people learned how to distill hooch from them.
Latvian Ultra Cricket: Bowelling —lobbing, actually — potota(e)s at people dressed in gridiron armour dancing the haka whilst putting on make-up who then strike — er, mash — the potato(e) for six (a “home-run”…). The fielder’s are there to catch the bits of mashed potato(e) before they hit the ground, cover them in butter, chives, and cheese, and eat them, all before any bits of portato(e) fly over the boundary (“outfield wall”) and into the open mouths of the hungry spectators (“fans”).
blf
That’s if we have time to boil them beforehand. If not, then the raw bits get scraped off the ground (pre-herbed-and-flavoured, dontcha know!) and boiled into a lovely potato porridge, to be shared out communally during the after-party!
Okay, and that comment, in conjunction with some of the comments on the The Horror! thread that just went up, just… yeah. :)
Actually, all the traditional dishes around here are based on potatoes as well, even some cakes…
++++
Uahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I’m getting a “new” sewing machine.
My father in law’s borther’s “ex”*-wife died this week after a short and hopeless battle against leukemia. Now her household is in the process of “let’s see who can use something before we throw the rest away”, so my dad in law said to me “I’ll get you the sewing machine if you want it. It’s a Bamina or something like that”
I said: “Uhm, you mean “Bernina”, right?” “Yeah, you know that brand?”
In case you don’t know that brand either, I always thought that if you’re good in life you get a Bernina as a reward in Heaven.
And I’ll totally not feel bad about getting that machine because I would wish for my stuff to be used by somebody who likes and values it.
*They kind of split up about 10 years ago. They lived their seperate lives but still cared for each other, never got divorced or anything
European bison released into wild Carpathian range http://phys.org/news/2014-05-european-bison-wild-carpathian-range.html
Are bison active after nightfall? They will trample the Count!
Apologies for the world-side shortage of possessive apostrophes. (Bloody Latvin‘s…)
Dalillama:
Thanks, friend, good to see you too. *hugs!*
–
Giliell
How cool that you get that machine – as, like you said, you will uniquely appreciate and utilize it.
Potato(e)s were unknown outside Latin / South America until (and probably a bit after) that Columbus eejit…
“Traditional” — outside of that general locality — and “potato(e)(s)” may be a bit of a misnomer…
(Rather like “Hungarian” and “Paprika”…)
How long does something take to become a tradition?
Are there any official guidelines?
Good to see you ’round these parts again Portia.
I’m sorry you’re hurting. I know it’s pretty meaningless and probably not at all helpful, but I think you’re a pretty outstanding human being.
Potatoes unfried are a crime against tastebuds.
Weekend with the colleagues was an absolute success. I shouldn’t have worried.
I had fun, possibly drank a bit too much but not embarrassingly too much, found out I’m the absolute champion in charades, made barbecue in near-dark and realized that not having played bocce before now was a shameful shortcoming in my experiences.
Lisa Miskovsky – Coming On Strong
Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D42QJGKc-ek
Live http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrc3IMZXGZI
I think there is some DNA from Stevie Nicks….why the hell did not Sweden present THIS song in the European Music Festival ?
I first read that as “I’m the absolute champignons in charades”, which caused me to wonder why your were pretending to be, rather than simply eating, MUSHROOMS!
Admittedly, mining, or even miming, MUSHROOMS! is easy. Usually — the traditional approach — is simply to apply make-up. And a heavy dose of eye-rolling snark.
It’s good to see you Portia, and I hope you’re OK. Yay to Beatrice for a great weekend that totally surpassed expectations, and also yay to Giliell‘s giving a prized possession the real appreciation and good use it deserves.
Giliell
Probably because turnips went out of style – potatoes being the hot new thing on the continent, ya know!
(And yeah, tradition – when does it begin? The UK’s official food is supposedly curry… That’s traditional English fare now? People here don’t know how to live without potatoes. And bread, but mostly potatoes. Noodles? What’s a nooooodle?)
Beatrice:
Woohoo for you having fun. I’m glad your worries were unfounded.
Beatrice
Yay for the weekend!! I’m so glad it all went well.
Bocce, eh? Looks rather fun, actually. :)
Oooh! First thunderstorm warning of the season! I’m so excited!!!
Now to park the car under the right tree………
I’m taking a time-out for a bit. I’ll be accepting ice cream and cheesecake under that table over there.
*covers small corner table with large blanket and crawls underneath*
No gay marriage in Missouri, but apparently we have gay divorce now. I’ve seen the occasional article where a couple is unable to divorce in one of the backwards states, it’s nice to see my current state is at least slightly less backward than some.
http://www.news-leader.com/story/news/local/ozarks/2014/05/17/gay-divorce-locally-paves-way-missouri-couples/2227864/
Good job on the lawyer for finding a precedent he could use to get this moving. Got his client taken care of without big obstacles, and laid the groundwork for a few other couples to get it done.
Hopefully we don’t have to wait too long for the other end of gay marriage to be fixed here.
rq,
And we almost won! It was a matter of just one point.
Take care, rq. Are you taking a time-out from the Lounge too or just from the meatworld? Sending some cheesecake
FossilFishy:
It means quite a bit, thank you :)
–
opposablethumbs:
thanks, :) *hugs* good to see you
Beatrice
Timing out from meat-world with possibly less snark in the Lounge.
I can, however, share this absolutely dee-vine strawberry-rhubarb cheesecake I just made. For best results, one should wait for tomorrow, but fuck that. Creamy, delicious cream cheese base with fresh local strawberries and rhubarb on top? Yeah. Anyone? Just ring the bell and I’ll pass some out from under the table.
YouTube link for Tyler Vigen’s 3:23 minute video about spurious correlations.
Animals link to article about how octopuses avoid tying themselves in knots.
The Guardian link to a collection of images demonstrating “the beauty of mathematics.”
I like the “trefoil knot combining four parallel Möbius strips and a spiral tube running continuously round. Drawn freehand by Tom Holliday, inspired by M C Escher”
Independent news link.
I don’t like the hyperbole “most important underwater archaeological” discovery, but I do think the story is interesting enough to follow.
Superb fairy wrens of Australia teach their chicks a musical password.
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/wild-things/birds-have-clever-solution-cuckoo-conundrum
Missouri’s Republican-dominated legislature manages to be even more condescending toward women:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/18/1299645/-Women-are-morons-That-s-what-they-think
re 266:
Deciding to join the Army was a life altering decision. Proposing to protoWife was a life altering decision. Buying a house was a life altering decision. Joining the National Park Service was a life altering decision. Reproducing with Wife was a life altering decision. Changing my major from mathematics/computer engineering to history was a life altering decision. Drinking a Cherry Coke is a potentially life altering decision. As is having a nice Schimmelpenninck cigar. Every single decision I have ever made has altered my life in some way. Hell, deciding to push a fart, risking a shart, is a life altering decision (or, at the very least, underwear altering decision). And that would be a decision I would regret. All twelve of my knee surgeries have altered my life — for the better. Why am I, a white man, allowed to make life altering decisions on my own, but women need laws to make them think about a decision?
Oh. Right. To the radical right, women are emotional children who should also be legal children.
Beatrice, I’m glad that your worrisome weekend worked out well.
:)
–
Plus, of course, it helps that potatoes, unlike turnips, do not taste relentlessly of the dirt in which they are spawned. Oh, it can be somewhat reduced by the addition of a very great deal of cheese…but what a criminal mistreatment of innocent cheese!
–
Allo!
Back after a hiatus.
Esteleth!
*pouncehug*
–
Hi Esteleth! *hugs*
Hi Cicely!
Just reviewed my LiveJournal for any posts I might want to copy over to my current blog.
And holy crap was I an idiot 10 years ago.
Oggie! I have results for you! LINK
You’ll have to be patient when the page loads for the search settings to kick in. Brandwise, I recommend avoiding HP, I’ve had shit luck with them. The Dells, Asus’ and Acers should treat you fine. There should be about 40 PCs in your price range, all of which have a Pentium i3 or better for the processor.
Remember the hierarchy for processor speed is i3<i5<i7, but price goes up correspondingly. The first one comes up with a i3-3240 which is last years chipset (so still fairly new) for point of reference.
Most the PCs at that link have good hard drive space, and decent RAM. In my opinion, a bit more RAM and a slightly slower processor is a good trade off.
Also, all the ones at that link are sold direct by NewEgg. I've had good experiences with them in the past, but when you go to the "marketplace" it's like ebay. No way to know what you're actually getting.
I hope this was helpful!!
******
Portia *pouncehugs* I love DC. Did I tell you we both got the jobs?!
gworroll:
I know that feel. Of course, I was a teenager ten years ago haha. But still. For me, it’s 5 years ago. : /
–
Rawnaeris
No you didn’t tell me yet, I’m so so so excited for you both. What wonderful news! I’m so glad you like living there, to boot!:D
My BFF lives in Silver Springs, so I need to make a visit out sometime. :D
Portia, yes! Please let me know if/when you make it out this way! I know where the good pubs are on my end of town.
Omygosh that would just be the best.
I might be able to afford it soon:D
AND there’s another Hordeling that I would love to see who lives in the area. Of course, that’s just that I know of. If anybody else lives out there too, I would love to meet up if I make it out there ^_^
‘Rupt, I know. I’ve read them all, since I get the posts as emails, but… well… this:
This is the most stressful couple of days I’ve had since I called off my first engagement a week before my wedding. (Trust me, it was for the best, even if it didn’t seem that way for her at the time.)
That OCPD I mentioned last week/early this week was my brother-in-law (wife’s sister’s hubby). I know all mental illnesses are horrible, but this is a horrible mental illness. Manifests as hoarding, extreme thriftiness and extreme controlling behavior, and the person doesn’t see their behavior as wrong. They have two young kids, 3 and 4.5 months. My SIL staged an intervention to get him to realize they couldn’t go on the way they had been, and it wasn’t terrible until she told him she was taking the kids away for a couple weeks because they can’t live in the house until it is cleaned.
Yeah, so I am home with my kids, ’cause of course someone has to watch them, and my wife is away helping her sister. And there’s really no way this intervention can go well (he learns he needs to go into therapy AND that his kids are being taken away until he gets some help), and I think I am going to hear from my wife in a couple hours and I don’t. And I don’t after a few hours. And I don’t hear anything after several hours. I spend an afternoon unable to concentrate on anything, unable to relax, and with a stomach that is tying itself in tighter knots.
Ray of Light == My wife’s phone call. It went badly, but somehow worked out a little. Or enough, anyway. Kids safe, SIL safe, wife safe. We had great help from folks my wife, and then me, met on a mailing list of all places. Um, better explanation, my wife knew these folks from a mailing list, and then I got to know them because they had gatherings. I crashed last night. I thought I’d be awake later, but I just slid right into exhaustion.
We still have a couple more days, at least, trying to sort out what happens next, but safety seems to have been stabilized. Now the law (Portia, family law? – IIRC) needs to be involved, because there are three states involved. My wife, being an attorney in her own right, has researched the applicable laws, and she has partners in her own firm who have researched the applicable laws, and the SIL has her own attorney, and they have a plan.
But I haven’t seen my wife (except for a Facebook Skype session tonight) since Thursday, and my kids haven’t seen their mother since Thursday night, so it’s still stressful. And our dog, who lives for my wife, has been utterly and totally confused for three days.
Yes, I have elided a lot because it isn’t my story to tell. But it hurts, because my BIL has in all other ways been a great guy, fun to be around, obviously cares about his family and I know this had to devastate him, but I also know that things could not go on the way they had been — it was a bad situation.
So, yeah…. there’s my last week. Or my last few weeks, since the situation has been building for awhile. Thanks for listening.
ajb47 #279
and I’m unhappy because my lilacs aren’t blooming
have some *hugs*
chigau @280
This may not be where you were going, but I thought I had read somewhere that lilacs don’t bloom the same every year? They have years that are better than others. I may be misremembering.
ajb47 #281
I was just going where my ‘problems’ are less problematic.
Scarlatina is in the house, people! This should be fun. :/
Also, the lilacs here are bursting at the seams, in all lilac colours. Started end of last week, and still going strong. Do you think they USB, chigau?
ajb47
*hugs*
And I hope the worst of it passes soon and safely for everyone involved, so that your wife can come home sooner.
Wait… There’s a tornado warning out? For Latvia?
…
It’s not even 10AM yet. What’s next?
ajb47
Good luck!
ajb47
*hugs*
It’s a bad situation, but I’m glad your wife and SIL took steps. One thing I needed to learn the hard and painful way is that you cannot help somebody with any medical issue unless they want help and change to happen. This is double hard when it’s mental health. The only thing you can do is to get yourself to dry ground and you’re not a bad person for doing so.
rq
Stay safe
beatrice
yay for great weekend!
Portia
*hugs* You’re awesome.
esteleth
Good to see you!
+++
Well, we will have another trip to the doc tomorrow with the little one because the surgeon wasn’t in the house. If this happens again tomorrow I might just break down in tears there. I know, I’m whining because we have healthcare and so far our only expenses were fries at McDonalds and some Filly horses after the visits, but I’m slowly at the end of my thether and time.
Did I mention that I have to take #1 to college with me today because school and daycare are closed and my MIL has surgery herself today?
esteleth, it’s good to see you!
ajb47 wishing your in-laws all the least-bad-possible outcomes to this difficult situation. And hoping you and the kids and the dog get to have your OH/their mum/the boss come home soon. This must be pretty damn hard on everybody :-(
Rawnaeris, I missed the good news earlier – congrats and hope it continues to be great!
.
rambling/
No lilac here. But please, please cross all your tentacles it doesn’t rain for us on the 25th, because it’s our long-delayed turn to have the neighbours round for food and wine and fire in the garden (well I say “garden”; what I mean is “patch of earth, and if it rains it’ll be patch of mud”). And I’m really nervous about it. Because it’s always been great when they’ve done it and invited us. So we are bound to screw up, also we are probably going to screw up.
We made candle-holders out of old flan-pots and bits of wire and hung them in front of all the scraps of mirror that there are hidden amongst the ivy (the only things that grow in our patch of mud are ivy and weeds and one big clump of bamboo and about half-a dozen plants in tubs). Also we found this enormous 80s-style red translucent plastic lampshade by the skip at the bottom of the path, and we turned it upside-down and drilled holes round the edge and got a nylon cord over a branch of the big tree and now we have a big red 80’s-style multiple-candle-holder hanging high up in the air in the middle of the patch of mud, floating on invisible string, and it looks totally daft and I really like it. And that won’t work if it rains …..
/rambling
ajb47:
That’s a terrible situation to be in, but I’m glad your wife, SIL and her kids are okay. And I hope that, with time, things will improve.
Esteleth:
Yay, good to see you! :)
–
Exams start tomorrow. On the one hand, I should be frantically cramming. On the other hand, I’m commenting in the [Lounge] and feeling very calm and not-at-all motivated to revise. Not cool, self. (Also in the not-cool pile: the engineering dept scheduling my year’s exams so that in 8 exam-days, I have all 8 of my exams. With *one* day on which there are no exams, because they put 2 the day before.)
rq, please do not get caught up in a tornado. While it would be lovely to hear that you are flying to the UK, I would not want to hear that you were doing this sans plane.
I’m wondering about those weather warnings, because it’s sunny and so bloody hot… Which I suppose is the danger, considering there’s a cold front coming up from Ukraine (thanks, guys!). Or something. It’s just weird, we usually don’t even get tornado mentions, much less warnings, so I have absolutely no idea what I should be worried about in terms of signs of imminent tornadoage. Some cloud cover, probably (currently absent).
And the doctor said it’s not scarlatina, which is good, because all the warning signs that were there yesterday, were gone today, which means Middle Child is just being virusy.
opposablethumbs
haha, Yes, I’d rather take the plane, too. I’m so on the fence about those tickets, because yeah, Canada, but it’s a decent rate, plus I just want to go again, but the thing is I wouldn’t mind taking Husband with me this time, but then it’s twice the price and that’s getting a bit much…
Then again, it’s probably not the last seat sale ever, right? haha, So maybe sometime late autumn again, or next spring, depending on what expenses the house and car decide to surprise us with.
Anyway, your little patch of dirt (mud? hopefully not!!!) sounds lovely, I love the idea of candles near mirrors, and the red 80s style candle-shade sounds amazing. Just the right kind of thing to look totally weird and daft yet totally cool and original and artistic, and can serve as a conversation topic, if all else fails!
I’ll hold some thumbs for no rain for you on the 25th.
Hi all!
It’s another lovely day here.
Took my daughter to the hospital on Friday for a check up following her two bouts of pneumonia. The only thing they could suggest was that she have a booster to one of her jabs as some of her anybodies are a little low. Otherwise she’s fine, which is a relief.
I hope everyone is as well as they can be.
rq tornadoes sounds a little dramatic!
opposablethumbs
If the food is edible and the wine is drinkable, no one will remember any other problems. Your guests will be too busy socializing with each other (and with you) to notice a lot of things. Is it a sit-down or more like appetizers/hors d’oeuvres?
rq
Here’s hoping the tornado watch passes uneventfully.
bassmike
Yay for daughter!
Rawnaeris:
I’ll keep your information in mind (actually looking for a laptop, not a desk top). One that I saw on Amazon was a nice HP which included both Win7 and 8 installation disks. HPs are not the machines they used to be?
ajb47:
I hope the intervention has a good effect in the long run. *hugs*
Giliell:
Thanks:) *hugs* for your rough day – hope your MiL is okay and you make it through this rough patch unscathed.
chigau:
Missed your hello earlier:) Hiya
opposablethumbs:
I’m having my first outdoor dinner party next week too! What’s your menu?
Oggie, botheration, I could have sworn I read you say desktop at some point.
No, HP is not what they used to be. Neither is Dell for that matter, but I’ve had much worse luck with HP. Another brand to avoid at all costs is Gateway.
If you are looking at Windows 8 *at all* save yourself the heartache and spend the money to get a touchscreen.
I personally love Toshiba laptops. I’ve got one that is 8 years old and still runs fine.
Also with laptops *make sure* you get the iwhatever processor. Cintrinos and Atoms are shit.
bassmike, very glad to hear that daughter has passed her MOT and been released into your custody with no recall for further upgrades or remodelling ;-)
Hope you all get to enjoy some sunshine! (It’s sunny! In England! For more than 10 consecutive minutes! What is going on?!?!?)
.
.
Thank you for the encouragement, rq and ajb47 :-) It will just be about a dozen people altogether, so only a few of us, as one of the households we would otherwise have had coming round are away that weekend. I expect we can manage something to eat – it’s not a sit-down meal, just plenty of wine and beer and home-made pizza and assorted bits and pieces, we probably won’t even need knives and forks or plates at all (unless we decide to have salads). Proper home-made, though, starting with flour and yeast and water, I mean. One of the pizzas will be vegetarian (involving much spinach!) to make sure there is plenty for the one vegetarian neighbour. The dog will dress for the occasion (she is a nervous-of-anyone-but-family dog that we got from a rescue centre, having been originally abandoned on the street, so she will have to wear a muzzle for the evening, but you can feed her titbits through the muzzle so it’s ok, and she will probably sulk a bit and then go and lie down somewhere. It’s just in case she spooks at anything, which she does have a definite habit of doing sometimes at completely unpredictable intervals).
OMFSM OMFSM OMFSM SonSpawn will have started and finished his final school exams in one month from now. (A levels: that’s secondary school, not uni, to all you heathen folk ;-) ). I can’t believe he’s almost finished school, how is this even possible …
bassmike
You win for cutest typo today: “some of her anybodies are a little low”. :D
*hugs* for Giliell, sorry I skipped that earlier, hopefully your day has been going well.
Thanks opposablethumbs, *blush* we actually started 6 months ago, it had just been so hectic, that I kinda forgot to tell ya’ll. Portia, you deserve a special apology here since you were helping us with stuff.
***
rq, stay safe, pay attention to the warnings and if they say to take shelter, get to an interior room or bathroom.
***
***hugs refill for teh pile***
rq Tpyos would be my god if I had one! You know, I reread my post to check it and still missed the mistake. *sigh* you all got the idea anyway.:-P
Opposablethumbs I hope the meal goes well. I always get nervous about those kind of social gatherings. They sound like such a good idea when you agree to them, but as it gets closer I worry about having enough food, plates and drink etc.
So, looks like I’m getting at least a temporary flatmate. On Friday, while I was volunteering, my friend Craig texted me a single word: “Evicted.”
I knew he’d been facing down some of the same problems I’ve had: underemployed and low on cash, he’d had to make payment arrangements to keep his rent in order, and then failed to keep the arrangements. When people tell you Canada’s a socialist paradise, they’re not talking about our welfare system, because it’s shit. Locally, the payment is $626/month, all-in. That’s supposed to cover food, rent, transport, and anything else.
The cheapest bachelor flat you can get in this town is about $500/month, in a shithole slum with a sleazebag pimp for a landlord.
So yeah. Not so much with the “enough to realistically live on for a human being”.
Anyway, what could I do? I hadn’t really much choice but to offer him my office/spare bedroom. The place is going to look like an incipient hoarder intervention, with my stuff and his stuff in it (we’re both gamers and readers, and collectors of both media), but I can’t let him be homeless.
What annoys, on some level, is knowing that we have other friends, mutual friends, who, for instance, own three-bedroom houses in which they live alone…but who didn’t offer, even temporarily, to keep Craig off the street.
Me, I looked down into Mount Doom once myself, on March 25th no less, and was able to pull back. Couldn’t let my friend hang over that hole without throwing a rope, could I?
So yeah. Ima have a flatmate for a bit. Could be a bit of an experiment; if we can manage, we may look for a larger flat or a house later together. 3 or 4 bedrooms can be cheaper than 2 x 2-br.
The good news is, we do get along quite well, and we’re both quite introverted and quiet, so I don’t anticipate any issues, and as a bonus, he has Rock Band instruments! So we’ll be able to play again finally. And my partner knows and likes him, and he her, so all is well there. We’re gonna be nuts-to-butts pretty much all the time – I have a 2-bedroom flat, with a small kitchen (about 2.5m square, one counter) and dining room (about 2.5m), a reasonable living room (6m x 2.5), two bedrooms (4 x 2.5 and 5 x 2.5), and a wee little bathroom.
But we’ll manage. And no one’s going homeless.
Yet.
opposablethumbs
Probably unnecessary advice here, but make sure there is one or more non-alcoholic beverages for those that don’t drink alcoholic beverages, or for those who have had enough (voluntarily or not).
Well, no news from MIL yet, but I’ll take that as “good news, FIL is probably picking her up right now”. And #1 was a total champ in college. She was on her best behaviour, reading and drawing quietly. For two times 90 minutes, which is loooooooooong when you’re 6 years old.
bassmike
I’m glad to hear that things are looking up for your family now
opposablethumbs
Those are the moments when I’m slightly jealous of people with gardens.
Well, Mr has popped the question (How do you feel about buying a house?), so maybe within the next few years I might be able to have garden parties as well.
Just in case you or anybody else wants a nice summer salad recipe:
Tortelloni
Plum tomatoes
Mozzarella balls
Basil
Ready made pesto
Vinegar
Just mix everthing, leave for a few hours
Enjoy
Caitie
Hope it works out well
Before I moved together with Mr. I used to share a flat with one of my BFFs. She had a bedroom and an office (she’s a lawyer. Every time she had clients to see her we needed to quickly the the laundry rack out of the way) and I had a bedroom and we both had the kitchen. Worked out mostly fine.
One thing that worked really well was that we had a box in the kitchen for receipts. Every time one of us bought something that was for both of us we would write our name on the receipt and mark the items we bought for the household. Once a month we would do the sums and get even. This might sound like Erbsenzählerei, but it saved us from a lot of grumbling and feeling used. Because sooner or later probably both feel like the other one is taking advantage.
No worries, ajb47, it’s a good point – and in fact we’re usually the ones nipping back for juice (because SonSpawn prefers it and isn’t very keen on beer or wine (though we’d be fine with him having some if he wanted)).
That reminds me, I might get some cider.
We went to a DIY place today and got a tarp which we’re going to try to stretch between the fence and the tree in case it rains but not so much as to abandon ship.
Thank you bassmike. I just worry! About everything!
.
CaitieCat, you are a wonderful getaway driver. Your friend Craig is lucky to be your friend.
Giliell I know we’re incredibly lucky to have access to a little bit of outside space, in the city (and considering we live on an upper floor!). It really is just bare earth, though – bare earth surrounded by ivy – as neither of us know one end of a plant from the other (ok, the fluffy end sticks up and the rounded end goes in the ground … but what if it’s a root ball and not a bulb, then they just look fluffy at both ends. Water? what water? 2000 gallons? Or none? There is no amount of water intermediate between 2000 gallons and none. The few times I’ve ever bought a plant, I ask (verbatim quote) for “something that will survive total neglect”. This is why we like flowering weeds; nothing else can cope). But actually I agree we are indeed very lucky.
*hugs* and sympathy for ajb47.
May normality soon be restored.
–
I…didn’t realize that Latvia was zoned for tornados….
:(
(Later)
Yep.
When a warm front and a cold front love each other very much, tornadoes may be born.
Multiple births are common, right up to Litters of Unusual Size.
Apart from the danger of Rapidly Spinning Winds (and resultant possible Debris Falls), torrential downpours are extremely possible, and hail of wildly variable size.
Did you not have these things in Canada?
Oh, yes…and don’t discount the possibility of Straight-Line Winds of Great Speed and Damage Potential.
–
*tentacles crossed* for opposablethumbs’ forthcoming Garden Party.
*cue music*
–
Best of luck, Sarahface, on those 8(!) exams.
–
CaitieCat, your friend Craig is fortunate in at least one of his friendships.
:)
It’d be nice to have extra hands on the rope, but at least you are there for him.
The slopes of Mt. Doom…nice way to put it. I may have to steal it, if Those Times come ’round again.
–
Thanks, Loungers. Mt Doom came because one of the things I did to keep marginally closer to functional while I was forced offline was A Lot of Reading. I re-read Tolkien, for instance. And I was struck by the coincidence that the date of my eviction hearing (March 25) was the same day Frodo failed on his great Ring-Dunk expedition (but fortunately, the hero of the story was able to save the day, at the cost of his own life *gollum*).
Also, that patriarchy made a lot of the problems in the Silmarillion worse, and some of them wouldn’t have happened at all without it (i.e., Beren/Luthien – if Dad doesn’t own the daughter’s life, then he’s got no business demanding a Silmaril for her hand in marriage).
Sorry for the Salon link, but it’s been awhile since we had a nice hit of Matt Taibbi. Salon interviewed him about his new book The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap. Excerpts from the interview below:
North Carolina conservative politicians want to make a crime to disclose fracking chemicals. Say what? Yes, indeed. Someone is in the pocket of the Big Money guys for sure.
Mother Jones link.
Yes, schools are slowly slipping back into integration. Schools were never fully desegregated after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, but at least some progress was made from 1954 to 1991. Now the picture is bleak.
Mother Jones link.
John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” show is consistently excellent.
Mother Jones link. Scroll down for video clips (three clips).
Giliell, in case you respond in the other thread:
I’m out for a couple of hours and I’ll rejoin the conversation later.
Might do me and the conversation some good to cool down, since I’m not even close to calm right now.
beatrice
Take care
Here’s another gun shot accident, person being irresponsible when handling a gun:
Okay. Not reassuring.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/accidental-shooting-phoenix-wal-mart
The New Yorker recently published (May 26, 2014 issue) an article that details the growth of an anti-government militia on a U.S. Army base, which is a whole new level of irresponsibility when it comes to using guns.
My take: lots of relatively young guys with guns, and with multiple personal problems — all with less than optimal supervision and support.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/phil-gingrey-karen-handel-lgbtq-youth-pride
Rightwing politicians are airing blatantly homophobic ads against their more liberal opponents (including opponents who are Republican, but are too “liberal.”) Shameful.
Scroll down to view the ad.
In good news, it looks like Gingrey is going to lose the primary anyway — unless all the homophobes go to the polls and outvote the few “liberals” who vote in this midterm, pre-election primary.
Children dying from gun accidents:
Texas 6-Year-Old Dies After She Was Accidentally Shot In The Face
Indiana Boy, 4, Accidentally Killed After Finding Loaded Gun In Home
Down-ballot strategies from the far rightwing:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/terrible-republican-secretary-state-seeks-same
Beatrice
Should I even ask…?
(Swift recovery and *hugs*?)
cicely
Thanks for that informative synopsis of tornado weather – and no, I didn’t live in a particularly tornado-prone zone in Canada, either (Ottawa Valley, yo). I remember one tornado that happened in Aylmer when I was… I forget, but it’s the only one I remember, because it went by about two streets from my very good friend.
But yeah, no tornadoes. Probably some smaller ones out in the country (the ones that are more similar in size to water spouts – still dangerous, I know, but it’s no tornado), but nothing on the news except for constant warnings. Large hail somewhere to the south of us (I think Ukraine, again, actually…). Relatively high winds, but nothing particularly extraordinary.
I like how my media source keeps emphasizing the fact that this information is from the new and experimental European weather watch station. (In case, you know, nothing happens…)
Yeah, tornado country in Ontario is more down my way, in the plains of the southwest, between Detroit and Buffalo. We’ll get a half-dozen that maybe reach F1, maybe an F2 now and then, with a decade or so between bigger ones. But it’s a big area, and it’s rare that any given area is under a watch more than a couple of times a summer (and once, recently, in winter).
Think Progress link.
So, a police officer uses a taser on a homeless man, and what does he get? A promotion.
Threadrupt personal insertion…
We just had a gas dryer installed in the basement. Suddenly, the basement smelled of gas. Called gas company, they came and turned off gas. Called repair person and she found a leak at the dryer and an old gas light line that was still connected to the main. In other words, there has been a gas leak in the house for (probably) over 100 years. I’m surprised the thing hasn’t gone boom any time between then and now. Maybe we shouldn’t have been so enthusiastic about adding insulation…
The open U.S. Senate seat for Alaska has attracted some high quality candidates — candidates who are battling to see who can prove they know less about climate science. Sheesh.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/05/19/3439028/alaska-denier-race/
rq and CaitieCat
Ah, well; I’m hazy about meteorology as applied to Canada.
:)
–
dianne
O.O
–
*wanders in*
I got out of class 43 minutes ago. I got home 10 minutes ago.
*sips wine*
Anyone want some?
@Esteleth:
Horribly threadrupt, but I always like seeing your nym and cicely’s around. So I’ll just make myself at home and pour a glass for myself.
Vidal-Fleury for me.
Anything goes for me at the moment. Sometimes I’m choosy, this is not one of those times.
In more positive news, I found an old TA of mine. The one who was captured by
gorillasguerillas in South America.I think ‘wild nights are my glory part 3’ is in the making.
[/drowning in nostalgia]
@Estheleth: I think I’m way past wine. Times like this I wish I lived in Amsterdam…
The gas leak has been capped. We can now safely turn the gas back on…PGW expects to be able to come around to do that on Wednesday or so. Head, meet desk. Desk, head. Pleased to meet you. THUNK!
dianne
Glad you’re safe and that the house didn’t think to make fiery use of that gas leak. :/
A small delay in turning the gas back on, I think, is worth not going up in a ball of flame. :) (I hope your head and desk get on well.)
rq: Yeah, I really shouldn’t complain given what was avoided. And PGW came out to turn the gas off in a VERY timely manner, which was far more important. I really wish they had enough people to be able to turn the silly thing back on today, but this is all about inconvenience, not fiery death and destruction, so feel free to chalk this one up to first world problems…
Incidentally, there was a gas explosion near my house not long ago. Everyone blamed PGW (a publicly owned company). It turned out to be PECO (a private company) ignoring problems until a fire started in an electrical conduit under the street, which eventually burned its way into the gas line and…boom. So I do have to say public company FTW, even if they are slow in the non-emergency stuff.
dianne
As crappy as it is for you right now, I’m glad they have their priorities straight! And maybe they’ll manage a bit earlier (like, Wednesday morning?). Good luck!
Thank you for the crossed tentacles, cicely.
Good luck for your exams, sarahface!
Holy shit, dianne. Retrospective nervous prostration!?!?!?
Hey everyone, the solar roadways project needs funding! They have 12 days left.
Lots of info is also here at the indiegogo funding page.
There’s two frogs croaking in the rose garden (that long melodic *krrrrrrrrrrrrr*) with a backdrop of lightning across the river. Summer, is that you knocking at the door between seasons?
And there was light.
And then the light created all the rest.
It’s behind a paywall that even I can’t get around, but the abstract is fascinating. Hohlraum is German for “hollow space”, “cavity” – no idea why they resort to German here.
Petition to Omar al-Bashir, strongman of Sudan, to prevent someone from being hanged for apostasy after receiving 100 lashes. Not that it matters, but the charge probably isn’t even true – the convict’s biological father, who apparently ran away instead of participating in his daughter’s education, is a Muslim, so the fact that her mother is a Christian was apparently ignored altogether. Oh, BTW, she’s 8 months pregnant (how many lashes would she even survive!?!) and has a child that is less than 2 years old. And she’s also convicted of adultery, because she married a Christian, which is legally null and void when Muslims do it in Sudan.
The 1000 richest Britons are about 15 % richer than last year, and the Queen is only number 285 even though she’s 10 M£ richer than last year, according to this Sunday Times article which is mostly behind a paywall but reported on in this German article. The calculations count real estate, assets like racehorses or art, and shares in corporations, but not the bank accounts, which are of course unknown.
Meanwhile… ah, just read this´for some perspective.
The acute accent (´) is right next to backspace on the German keyboard layout.
Recent spending on negative ads meant to demonize the Affordable Care Act has outpaced spending on positive ads 15 to 1. That may account for your Crazy Uncle’s negative opinion of Obamacare.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/aca-withstands-attack-ad-onslaught
Oh, the petition also goes to Kerry and Hague.
This one goes to Indonesia’s president; it’s about not stripping protection from the area that “is home to the densest population of orangutans remaining anywhere in the world and is the only place where orangutans, tigers, elephants, rhinos and sun bears live in the same forest together.” Exploration for gold and copper is about to begin.
And what does everyone think of this?
*blink*
*blink*
Sheesh. More rightwing failure-to-process-facts oozes out of Arizona.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/az-candidate-says-shootings-committed-by-dems
Howdy, Crip Dyke.
How’s the bag I made working out?
(would anyone mind some TMI?)
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-oregon-gay-marriage-ban-overturned-20140519-story.html
A friend of mine since kindergarten lives in Portland with her wife, and has a kid on the way in a few months. This is just amazing news for them! They love pretty much everything else about Portland, and now their marriage fully counts.
They’re talking about a second ceremony, though they don’t need one for legal purposes, having gotten married in Connecticut a couple years ago. But whatever works for them.
David Marjanović @336:
Historical reasons, I guess. German speakers, and German journals, dominated physics (and mathematics?) for a long time. Wasn’t that long ago that some physics grads in English-speaking countries would learn to read German (My office mate did this. That was in the 80s). Some other German (or German/English hybrids) in physics;
ansatz
gedankenexperiment
eigenvector/eigenfunction
bremsstrahlung
vierbein
I’m sure I’m missing some.
Thank you for sharing that nice news, gworroll! :-)
Not just physics. Germans dominated big chunks of biology for a long, long time, and chemistry — oh, man, but there was a time when it seemed like all of chemistry was German.
I actually found my very rough reading knowledge of German wonderfully useful in grad school, when I was digging through those old seminal papers in developmental biology. It seemed like everything before about 1930 was in German (with a bit of Italian — a lot of famous work was done at Italian marine stations).
Which is why I had to take scientific German in college. Berichte and Beilstein….
One of the most prestigious journals of chemistry is called Angewandte Chemie. Make of that what you will.
Esteleth @348: In another thread, I referred to a paper written by famous Frenchperson Pierre-Simon Laplace, published in 1799. The journal was Allgemeine geographische Ephemeriden. One can run from the Germans, but one cannot hide.
Answers in Genesis is coming here to Yakmanistan. I don’t know if I should laugh or cry. Or crash the party.
Oh, dear! I just broke the ‘Stranger Danger’ rule: “Do not take candy…”. But… but… but it’s been an educational experience, Ma!
Freight delivery truck driver handed me a candy bar. The picture on the package looks yummy but I had to hit Google translate to read the label. The only thing I could translate off the top of my head was: Polska S.A.[…] Warszawa. :)
And here it is (except this packaging has a green background and says ‘orzechowe’ (peanut) instead of ‘classic’): http://www.complex.com/city-guide/2012/10/best-candies-around-the-world/prince-polo
Turn the punch to wine :P
SITE UPDATE
Could someone ask PZ or whoever should/could be asked about how the site update is going? Would be nice to have some news, even if that news is that there isn’t any.
I can’t do this myself because when I click on the links in the sidebar at left it automatically activates the email application that I don’t use. Wish that could be fixed too.
chimera
At least in Firefox, right-clicking on those links will let you copy the underlying email address and paste it into the appropriate field in your email.
Mmph. These beans needed another hour or so of cooking, I’m afraid… >.>
Ha ha ha “Egypt’s military leaders unveil devices they claim can detect and cure Aids http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/28/egypt-unveil-device-detects-cures-aids
They should have used a theremin for sound effects during the demonstration of the sciency-looking device.
I should find a Youtube clip of the demonstration, but I am at work.
— — —
(satire) American Medical Association Changes Stance On Self-Immolation http://www.theonion.com/articles/american-medical-association-changes-stance-on-sel,36055/
— — —
Daily Mash:“Every good thing that happens proves the Conservatives got it right”
-THE heatwave, puppies and the poisoning of Game of Thrones tyrant Joffrey prove that austerity is working, the Tories have claimed.
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/every-good-thing-that-happens-proves-the-conservatives-got-it-right-2014051986693
The Tories are outsourcing everything:
“Nothing will stop David Cameron’s race to the ‘weightless state’ http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/20/cameron-weightless-state-public-services-beyond-control
Outsourcing probation services of serious offenders to companies with a bad track record. What could possibly go wrong?
It’s one of the reasons why German has many German words in those areas where English often relied on the Latin and Greek ones.
+++
Well, another few hours spent in waiting rooms. The little one completely lost her patience and resorted to whining. I can’t blame her, but the problem is that this left everybody clueless as to the actual extend of her injury, which meant another set of x-rays. After she got some bandage back on and we left she started using the arm like normal again when she didn’t move it at all at the doc’s and complained as soon as anybody entered the room….
I decided that college can do without me today. I have to go to work tonight and I can’t be on the run for 14+ hours without any decent break. Call me lazy if you want to…
Giliell You have my sympathies for your problems with the little one. I for one would never call you lazy! You can never be lazy if you have a small child.
Giliell
Sympathies, but I’m glad her arm seems to be well.
You deserve a break, I’m sure the college won’t disappear. :)
rq:
CSI Miami has a theme song.
So does CSI New York.
And so does the original CSI.
My question: what would be the theme song for CSI Latvia?
****
Thanks to everyone who offered parenting tips for my friend.
Giliell:
My sympathies about little one.
And no, I don’t think you’re lazy at all. You deserve a break.
It’s been a bad day. Pain & blood, & now Mary noticed a cloudy discharge from the wound. So off I go to the doctor again.
CaitieCat @301:
Your friend is lucky to have you in his life. You’re a good person, with a good heart and bucketloads of compassion.
PZ:
Geez. So much for being off the pain medication, I suppose.
Ow, PZ. My sympathy. And a thank-you to those helping you.
Tony
The folk song All the village insects waited for my death. Not upbeat enough?
Fine, then – They cancelled the train / due to construction. Is that better?
PZ
Here, I’ll hold some extra thumbs for you, and may the bleeding stop!
PZ
Get well, dammit.
PZ
I’m not a doctor, but I am advising all my patients to listen to chigau.
PZ what Chigau said!
Seconding FossilFishy.
Giliell Everyone deserves a break once in awhile.
Wishing a break for Giliell and a (good as) new back for our rather well-liked Squidly Overlord. Get well, PZ.
Och, PZ, please heal!
I made my own mustard today. Just a basic one – brown mustard seeds, white vinegar, some water. Can’t try it until tomorrow, though. I’m thinking of making some with honey and some white wine vinegar. And I’m wondering if mincing up some basil, rosemary and thyme (since my herbs in the garden are doing well) and using balsamic vinegar might get me a spicy Italian mustard.
Allow me to be the first to say bwahahahahahaha
http://www.timeslive.co.za/africa/2014/05/20/tax-churches-to-stop-accidents-swazi-drivers
Apparently after a prophet said that there would be more traffic accidents in Swaziland, the local taxi and bus operators got together and agreed the problem was too many prophets.
They want a 50% tax on church donations to try and limit their mushrooming numbers.
They have also challenged one that has made a name for himself turning water into grape juice to turn water into petrol. A kombi doesn’t run on grape juice.
Lovecraftian children’s books – good idea or best idea?
Oh dear, PZ! Sending good thoughts and mental imagery of platelets your way. :(
Get better soon, PZed, and stay out of hospitals. They’re even better at growing scary bugs than you are at growing unscary fish.
Kevin:
One fungus, two fungi
Red fungi, blue fungi
Wiggle, bounce, Azathoth
Jump, shout, fly to Yuggoth!
Then when all the stars are right
Out we’ll go on the hills at night
Down down we’ll call an Elder Race
To filter through from far-off space
All our dreams will be dark and hazy
While slowly we all go quite crazy
From briny deep comes Cthulhu’s wrath-
Unless you hurry and take your bath!
If you illustrate and sell it, I’ll take 20% gross, fair?
Conservative activist and rabid fool, D’Souza, has pled guilty (not to being a rabid fool, unfortunately):
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/dsouza-pleads-guilty-campaign-finance
This is a follow up to comment #380. I notice that none of D’Souza’s supporters have withdrawn their support. Many of these supporters are conservative politicians who used the charges against D’Souza to bring their Obama conspiracy theories to a boil.
You know the drill, President Obama is using the White House and the Justice Department to harass conservatives like D’Souza. Alex Jones and The Drudge Report were particularly good at fanning the anti-Obama flames on D’Souza’s behalf.
Rush Limbaugh and Fox News joined the party.
Four U.S. senators demanded an explanation from FBI Director James Comey.
Nobody is sorry. Nobody is saying they were wrong.
Actually, it has. Regularly. Usually on Tuesdays. It’s such a regular and frequent occurrence all the parts have been numbered by now and are easily screwed back together.
As we all know, rightwing politicians and their supporters have been working very hard to restrict voting rights for segments of the population that are likely to vote for Democratic Party candidates. The Supreme Court helped them out by gutting the Voting Rights Act about a year ago.
After the Supreme Court wounded the Voting Rights Act, a bipartisan group of lawmakers came up with a reform bill to heal the wounds. This sounds like a really good idea, but …
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee is Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia and he sees no reason to hold a hearing one the proposed reform bill. Goodlatte claims that there is no evidence of voting discrimination, so, nope, not even a single hearing will be held. (Meanwhile, the NAACP provided the chairman with a report that confirms, in detail, discrimination at the polls and the ways in which voting rights have been abrogated. Maybe Goodlatte can’t read?)
Goodlatte is backed up by the other conservatives in the House, like Eric Cantor, who promises to continue to hold “conversations” (as opposed to hearings and votes) on the proposed new law. Republicans think they can get away with this. They think they can keep some voting restrictions laws in place in crucial states until after the November midterm elections, by which time they hope to control both the House and Senate. Yep, they’ll keep a certain percentage of low-income people, blacks, working mothers, college students, Latinos, etc. from voting and they will be assured of bogus victories.
Someone stuffed into my snailmailbox an invitation to à partiar, « partager sans modération ! » with cheese!
Either they are trying to attract the mildly deranged one herself, or are foolishly confident she won’t show up…
They’ve already got 19 children, but are now having trouble conceiving. What to do? Visit a fertility doctor of course. Today Show link.
The “why” behind all this is God, of course.
Michelle Duggar’s most recent baby was born three months prematurely thanks to preeclampsia problems. She also recently had a miscarriage while trying to carry a 20th child.
WTF is this “catch a baby” thing? Does god toss babies at Michelle Duggar?
Get well soon, PZ.
Back after a 2-week period without a home connection, so completely blogrupt. No disasters during the move to Edinburgh, which already feels more like home than Aberdeen ever did! A lot to sort out in the flat before we hand it over to son and friends in September, naturally, but we’ve made a good start.
Welcome back, Nick.
Watch out for diby.
Welcome back, Nick, hope you get plenty of sunshine on Leith.
diby, thankfully, got hisself banned today.
diby has been banned four times.
Cool. I’ll be in Edinburgh 13-14 August.
An important reminder: When preparing steak-and-eggs,
cowshorses are not the feathered critters who lay steaks, go onik onik, and are caught by spear-fishing. Failure to remember this may result in some cheese disappearing, random evilutionistas falling out of the sky in Edinburgh, and a snickering sound from inside the TARDIS which is becoming rather annoying…@ chigau
Ahaaah…! I was gettin’ confused. For a moment I thought Diby =/= diby.
@ PZ
Get well. Or else! ( “else!” = a certain tardigrade of ill repute kikkin’ a gorilla’s ass. Not much could be worse than that.)
Gregory in Seattle
Here’s the Wikipedia stuff I referenced on that other thread. Your community of editors may already have noticed this, I know.
There’s a serious problem with medical articles. They are not written in an encyclopedic style. They (the ones I’ve seen, and it’s a decent sample) are written in the impenetrable style of actual medical textbooks. There are more Latin words than English. I’m a well-educated layman, but most of it is absolutely inaccessible, to me. If Wikipedia’s goal is to make information broadly available to the general public, the medical entries are an unqualified failure.
It appears that those who write them are trying to demonstrate their knowledge of jargon, or their medical education, or to talk only to surgeons and doctors. Frankly, much of it looks like like flat out egotistic wankery. This style is worse than useless and completely at odds with an encyclopedia’s goal, it seems.
Thanks for considering this.
@Josh #393 – That is one of the side effects of an open-source encyclopedia: with technical topics like medicine, the people knowledgeable enough to edit the article are far more used to writing journal papers than encyclopedia entries. I do what I can with what I know, but there is far, FAR too much for me to handle on my own.
Probably the best way to approach this is to flag articles that are too jargony. This can be done by going to the article in question, clicking the “Edit” tab towards the top right, and adding this to the very top of the article:
{{Technical|date=May 2014}}
Don’t forget to click the “Save Page” button afterwards. Some articles are semi-protected, which means anonymous visitors are not allowed to edit them; you can usually get around this by going through the process of creating a free account. All flagged articles are listed on a special “Attention required” page, so editors who want to work on making articles more accessible know where they are needed. It may take a while before it gets work, but this is the best first step.
A tragic news story about someone getting hit by a train in a tunnel reminded me of something spectacularly stupid I did as a youngster.
You see, a couple of friends and I sneaked into a train tunnel to steal HID lights. To grow cannabis. (At around 100+ watts they weren’t very useful, even. Except for seedlings or saplings.)
There were three of us, a collapsible ladder, flashlights and a tool box.
I never felt like we were in mortal danger, it was more like a big adventure. Even when a train was passing us by, we just ducked to the side of the tunnel and mostly worried about turning our lights off so no one would see us.
And even after we exited the tunnel none of us even mentioned the very real chance of getting hit by a train, we were too busy planning on how to get away unseen. Carrying a ladder and a few industrial lamps.
Hey, I never claimed to be the sharpest knife in the drawer. At least I don’t do shit like that any more.
I have hardly read any articles on medicine, but if they’re like the math articles or the deeper sections of the physics articles I’ve seen ( = impenetrable to anyone who hasn’t studied at least half of that subject already), I don’t think there’s any social intention on the parts of the authors, like trying to show something about themselves: they’re actual publishing scientists in the field who write the way they’re used to. Not every good scientist is a good popularizer.
I agree, of course, that that’s a problem. But it has deep roots in society that I could probably write about all night, so I’ll stop here unless you ask.
I just heard that my own state of Pennsylvania has finally joined the equality bandwagon. Isn’t Jones the same judge that booted ID from public schools?
Thank you for the suggestions, Gregory. I’d have offered to help, but I wouldn’t know where to begin!
David M—good observations.
Heh. I just visited this thread without noticing that I wanted to come here anyway, for a completely different reason: to dump links! Two videos in German:
Chocolate Putin in Napoleon pose, with a crown on his head, holding a bomb behind his back. Made and sold in large amounts in L’viv in western Ukraine.
The EPP candidate for President of the Commission is Jean-Claude Juncker, the EPP being the , the fraction of the European Parliament consisting of MEPs from the conservative parties of the member states. The campaign for the election this Sunday, however, is conducted on the national level, by the national-level parties. So, the CDU (Germany’s conservative party: , Christlich-demokratische Union) puts Merkel’s loveliest smile on the billboards, even though Merkel isn’t running! – The social-democratic SPD does put the SPE candidate for Commision Prez, Martin Schulz, on its billboards, but that may be because Schulz is German. Juncker is a citizen of Luxembourg.
*Jadehawk’s® Totally Biodegradable Confetti™*
Yes. John E. Jones III, appointed by Captain Unelected, is the one who decided Kitzmiller v. Dover. complaints in 3… 2… 1…
Or rather… few scientists are good popularizers. Many could be if they took the time to try in earnest, but that’s discouraged by the system – hiring committees, tenure committees etc. expect us to publish or perish, many of us have grant proposals to write (a grant proposal is about as much work as a paper), we expect each other to peer-review each other’s manuscripts*, and then there’s usually teaching and/or department bureaucracy (which increases drastically as you’re promoted); popularizing isn’t rewarded, unless you write a bestselling book.
That’s what I threatened to write about all night, in a nutshell. :-)
* I just finished one review today, leaving two more manuscripts I’ve agreed to review. Granted, that’s an extreme case, there are several weeks per year where there aren’t any manuscripts on my list, and for most of the rest it’s just one, but it’s not so unusual as to be wholly irrelevant.
Conversations are exhausting. Ugh. Good night!
Bees collapsing all over the place — and now the mystery may have been solved:
Lots more detail at the link.
http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/05/smoking-gun-bee-collapse
Oh, fer fuck’s sake. Way to bolster gender stereotypes, Florida.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/05/rick-scott-school-sexist-girls-boys-florida
Cliven Bundy in Alaska! Well, not exactly, but the mindset is eerily similar:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/dan-sullivan-anwr-invade-martyrdom
Pat Sajak has a twitter account. Is it infested with trolls, or what’s going on here?
Consensus is that this is Sajak posting what he really thinks.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/pat-sajak-global-warming-tweet
Moments of Mormon Madness aimed at New Zealand, anti-gay category:
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/blogsfaithblog/57963492-180/marriage-oaks-zealand-sex.html.csp
More news out of Florida that will make you despair for humankind, or least find Florida politicians to be hopeless cases:
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2014/05/19/3439163/state-rep-common-core-gay/
Well, Charles Van Zant, I’m sorry that I viewed the video of you saying that. I lost a few more brain cells.
Ugh, ugh, ugh. Summary: wife has few if any rights, husband has many, husband gets most of the empathy that should have gone to the wife. Trigger warning for rape.
Think Progress link.
A followup to my post @281 (stressful family issues)
My wife is finally on her way home with SIL and the kids. BIL gave permission for a 2 week out of state trip for the kids so they didn’t have to wait for some kind of court order. SIL had meeting with her attorney today, but I haven’t heard what was discussed or what her plans are other than getting away for a couple weeks.
I am just relieved I now know when my wife will be home. It was an unknown for several days, and it felt like they were one the run. From the cops, from the mob, pick your movie plot.
Now I just have to worry if it is assumed that I will be the day care, which won’t be good for me because other people’s children… not scare me, exactly, but I never know how to act around them. I know how I want to bring my kids up, and I have this worry that I will screw up things other parents are doing with their kids.
And as I am polishing this comment that I’ve been working on for half an hour, I get an email with Lynna’s Florida Common Core post and I have to wonder what “to become as homosexual as they possibly can” means?
I’m at home being completely unproductive (I need to get *something* done today). I have the radio playing in the background and suddenly I hear the radio host mention a new product: drinkable sunscreen.
This was quite jarring, so I figured I’d check it out.
The Guardian has something to say about The Mail’s reporting on this product.
From The Mail (www.dailymail.co.uk/ *):
*The Mail’s site contains something called donotlink.com. I’ve never seen this before. The link says:
Interesting.
Dr Johnson’s site is
‘ osmosisskincare.com/Research/Dr_Johnsons_Corner_July_2012.aspx ‘
Tony @411 re donotlink
Our Overlord has used it when posting a link to places like VD’s site, and wehuntedthemammoth, nee manboobz, uses it, too.
ajb47:
Thanks. Sometimes I don’t notice these things.
Tony
I notice because I habitually hover over links to see what they are/where they go before deciding to click on them. I get annoyed when the status bar isn’t on by default when a browser is first installed. When I see donotlink, it’s a good indication that it’s not a site I want to visit anyway.
Josh!
*pouncehug*
–
Lynna, that is a load of depressing news you bring.
:( :( :(
I believe I need to go play my Civ III game for a while, now.
–
I don’t post often but this is a reason to celebrate: Sometime later this year I will become a resident of the state of Georgia, which is not known as a bastion of reason. However, tonight’s election returns mean that neither of these idiots will be my U.S, Senator:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/06/paul-broun-evolution-big-bang_n_1944808.html
http://jezebel.com/5881642/meet-the-komen-exec-behind-the-planned-parenthood-defunding
That flouride guy is back at my blog, posting his ranting on a Pat Sajak post.
Did a little digging to see how much of a nutter he is, and oh, a public facebook post making it clear he’s automated his comment spamming.
PZM@390,
Hope to see you then! If I ever knew what’s bringing you to Scotland this time, I’ve forgotten. Just coming for the festival? Taking part in it?
Nick:
Good to have you back (I enjoy reading your comments) and glad that the move went smoothly.
Do I Sound Gay:
This could be interesting.
I had issues with “sounding gay” years ago. It took some time to chip away at that bit of internalized homophobia.
I got 2048.
ajb47
*hugs*
I’m pretty good with other people’s children and one of my “tricks” is that I treat them as people. I find them generally interesting individuals who have something to say that is worth listening to and it generally works well. Those kids are having a pretty hard time right now (well, the babe probably not so much) and one of the totally magic sentences I found is “I understand that you’re sad/angry/frightened” It moves the issue from you being mean (because you insist that smaller kids are not to be tortured) to everybody being allies who are together in a situation where they have to deal with things beyond their control.
+++
Well, better day today
I am productive!
Giliell productive is good.
Nick glad to have you back here and settling nicely in Edinburgh.
Josh haven’t seen you in the lounge for quite a while. Nice to see you here.
A question to all parents: Do the shorter days of summer make a two year old sleep less? Is there any way to keep them asleep? Yes, I am having this problem, why do you ask?
bassmike
Yes
No
The only thing I’ve found to work is that I insist that they go to bed at the usual time and then be quiet. Alternatively they can sleep in the larder so they won’t keep their sibling from sleeping. Maybe you could darken the room?
Giliell we’ve made the room as dark as is physically possible: we have a travel blackout blind attached to the window, a ‘normal’ blind pulled down over the window and blackout curtains! This is when I wish British houses had shutters like the rest of Europe has.
I’m sorry, this is old old news but I hadn’t seen it before. UKIP impress me enormously (NOT) with this image in their old 2010 election leaflet:
a man (no idea who he is) dressed to look like the stereotype of a Native American “chief” with the caption “He used to ignore immigration … now he lives on a reservation”
.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/02/ukip-party-bigots-lets-look-evidence
.
(the image to which I refer is right at the bottom of the article)
I cannot fucking believe how low they went with this.
Appropriating the image of an oppressed minority; equating British whites with that oppressed minority; playing on xenophobia and economic fears to encourage bigotry against other oppressed minorities. Using a racist image to actively encourage racism by making racists feel like they are the victims of racism ….
way to go, UKIP.
We had vague success with darkening the room, but the main idea was keep to the same bedtime, and if they don’t want to sleep right away, they can have a small light to read for a bit (limited time offer). After that, it’s creative-thinking time until they fall asleep.
Sometimes, weather- and time- and [everything else]permitting, we’d make sure to run down their energy reserves outdoors (basically take them outside and keep them moving as much as possible, which they mostly do on their own anyway). This has also yielded mixed results in the past, though it does help with keeping them asleep slightly longer in the mornings / tail-end of the nap. Requires determination and dedication on the parents’ part, though.
Also, I found that, for all of them and no matter the season, around 2 years their sleep patterns made some changes, so you may just be in for shorter sleeping times.
Good luck, bassmike!
From everything I’ve seen and heard, opposablethumbs, UKIP is a terrible organization.
Oooookaaaay… Pre-EP election go-vote videos. One from Denmark (o, bastion of progress!) and one from Latvia (o, bastion of morality!). (The point being that, due to EU regulations, each school will have a class on sexual minorities, with the subtle underlying message that the teacher, who cannot be traditionally defined as either male or female, will be ‘teaching a lot to these children’. Yeah. Because educating children about the fact that cis-hetero relationships are not the only awesome relationships is a bad thing.)
I am… Just wow. In a bad way.
Plus the Latvian one was linked to from an article on getting people to vote in general, and the article included a picture from some guy’s campaign poster with the slogan “I will not give our children up to Europe’s pedophiles” (because gays = pedophiles, and educating children on the beauty of other relationship models = succumbing to the Gay Agenda). And these are people who want to be in the EP??
Oh. And Latvia’s chief catlicker has gone out and in public interviews told people not to vote for parties that plan on expanding gay rights.
‘Gay rights’ are being used – used to scare people, to drive back progress, and to insist that society is falling into moral decay, whereas those issues that should be addressed (corruption in government, poverty, government support for unemployed people and health care, etc.) are completely ignored. Just – if they’re pro-gay, don’t vote for them, they’re going to steal your children. Because that’s what gays do!! Amirite???
[/frustrated]
In more positive news, I think that last night Husband finally understood that homosexuality is not a choice. Long story there, but if you say ‘It’s not a choice people make’ enough times, eventually it will be heard.
Thanks rq , you and Giliell are, as usual, very helpful. As you say her sleep patterns are probably changing. She’s moving up a class at nursery next week, so we’re speculating that part of the issue is that she’s not being stimulated enough at the moment and therefore not getting tired. We’ll find out next week! Also, we’re trying to reduce her nap time during the day. I don’t think she’s far from dropping the nap all together.
All this combined with the warm weather we’ve had makes identifying a single issue impossible. Of course, there probably isn’t just one factor anyway!
The joys of parenthood.
I have nine days to get ready. And lie about my age. (New athlete selection for the Latvian skeleton and bobsleigh teams.)
I’m sorry, but this is just a hot car.
bassmike
Single-factor issues are like unicorns: they exist only in fables and dreams and theoretical science. :)
And I just remembered: FossilFishy, I never thanked you for the bicycle tyre advice previously!!!! I’m so sorry. I was even excited to have such a long answer because you listed things we hadn’t already thought of, but at the same time, it was nice to know that some of our attempted solutions were spot-on.
(That being said, we haven’t actually got around to the process itself.)
rq :
Agreed!…..or as albums by Camel
Those UKIP people sound like the Tea Party.
gworroll pretty much! They started as a protest party against the UK’s participation in the EU, but now embraces racism, homophobia and sexism. They lie on their campaign leaflets (nothing new I guess) and their leader is ironically married to a German. So add hypocrisy to the ever-lengthening list of negatives. They’re never getting my vote, but some people have been taken in.
bassmike
The story I read had them protesting against outsourcing easy jobs to foreigners (“They come here to steal your job!”) yet had their leaflets handed out by… Latvians (no kidding).
rq that doesn’t surprise me! Their leader’s wife (as I mentioned, she’s German) is also his secretary. When asked why he couldn’t get a British person to do the same job he gave out a lot of bluster, but no substantial reason. So add nepotism to the list!
PZ, please help the Scots to, wossname, secede? Or de-unite (as in United Kingdom). That way, they get sort of a water-proof bulkhead protecting them when Cameron’s stupidity makes the rest of the island sink into the sea.
(I like England, BTW. Too bad it is ruled by utter tossers*)
*this is not a gendered slur, is it?
Before I shut up about UKIP, I’ll just add that there is a remarkably large amount of support for them. I think partly because Farage (I understand that this is a French name and it some point in the past his ancestors were immigrants to the UK themselves) is perceived as a ‘man of the people’. He drinks pints at the pub and enjoys a cigarette. He also has the most irritating grin on his face when he’s being insulted. I have a sense of foreboding that UKIP are going to do very well at these MEP elections.
I going to go and lie down in a darkened room for a while if that’s ok.
How do I help the Scots secede? Show up in Edinburgh with my face painted blue, and lead an army of pikemen on York?
The good thing about UKIP is that when we evil atheists take over, we will know which people can be harvested for organs* without too much harm to society.
— — — — — — — —
“Major meteor shower could delight N. America May 23-24″ http://phys.org/news/2014-05-major-meteor-shower-america-.html Alas, in Europe the sun has already risen at the time of the expected maximum.
*and Soylent Green
I need to get to Scotland one of these days. The one immigrant ancestor I’ve known was from Glasgow. I wonder if her old home is still around? It might be a challenge just locating the records I’d need to track down her old home, and unless it’s still in the family the odds some random American would be allowed in to just look around are probably about zero.
Bonus to a Scotland trip, it wouldn’t be too difficult to get from there to England and Ireland where most of the rest of my ancestors came from.
You know, some days I really wish the UK would just get out of the EU*, crash their economy completely by doing so and then come begging to be let in again and developmental help after 10 years.
But then I remember that those who would pay the bill would not be the Camerons and Faranges of the world
*and I don’t even like the EU
Bought new provisions for work, because someone ate all the rest of my chocolate covered sour cherries. I have no idea who, but that person is currently feeling the pain and anguish of my currently rather intense mental ire. Hopefully a lightning bolt or two.
How can I booby-trap my food to avoid such instances in the future?? I’m pretty sure my colleagues can figure out raccoon-proof containers. Something with more of a jolt would be lovely.
rq
Chocolate cherries made with exlax.
That is evil.
For any of you UK people, we’ve now set the dates for my three speaking engagements there this summer:
8-10 August I’ll be at the World Humanist Congress in Oxford.
12 August: Hebden Bridge.
14 August: the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Do come to something, it would be nice to see you all.
Up-thread the fact that I sometimes post a fuckton of bad news was noted. Yep, that’s true. Better we know than not the know. Here’s a mix of good and bad news.
The Georgia Republican candidate, Jody Hice (also a pastor, male, white), that thinks secularism causes STDs and crime — that guy won in the primary election. Bad news that such a guy can even be a viable Republican candidate, and bad news that the “Constitution Party of Georgia” exists.
Good news, Hice is fodder for parody and everybody is noticing. Hice will make laughing at far rightwing politicians easy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/20/opinion/primary-day-on-the-far-side.html
I am gleefully anticipating more Jody Hice moments that top the “I am not a witch” and the “legitimate rape” comments of bygone Republican campaigns.
Meanwhile in schadenfreude news, an Arkansas candidate who pushed hard for voter ID laws that would restrict voting rights forgot his ID and was turned away at the polls. He retrieved his ID and voted later, so according to him, “a little inconvenience” was the only problem his sponsorship of voter-restriction laws caused.
Raw Story link.
Okay, more bad news. You can be arrested in Iran for video-taping happy people lip syncing and dancing to the Pharrell Williams song “Happy.”
Good news, that a bunch of people in Iran made the video in the first place, and that many of their fellow Iranians are outraged by the arrests.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/20/young-iranians-arrested-for-being-happy-in-tehran/
Oh, fer fuck’s sake. Trigger warning for rightwing writers being clueless about rape.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/national-review-liberals-brainwash-rape
This is a follow up to comments #380 and #381. Yes Dinesh D’Souza pled guilty to violating campaign finance laws. Then he went on Fox News and soaked up some love and hugs and softball questions, and, no, Fox News is not dropping him as an anti-Obama hero who is being unfairly targeted. So predictable.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/dinesh-dsouza-megyn-kelly-interview
I need something cheery to watch/read. I just finished “The Fault In Our Stars”. A novel about teenagers with cancer.
I was literally fighting back tears so I could finish it. John Green got SO MUCH right about what it’s like to watch someone you care about facing cancer as a teenager, when you are a teenager yourself.
Lynna:
*raising hand*
That would be me.
Oh, I wholeheartedly agree! Ignorance doesn’t help, often enables additional Bad News Things.
I was just caught at a low moment.
No criticism was intended!
–
This is a follow up to comment #450, more delightful coverage of Jody Hice, possible successor to Paul “evolution is a lie straight from the pit of hell” Broun in the U.S. Senate.
A few Hice highlights:
– homosexuality causes shorter life spans and depression
– same-sex couples cannot raise healthy children
– the gay community has a secret plot to recruit and sodomize children
– Muslims should be stripped of their first amendment rights
– Christians are being persecuted for speaking out
– states can nullify federal laws
– the real reason for the Civil War is still being debated
– advocates for women’s reproductive rights are just like Nazis
– abortion is genocide
– President Obama’s “slogan” should be the “hammer and sickle”
The above list is based on info in a Mother Jones article.
Remember PZ’s recent post about Jennifer Longdon, the guy owner and gun safety advocate who was assaulted in an airport? Well, right-wingers are now claiming that the whole story of a gun owner angry about Longdon’s gun reform stance spitting in her face and pretending to execute her with a water pistol — they’re claiming that story is a hoax. So predictable.
Nope. Not a hoax.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/05/guns-bullying-spitting-jennifer-longdon-dana-loesch
cicely @455, no problem. I didn’t take it as criticism. And I fully understand your reaction, which is often mine. It’s a combination of WTF and “Oh not again” combined with a wish to hide somewhere — to hide where none of this craven, beetle-headed shit can affect me.
Thanks to lots of news coverage of inadequate health care for Veterans, along with false reporting about supposedly timely care, Republicans have a new stick with which to beat President Obama. These are the same Republicans who chose three months ago to block expansion of healthcare programs for veterans.
Quote is from a Reuters article published in February. BTW, “partisan fighting” should be translated in this case as “Republicans filibustered the bill.”
Republican mean fuckers hurt urban children a little more.
You poor kids that live in urban areas, no summer lunches for you!
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/wtf–15
She sells sea shells on the sea shore! It’s 215 years since Mary Anning was born, and Google celebrates… at least in some places.
“On Sunday, Germany’s impressive streak of renewable energy milestones continued, with renewable energy generation surging to a record portion — nearly 75 percent — of the country’s overall electricity demand by midday. With wind and solar in particular filling such a huge portion of the country’s power demand, electricity prices actually dipped into the negative for much of the afternoon, according to Renewables International [link].”
Lots of doctors in the US prescribe antibiotics for bronchitis when they shouldn’t.
Then I made the mistake of opening an e-mail from Daily Kos with links to articles. I clicked on each one. Here are the first two:
Stephen Colbert about and with Elizabeth Warren! With plenty of transcript for those like me who don’t have access to the videos anymore.
“What part of the right to light a forest on fire do you not understand?! GunFAIL LXIX”
From there:
“Americans are nothing if not self-reliant bootstrappers. And 16 of our fellow American do-it-yourselfers did it to themselves last week, no doubt putting an effective stop to several potential crimes once the would-be perpetrators saw that the work of shooting others had already been done for them. We likewise owe a debt of thanks to the four patriots who selflessly shared their scarce ammunition with neighbors, without putting those neighbors in the embarrassing position of having to ask for it. Even tiny Gothenburg, Nebraska (pop. 3,574), did its part, contributing two GunFAIL events to our latest list.
In other news, we logged five hunting accidents last week, plus one widely reported incident in which a 79-year-old Ohio man says he mistook one of his neighbors (and hired farmhands) for a groundhog, and shot her to death. Perhaps somewhat ironically, she was lying prone on the ground, target shooting with her own BB gun at the time. Speaking of which, four other people were accidentally shot while practicing at gun ranges last week. Additionally, five law enforcement and/or security officers were injured by accidental gunshots, as were 10 minor children, aged 4, 6, 8, 16, 16, 16, 16, 17, 17 and 17.
[…]
Also worthy of note: Last week saw three Missourians accidentally shot while turkey hunting. And in a side note about the importance of framing, a tip of the hat to the Associated Press, which noted in its coverage of the third accident that it was in fact the first such accident in 14 years… to take place specifically at Smithville Lake. Good to know!”
And then comes the list of 45 incidents.
A Woman With Perfect Grades Is Worth The Same As A Man With A 2.0 Average
If they arrest you, tell them it’s performance art for the Fringe Festival.
I’d even come to Edinburgh to watch this happen.
Religious Right Activists Working To Water Down Air Force Rules On Religious Coercion
And … this is why we have so much trouble getting immigration reform through the U.S. House of Representatives. The politicians are being funded by and pressured by PACs that are run by nutballs.
No comment necessary. WTF moment for sure. One of Harvey’s favorite backdrops is a big banner that reads, “Homosexuality Nothing To Be Proud Of.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/linda-harvey-hiv-prevention-drugs-lead-racial-cleansing
much blue
so HTML fail
wow
Still, all 5 links work, and they haven’t spread to text that isn’t about them. :-/
Here comes the next load:
“I don’t really care whether or not Marco Rubio has ever smoked a joint, but it’s hilarious how much thought he’s put into explaining why he won’t say if he has”…
“Yet another GOP candidate for Congress: same-sex marriage is like losing a parent in a car accident” for unspecified reasons. Figure legend: “Rifle? Check. Pickup? Check. Giving away guns as prizes? Check. [link to source – the candidate’s Facebook page]”
“Texas man could get 5 years to life in prison for pot brownies”
Evidence that Republican candidates accept the science of climatology, but pretend otherwise in order to be reelected. Also, “Scholars at Tai Da University told me last time I was in the Republic of China that the average Asian High School student scores higher on international math tests than the average American college graduate”; “Tai Da University” must simply be the University of Taiwan, Táiwǎn Dàxué, abbreviated Táidà.
“India transforming ‘Chicken in Every Pot’ to ‘Solar on Every Roof’” – “The new Indian government has set a major initiative to change this situation radically and rapidly: ‘to harness solar power to enable every home to run at least one light bulb by 2019’.” And yes, that’s the nationalist/Hinduist Bharatiya Janata Party which just won the elections in a landslide.
“NC Republicans shill for industry in bill that would jail anyone who discloses fracking chemicals”
“NRA comes out against #BringBackOurGirls campaign” because The First Lady @FLOTUS joined it.
cicely! *pouncehug* *chocolate*
I’ve seen campaign ads for Juncker now. They’re tiny.
Sure – I just didn’t expect such a simple word for such a simple concept to be taken over. The perhaps most similar case I know is Zahnreihe, but while the literal (1 : 1) meaning of that is “toothrow”, it does not refer to an actual toothrow in English – it refers to patterns in abstract representations of tooth replacement, rows of teeth and future teeth that lie at an angle to the actual toothrow.
Let me guess: “about 1930” is precisely 1933?
o_O
O_o
Young padawan, I’m familiar with that meme. The extreme right on the mainland has been occasionally using it for decades.
I don’t think it was overnight, but the mass exodus of scientists (most notably Jewish scientists, but not all) from Germany (and the places under its power) and the associated smashing of Germany (culminating in ’45) was undoubtedly part of this.
Home from the optometrist. My eyes are fine. Prescription has barely budged in a year.
Optometrist was mildly alarmed when I explained that I must remove my glasses to read and said, “Someone your age should not need bifocals, and you show no signs of macular degeneration, glaucoma, or cataracts. It’s probably muscle weakness. Do eye exercises.”
Then he did the test where he put drops in my eyeballs to dilate my pupils.
That test was also fine, but hot damn does everything look strange!
Esteleth:
I hope you don’t start seeing jesus on pastries…
David!
*pouncehug with hand dipped artisan chocolates*
:) :) :)
–
I could actually make Edinburgh happen, financially. There’s the problem of 1. getting vacation time on that particular date and 2. going all alone by myself alone.
Aggravated alliteration:
Vanhooydonck, B. & Van Damme, R. 2001. Evolutionary trade-offs in locomotor capacities in lacertid lizards: are splendid sprinters clumsy climbers? J. Evol. Biol. 14: 46–54.
Yay!
O_o
Last time I got that, I was reading while it was kicking in. I remember that my reading distance increased and increased and increased…
*nom nom nom*
There are at least two fossils somewhere in Scotland I need to gaze at sometime soon. I need to check if they’re in Edinburgh; they probably are.
This year’s winner of the annual tarantula show.
Beatrice
Alone? Hmm. Should I give Alan Rickman a call…?
(More seriously, I’ve been pondering Edinburgh myself. Because.)
Alan Rickman, rq and David?
(you will excuse me for putting Alan first, but, you know…. you know)
I haven’t actually thought much about my summer. Hmmm, 13 or 14-17th August (since there’s a convenient weekend there)…. What an idea!
I wonder how late I can get train/plane tickets and a reasonably priced room.
Beatrice
I forgive you. Because it’s Alan (and, presumably, a phonebook).
Um, yes, a phonebook. Of course.
If ever confronted with Alan Rickman, I think I would melt into a giggling puddle of fanish *squee*. Or something similarly disgusting. I don’t think there exists anyone else who would have an effect that bad on me.
David M. @468, I saw that news about making it a crime in some states to disclose the chemicals that are used for fracking. My bet is that ALEC, with funds from the Koch brothers, wrote model legislation that we will see in other states soon. That anti-disclosure gambit makes me quite angry.
As for the NRA and the “BringBackOurGirls” campaign, the NRA is in knee-jerk mode. They’re in that mode most of the time.
Here’s some news about the kidnapped Nigerian school girls: Washington Post link.
This should get the Cliven Bundy’s of the USA in spitting-mad mode:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/05/21/department-interior-takes-over-white-house-instagram
Good night, all.
This is a follow up to my comment #450:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/meet-jody-hice
In other news, major spill of bees (maybe 20 million of them) on a Delaware highway:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/05/20/bees-delaware-highway-ramp/9357161/
Good night, Beatrice.
Ah, another version of a Donald Sterling type shows up in sports management:
Slate link.
I know there are other Pharyngulites in this general area, so as a Public Service Announcement:
Health Department: 5,000 People May Be Affected From Hepatitis A at Red Robin.
–
Cicely-
I saw the initial “the health department is about to release some info” posts on Twitter.
I was kind of worried. Less so once the details were released, given that I’ve never eaten at Red Robin.
It has a more specific meaning than ‘cavity’ in English, or hohlraum in German. See also chaise longue.
Also, the English liked to use foreign words to make them appear learned.
Ebay has been hacked:
gworroll, I was initially quite concerned, since my best friend and our families ate there not so long ago—but fortunately, well before the bracketed timespan. I warned them anyway, because Red Robin is quite a favorite with her family, and they pass through here fairly often, shuttling grandkiddies back and forth.
–
What effect does coffee have on your brain?:
____
How poorly do tech companies pay their workers?:
Asus, Dell, Hewlett Packard, Nintendo, Sony, Nokia, and Panasonic are just some of the companies examined.
____
Time lapse video of a supercell thunderstorm over Kansas.
CEO of Levi Strauss says “stop washing your jeans”:
I laughed at their recommendation to freeze your jeans to kill bacteria…
Trigger Warning: sexual assault
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.
.
.
.
.
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This awful story is another example of Rape Culture.
I’d dearly like to know why the principal did not intend to call the police.
One more thing bugs me about how this assault was handled:
He’s been charged.
There are guidelines that the Superintendent claims “are being followed at this time”. WTF? Where’s the 10 days suspension and expulsion then, you fuckwit?
@Tony!
Brutal and enraging.
But are you sure that the Lounge is the place for it? I’m not saying posting it was inappropriate, but I do kind of wonder.
I tend not to shy away from reading things that outrage me, because I want to know what’s wrong in this world if I’m going to fix it. But others like their lounge more soft-cornered.
Are their people here who would rather see critiques of rape culture shifted to the Dome when they include details of assault and general douchgabbing rape apologia?
I’m honestly not certain what the accepted norms are for this kind of thing in the Lounge, but I’m supposed to know as a monitor, so anyone with an opinion can add their 2bits to my education.
Dear semi-rapid cycling between depression and not-depression; fuck you and the hole you climbed out of. Think it’s time to see a doc and actually get on meds because I’m super duper cranky at my brain.
‘morning!
Rowan,
Best of luck with getting help for your depression.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-internet-pitfalls-faced-by-socially-awkward/
Luckily, I don’t have Facebook, but 4 is very much true for me, 3… somewhat. As for 1: I used to hate smilies, but now started to use them precisely for the reason the author mentions:
Crip Dyke:
I was under the impression that such a topic was acceptable here (given the Lounge rules). Plus, rape culture has been discussed here in the past, so I thought it was safe to comment on now (obviously with a TW).
But your comments have given me pause. Even though we *can* discuss anything we want, are there topics that we ought to avoid discussing here? The Lounge is meant to be a casual, social space, with “soft corners” and I do *not* want to contribute to anyone feeling uncomfortable here.
Like you, I’m curious to hear what others have to say about this.
Crip Dyke
I think (my opinion on this, if we’re taking Lounge consensus) it’s okay to post these things in the Lounge – otherwise Lynna’s MMM and assorted other posts would also have to go right out, since most of them are extremely outraging in all kinds of ways.
This is where I read these links, and Tony is nice enough to preface his with a trigger warning, so I can skim through or read more in depth or not read at all, depending on how I’m feeling that day.
I don’t think links with some small critique should be taken to the Thunderdome at all. If a discussion develops, yes, but I don’t want the Lounge to be 100% sterilized. It’s a place for discussion, which sometimes includes difficult topics, but even difficult topics can be discussed with sympathy and compassion, and not everyone wants to get right into it in the Thunderdome.
I don’t want to be cut off from knowing about the bullshit in the world (Lynna’s, Pteryxx’, Tony’s, and other people’s links with commentary), and no, I’m not going to mosey on to the Thunderdome to fish through all the troll-eating just to see if someone has more bullshit links up. Lazy? Maybe so.
This is my opinion.
Rowan
If you go see a doctor, good luck. If you decide not to this time around, good luck. I hope you beat that depression right back into that hole and close it up and pour concrete over it and put down some nice black earth and plant some plants of your choice on it, and watch them grow happily.
I think we can discuss almost anything here.
but
The Lounge is more about *hugs* and recipes and music and …
so maybe the uglier topics could go to the Thunderdome.
We can work around the trolls.