If you’re this stupid, could you please stop pestering me? » « Why Jon Stewart is the only news source worth listening to anymore

[Lounge #490]

spartacus

This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly.

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If you’re this stupid, could you please stop pestering me? » « Why Jon Stewart is the only news source worth listening to anymore

Comments

  1. says

    I have to respond to one of the comments at the end of the last edition of the Lounge.

    Who needs indefinite and definite articles? There are languages that survive without them just fine. Also, gendered personal pronouns are an unnecessary complication.

    I have discovered this horribly cheesy television series called Spartacus on Netflix. It’s really, really bad. History is mangled with wild abandon. People are slaughtered and gigantic gouts of blood spatter the camera. Ancient bars were surprisingly busy with naked women having sex on all of the tables. I think they stretch the content of the episodes a lot by excessive use of slo-mo. It’s about this grand slave rebellion, but the rebels seem to consist mainly of about a dozen hunky guys who don’t wear shirts and yell a lot.

    But what really grates? The writing. They’ve got this idea that dialogues sound high-falutin’ and latiny if they leave out all the articles and gendered personal pronouns.

    They can’t say, “Here’s your cup.” No, they say “Here is cup.” (contractions are right out, too, obviously.)

    It’s really weird. The sexism and the violence are appalling, but what really drives me to turn it off is the grammar. Maybe it’s because I’m usually multitasking with the TV on to provide background noise, so I can ignore what’s going on on the screen, but when the ugly stilted language is poured into my ear while I’m trying to write, it is intolerable.

    It’s seems to sell, though. There are 4 seasons worth of it online.

  2. Saad says

    Thanks for the warning, PZ. I had that on my list to watch.

    I’m currently watching Marco Polo and I think that’s bad enough with all the martial arts and disproportionate amount of focus on inexplicably naked women touching each other for some reason. The part I couldn’t contain my laughter at: a fully naked (why?) woman defeating three soldiers using Crouching Tiger-style martial arts. But it’s totally a historical a show about Marco Polo and Kublai Khan.

  3. azhael says

    Lol, Spartacus is so, so bad..xDD Watched all of it, though…with a lot of glee, and a substantial amount of weed.

    Jupiter’s cock!!

  4. Ice Swimmer (was Nakkustoppeli but forgot the password) says

    So, apparently the actual hard core porn from the Internet doesn’t crowd out the demand for softcore porn elements in mainstream entertainment. Or at least the TV and film industry doesn’t believe that they could sell entertainment for men without gratuitous half-nudity.

  6. says

    Ice Swimmer, but don’t you know, there are one or two movies now where men are half naked, therefore this is a much bigger problem. I’m also sure that since there are also female extras in movies who are not naked, gratuitous female nudity is not a problem at all

  7. rq says

    Giliell
    Whoa, things have pretty much gone too far in that respect – the other night, I watched Zulu, and in one of his opening scenes, you get to see Orlando Bloom, stark naked, head to toe.
    From the rear, of course.
    Now if that isn’t 100% catering to the desires of all women everywhere, I don’t know what it.

  14. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Huh, I have one in too, but that used an asterisk so I thought maybe he’d toughened up filters or something while I was away.

  17. Ice Swimmer (was Nakkustoppeli) says

    I think it could be the four and five letter n-words or their derivations that increase the chances of getting into moderation.

  19. azhael says

    When i first heard of the series Marco Polo i did my usual search for reviews, comments, etc, to see what i could reasonably expect from the series. I came across a comment by the actor playing Marco, who was asked if the show would follow the Spartacus and Game Of Thrones’ line of showing full frontal nudity. He apparently laughed and answered that no, there would be some nudity, but certainly no full frontals, “it wasn’t that kind of show”.

    He of course forgot to clarify that there would be no male frontal nudity….because it didn’t take very long for females to randomly start appearing with no clothes on for no good reason whatsoever…

    It’s a classy show, none of that floppy cocks dangling about business, oh no…just gratuitous exploitation of females for absolutely no reason. because they are not perverts…

  21. rq says

    Well for that half hour there, I was SILENCED. I cannot BELIEVE this happened to ME. HERE. FOR TALKINGABOUT MEN, NAKED MEN – MISANDRYYYYYY!!!!

  26. Paolo says

    I have discovered this horribly cheesy television series called Spartacus on Netflix. It’s really, really bad. History is mangled with wild abandon. People are slaughtered and gigantic gouts of blood spatter the camera. Ancient bars were surprisingly busy with naked women having sex on all of the tables. I think they stretch the content of the episodes a lot by excessive use of slo-mo. It’s about this grand slave rebellion, but the rebels seem to consist mainly of about a dozen hunky guys who don’t wear shirts and yell a lot.

    As a history student I found that show to be so, so, so much ludicrous that words can’t possibly explain it; the only way to make it thorugh was a) to watch it with history-wise friends bursting in maniacal laughter every 30 secs or so and b) to accompany each single episode with the wonderful commentaries of Juliette Harrison: http://popclassicsjg.blogspot.it/2000/01/spartacus-blood-and-sand.html

  27. Saad says

    azhael, #19

    It’s a classy show, none of that floppy cocks dangling about business, oh no…just gratuitous exploitation of females for absolutely no reason. because they are not perverts…

    Or as they like to call it, an exploration of sex during [insert period of history that the show/movie is about].

    It’s just ridiculous how often nameless naked women just show up. And really? You’ve got a show about a gigantic, highly influential empire consisting of a very diverse people and you have to show harems in each episode?

    The one thing I do like is Benedict Wong’s acting as Kublai.

  28. says

    Hi guys!
    Tony!
    I do so love reading your posts. Someday, I hope to visit your bar for some conversation.

    —–
    I’ve been looking for a good science-y book about baking bread (or perhaps baking in general). I’ve seen
    How Baking Works: Exploring the Fundamentals of Baking Science by Paula I. Figoni on Amazon, but thought I’d try to get some opinions before I buy. Anyone here have suggestions?

  30. birgerjohansson says

    BTW why do the actors not wear armor over their upper bodies? (The 300 Spartans could get away with it only because they were CGIs). Riddick would disembowel them all within five minutes.

  32. rq says

    Saad
    Funny how the women always end up exploring their sex. I think men in movies and shows should do more of that.

  33. The Other Lance says

    Victoza, which may help me manage my diabetes better, is making me sick to my stomach. I hope this isn’t a permanent feature.

  34. says

    I’m going to lose my mind today, apparently. This akismet thing is causing major headaches: as you’ve probably noticed, comments are being too frequently held for moderation. I just had to manually approve a dozen that had been made in the last 15 minutes.

    Unfortunately, I’ve got a long lab session today and some tinkering on my research to do (we’re getting a completely unexpected result from some environmental screening tests, and we’re doing time-lapse recordings to figure out when things go strange). You may have to fire and forget comments for a while, and expect intermittent surges when I approve the last accumulated load.

  36. says

    I have washed half of the kitchen floor, and am taking a break while it dries, before I move the table and chairs so I can wash the other half. I’m going g to have to buy a new mop, and this time I’m finding an indoor place to store it. The patio porch is one thing, but this one ended up in the actual patio. I had to waste far too much time and energy washing mud and leaves off the mop head before I could start on the floor.

    I’ve got a new batch of hugs here – I’ll just leave them in the basket; apply as needed.

  39. azhael says

    @20 CaitieCat
    Oh, i’m fully aware that it’s not news..at all….i just found it a bit extra-insulting because these days those kinds of series are trying to paint themselves as progressive and such other nice things. I was also struck by the fact of a young man like the actor playing Marco happily displaying such oblivious double standards in this day and age…But i should know better….

  40. says

    Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana is supposedly an intelligent and well-educated man. He keeps proving this assumption wrong. For example, he seems to agree with the Alabama Justice when it comes to state laws about marriage equality:

    “We’re a nation of laws, that’s why I said I want the Supreme Court not to overturn our laws,” he said on CNN’s “New Day” on Tuesday.
    “If the Supreme Court were to do this, I think the remedy would be a constitutional amendment in the Congress to tell the courts you can’t overturn what the states have decided. “

    According to our constitution the Supreme Court decides if laws are constitutional or not.

    Congress cannot, on its own, pass constitutional amendments. At least 38 states have to ratify the amendment passed by Congress.

    Jindal’s educational background includes Brown and Oxford (Rhodes Scholar). Still a doofus.

  41. says

    rq @21:
    You really ought to get some help for this misandry problem you’re having (oh, how ironic that my computer’s spellcheck doesn’t recognize misandry; almost like it doesn’t exist).

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

    re: naked people on TV

    I mentioned watching the Penny Dreadful series. I won’t compare minutes spent naked by men vs women (it’s a lot for both), but there’s another side where there’s no equal time: showing sex between (man, woman) vs (woman,woman) vs (man,man).

    There is a lot of sex in Penny Dreadful. Two of the main male characters can be seen fucking a couple of different women through the season, as well as strolling around naked showing off their ass. In one scene, the two of them kiss. Then they take off each other’s shirts (as seen from somewhere about upper back level). ….. Aaaaaand fade to black. End of episode.

  43. says

    Beatrice @41:

    There is a lot of sex in Penny Dreadful. Two of the main male characters can be seen fucking a couple of different women through the season, as well as strolling around naked showing off their ass. In one scene, the two of them kiss. Then they take off each other’s shirts (as seen from somewhere about upper back level). ….. Aaaaaand fade to black. End of episode.

    The show’s producers probably think this is progressive too…

  44. anbheal says

    Hi — PZ touched on this a couple of days back, but not on the specific issue where I need a bit of ammo against my anti-vaxx colleagues. To wit, the recent Canadian studies (peer-reviewed, the real deal), showing a surprising tendency of those who received one year’s flu vaccine to be more susceptible to the next year’s flu. Now, one of the main studies was done with ferrets, if I recall, so that’s one issue. But the results were real, statistically unassailable, and now it’s the latest arrow in the anti-vaxx quiver. Can anyone give me a nice pithy four-sentence rebuttal? Why might the Canadian studies be so, but getting the flu vaccine still be the thing to do (which ALL of the studies’ authors take great pains to advise)?

    Thanks,

    Ace

  45. Saad says

    Tony, #40

    I typed misandry on my tablet once and the top suggestion it gave me was misunderstanding.

  46. says

    Has anyone ever tried having a discussion with people who play the lottery? Or play scratch offs?
    I had a discussion at work with several employees on the subject. A couple of them were of the “somebody has to win” mentality, thinking that they stood a ghost of chance (need to look up where that phrase comes from). A few others said they liked buying scratch offs, but knew full well that they didn’t stand much chance of winning significant amounts of money. I tried to impress upon some of them the fact that they’re playing against millions of other people, and that the deck is stacked against them. While there can be one winner (of the lottery), there will be millions upon millions of losers. The odds are not in our favor (and I know next to nothing of statistics).

    ****

    I can’t seem to preview any of my comments. I wonder if this is related to FtB’s current commenting problems…

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

    Tony,

    Yeah. I bet they do.
    Considering one of those characters is Dorian Gray…. Seriously.

  48. says

    Some of the sponsors who previously stopped supporting the Rush Limbaugh show have returned. So, they boycotted hate radio, good for them. Then they decided they needed to make some big bucks off Valentine’s Day, so they came back to Lush Dimbulb. Time to boycott them.

    Here are a few, just in case you want to boycott supporters of hate radio:
    ProFlowers
    1-800-Flowers
    Shari’s Berries
    Pajamagram
    Vermont Teddy Bear
    Shane Co

    If you want to see all the companies that advertise on the Rush Limbaugh show, go here:
    http://stoprush.net/rush_limbaugh_sponsor_list.php#current_a

  49. rq says

    Tony
    Husband plays a lot of the simple lotteries, scratch-offs included. Mostly as an insurance policy for getting rich. :D And yes, we realize there’s a very small chance of winning, For us, at least, it’s a harmless bit of ‘what if’. And besides, if we win several millions, I’m going to set up a permanent Horde Fund. ;)
    Stop ruining people’s fun!!!
    (No, you’re not ruining the fun, but I think for most people it is just a what-if possibility that maybe they’ll get lucky. Me, I have no illusions about a sudden expansion in our income, but… you never know. :) )

  50. cicely says

    Leftovers
     
    Giliell, have you considered encouraging #1 to paint her creations on a tee shirt?
    –
    rq:

    Also, if you were in a lab working the evening-to-night shift, where would you leave your glasses?

    In the refrigerator.
    Always in the refrigerator.
     
    (Later)

    Though from Tony’s story, the person really, really doesn’t sound like the type to actually go out and get training with it. The impulsive aspect of his willingness towards aggression is frightening.

    Yes.
    –
    Tony!
    V sounds like a formidable-and-intelligent human being.
    :)
     

    That creature in the tuna can? It was an immature crab.

    That’s what the Things From Beyond Space And Time want us to think….
    –
    birgerjohansson:

    Lem, Vonnegut and P.J. Farmer all wrote at least one rapey story each. What is it with SF authors born in the 1920s ???

    Unashamed, culturally-normalized sexual violence?
    Just goin’ out onna limb, here.
    –
    –

  53. says

    rq @48:
    I should add that I did mention (during the lottery/scratch off conversation) that obviously people can spend their money how they like and that I don’t begrudge people playing in the slightest. My main point was that I don’t think many people realize how the deck is stacked against them.

  54. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    Alabama’s Roy Moore: “I blocked gay marriages because father-daughter weddings were next”

    He may have a point.

  55. says

    Canadian climate scientist wins $50,000 in lawsuit against conservative newspaper:

    A prominent Canadian climatologist won his libel lawsuit against The National Post on Friday, after a judge decided that the newspaper had published several articles that were both inaccurate and defamatory to his character.
    British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Emily Burke said that Dr. Andrew Weaver should be awarded $50,000 in damages from the Post, which she said unfairly diminished Weaver’s credibility as a climate scientist by publishing articles that falsely painted Weaver as incompetent. The articles claimed that Weaver, a former member of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was “untrustworthy, unscientific and incompetent; and that he distorts and conceals scientific data to promote a public agenda and receive government funding.”
    The decision did not touch on the accuracy of climate science itself, instead focusing on statements the Post and its columnists repeatedly made about Weaver — such as claims that he was attempting to distract the public from a (now-discredited) scandal involving climate scientists e-mails; that Weaver was a government employee; that he wanted the head of the IPCC to step down; and that he used data despite knowing it was “unadulterated rubbish.” Justice Burke found that those statements were either untrue or misleading.
    In fact, the opinion defended the Post’s right to be skeptical of climate science, but said the Post was not being honest in its skepticism. “While certainly entitled to express those views, in this case as part of that expression, they deliberately created a negative impression of Dr. Weaver,” Burke wrote. “In doing so, I conclude the defendants have been careless or indifferent to the accuracy of the facts.”
    This designation is important, because it shows the nature of these types of lawsuits. When a climate scientist sues a news publication over defamation, the lawsuit is generally not about the science itself. Instead, it is about whether the publication’s words and statements defame the scientists’ character. Take Michael Mann’s lawsuit against the conservative National Review: it’s not about the legitimacy of his much-debated “hockey stick” graph, it’s about the fact that the news site compared him to a convicted child molester while criticizing that graph. Comparatively, Weaver’s lawsuit is also not about climate science, it’s about the Post’s repeated and unfounded assertions that Weaver is an inherently dishonest man.
    So how can scientists — or any plaintiff in a defamation case, for that matter — prove that their character has been defamed? In Weaver’s case, he pointed to the comments section of the Post’s site. In testimony to the court, he called them “crushing” — “people claimed he was a fraud; a liar; many people attacked him in phone, in shows. He did not know what to do to defend himself. All of this was based on a complete fabrication of facts,” Justice Burke wrote.

  56. blf says

    if you were in a lab working the evening-to-night shift, where would you leave your glasses?

    At home; or
    On the bus.

    Both have happened to me. Which is quite impressive, as I’m blinder than a very blind thing which is blind and can’t see without my glasses…

    (I hope this posts Ok, Preview does not want to seem to do anything for me…)

  57. blf says

    Oh joy, trapped in poopyhead’s mind-losing “akismet thing”.

    The mildly deranged penguin suggests hitting it repeatedly with a lump of British Industrial Cheddar until it has the “major headache”. And then threaten it with horses. (Reserve the attack peas for the penultimate step, with the ultimate being the usual “nuke from orbit”.)

    Correction: She says nuking from orbit is the penultimate step. Then send in the attack pea.

  58. a_ray_in_dilbert_space says

    Tony@52,
    While it is good news of a sort, I keep thinking of what Voltaire said:

    “I was only ever ruined twice: once when I lost a lawsuit, the other time when I won one.”

    The thing is that anti-science always comes to this. Science comes to the table with evidence. Anti-science has none. Their only strategy is to attack the evidence–and the easiest way to do that is to attack the credibility of the scientists who gather the evidence. We see it with climate science. We see it with evolution. We see it with tobacco studies, vaccination and on and on and on. We’ve reached the point where climate scientists regularly get death threats!

    Ultimately, it comes down to this. Scientists do science. Anti-scientists play calvinball, and the way they play it, it’s a blood sport.

  59. cicely says

    Hi, toiger; I don’t believe we’ve met before, so Welcome In! I can’t see that rq has Administered The Obligatory Questionnaire, yet; but Moderation Is Happening, so I’ll wait to see if she’s already pounced.
    :)
     
    That site looks like it’s pushing for a Humanist Mormon equivalent to Secular Jews?
    –
    Giliell:

    Ice Swimmer, but don’t you know, there are one or two movies now where men are half naked, therefore this is a much bigger problem.

    and rq:

    Whoa, things have pretty much gone too far in that respect – the other night, I watched Zulu, and in one of his opening scenes, you get to see Orlando Bloom, stark naked, head to toe.
    From the rear, of course.
    Now if that isn’t 100% catering to the desires of all women everywhere, I don’t know what it.

    *nodding*
    And who can forget Troy, starring Brad Pitt’s ass?
    –
    awakeinmo!
    *pouncehug*
    –
    Tony!
    Um…
     
    Hi.
    I’m cicely, and I play the lottery…or, as The Husband and I call it, “renting the dream”.
    “Spending” it is a pleasant way to fall asleep, when Stoopid Brain won’t shut off on its own; it’s also a bit of a two-player FRPG, for us.
    –

  60. says

    I think I should apologize. I wasn’t trying to condemn anyone who plays the lottery or buys scratch offs. Wasn’t my intent to offend anyone, but we all know how intent works. My apologies.

  61. says

    I have a simple criterion for lottery playing: if the expected value (probability of a result times the value of a result, summed for all results) exceeds the input cost.

    For Canada’s 6/49, that happens when the main pot hits about 13 million, which is pretty infrequent. Or it did before they changed it – i think the sweet spot is closer to 20 million as currently allocated.

    Also, I don’t do it when I’m behind on bills, so I’ve not done it for a couple of years now.

    It’s arbitrary, but it’s a bright line rule, which helps.

    I won $100 on a scratchy once. Had a very nice dinner with my partner.

    Only other gambling I’ll do is an occasional night out at the geegees. Take along $20, enough for a single bet on each race, and be okay with losing the lot. One night I came home with $70, having also missed a $14000 exactor by one position (my two picks came in first and second). Cheaper than a night at the movies, and longer entertainment too. :)

  63. rq says

    Just heads up to anyone reading Later This Morning, all comments currently going to moderation, so there will be a huge comment blow-out once PZ gets around to things!

  64. blf says

    My main point was that I don’t think many people realize how the deck is stacked against them.

    I can’t find it now, but I recall reading a (report of?) a study which said something to the effect most people misunderstand what things like “one in a million” mean. Awkwardly, I don’t now recall what any of the misunderstandings were…

    Then there is the Gambler’s Fallacy — if something has a 1-in-a-million probability, and hasn’t happened for 999,999 times now, it is “due to” happen next (and similar variations on the theme). Hence, I suspect yer basically correct.

    (I’m finding the broken Preview even more frustrating than the auto-stuck-in-“akismet thing”.)

  65. rq says

    cicely
    I did check all the freezers at work (we have many), but fortunately they were simply under a box on my desk, where I thought I’d looked.
    Of course.
    Also, I have not yet administered any questionnaires, but if you would be so kind, I’m trying to catch up on posting and sleep simultaneously. It’sn ot working out too well.

    Tony
    I think you’ll find that most people who play the lottery do realize the long odds, and that many of them play it for precisely that very reason. :)

    Cait
    You are talking about the horses, yes? I am unfamiliar with the term geegees. But I love the races, too. Scared to go too often, though. :)

    Sorry, anbheal, for not having any useful input, but good luck with the anti-vaxxing!

  69. blf says

    Thank you for sorting [the gremlins] when you can.

    That’s the problem! Sorted gremlins are terribly inefficient.

    They — the gremlins — basically assume it’s all fecked up (and they are usually right), and hence throw everything all around the place, supposing each thing eventually, after being tossed about a fair deal, will either disintegrate or wind up in the right place. And, of course, the gremlins are running about (and screaming) all the while, so randomly throwing something at a random moving gremlin is slightly more likely to wind up landing on the correct gremlin than winning the lottery.

    But if you sort the gremlins, and keep them sorted, then they aren’t running about, so it takes longer for the correct gremlin to stumble over its thing.

  70. Vatican Black Ops, Latrina Lautus says

    Hello fellow Hordelings.

    I was listening to one of my favourite shows on the CBC last night — The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti. Ms. Tremonti is a broadcast journalist par excellence. She doesn’t let guests get away with their handwaving crap and she is very well read on topics of the day. Last night she did a show about the anti-vaxxers and she totally (but politely) brings the rain on a woo-centric anti-vaxxer parent. Please have a listen, I think you’ll come away satisfied for once!

    http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2015/02/09/vaccinations-pro-and-anti-vaxxer-parents-make-their-cases/

    I adore Ms. Tremonti. A serious and talented journalist.

  71. cicely says

    Hey, Tony!, no harm, no foul, as far as I’m concerned!
    :D
    –
    Okay…rq being Otherwise Occupied, here, toiger (and such other newcomers (Welcome In!) as may be Trapped In Purgatory Moderation), is the Questionnaire:
     
    What are your positions on the following objects/subjects/philosophical constructs?
    (Feel free to expound at length.)
    1) Peas.
    2) Horses.
    3) Cheese.
    4) The Miracle Whip™/Mayonnaise Question: Is there a humane solution?
    Thank you for your cooperation.
    –

  72. a_ray_in_dilbert_space says

    rq@66,
    I read it earlier in the print edition. Unfortunately the BICEP2 result is an artifact of incorrectly compensating for dust. So we still don’t have evidence for inflation. I has a sad.

  73. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    4) The Miracle Whip™/Mayonnaise Question: Is there a humane solution?

    The correct answer is “dust off and nuke the entire site from orbit.”

  74. says

    Well, they did it. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints excommunicated John Dehlin.

    Mormon critic and podcaster John Dehlin didn’t have to wait long to find out the verdict of Sunday’s church disciplinary council — he has been excommunicated from the LDS Church. […]

    Dehlin […] maintains the apostasy charges stem from his “unwillingness” to censor his podcast, his public expression of his doubts about the religion and his visible advocacy for civil same-sex marriage and the ordination of women to the all-male LDS priesthood. […]

    Citing Dehlin’s public pronouncements, the [LDS Church] statement goes on to dispute the reasons the podcaster gave for his excommunication.

    “Attempts have been made to create the impression that the disciplinary council … which has resulted in a loss of church membership or excommunication of Mr. Dehlin arose largely because of his views on same-sex marriage and priesthood ordination for women,” the statement said. “Although his stated positions on those subjects are not consistent with the church’s teachings, they were not cited in the local leader’s letter.”

    Yeah, the local leaders thought they’d dodge a bullet by saying that Dehlin’s positions were not mentioned in the official document, therefore they didn’t consider them. Total bullshit, and most people, even mormons, know it.

    […] Mormon apostle D. Todd Christofferson said members are free to disagree with the faith’s stance on same-sex marriage.

    Latter-day Saints can have a belief “on either side of this issue,” he said. “That’s not uncommon.”

    Problems arise only when a member makes “a public, sustained opposition to the church itself or the church leaders and tries to draw others after them,” Christofferson said, and that support swells into “advocacy.”

    http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/faith/2163720-155/mormon-critic-john-dehlin-is-excommunicated

  75. a_ray_in_dilbert_space says

    Addendum: I should note that the correct Dust measurements were by the Planck Observatory and came out after BICEP2 published, so technically they were using the best measurements available. They just didn’t have the right ones yet.

  76. says

    rq @66:

    HOW many astronomers does it take to nail a coffin shut? On January 30th two teams of scientists—one the masters of Planck, an orbiting telescope belonging to the European Space Agency; the other the team behind BICEP2, an Earth-bound instrument at the South Pole—released, after a leak, a paper they had submitted jointly to Physical Review Letters. Its 274 authors came to bury one of the biggest scientific stories of 2014.

    This was the supposed discovery, reported by the BICEP2 team last March, of primordial gravitational waves—ancient ripples in space-time, produced in the first few moments after the Big Bang. Such waves would have left their imprint on the cosmic microwave background radiation, a faint afterglow of the Big Bang itself, in the form of a subtle changes in the way the microwaves are polarised.

    Cosmologists would dearly love to spot such waves, because they would confirm the theory of inflation, which holds that the universe underwent an extremely rapid expansion in the first instants of its existence, growing in size far faster than the speed of light. The theory solves several knotty problems in cosmology, and so most astrophysicists work on the assumption that it is true. But there is no direct evidence. Detecting primordial gravitational waves, which the theory predicts, would have provided such evidence. Measuring them would have let cosmologists rule out some varieties of inflation theory, of which there are many.

    Not long after the results were announced, though, doubts began to surface. Thin clouds of dust that drift in interstellar space can produce a signal which looks a lot like primordial gravitational waves. A secure detection, then, relies on researchers being able to scrub that signal from their data. It was not clear the BICEP2 team had managed to do this successfully, and doubts about the veracity of their result began to mount.

    The BICEP2 team used the best available maps of interstellar dust. But Planck, which operated between 2009 and 2013, had generated better data still (which were unavailable to the BICEP2 team at the time they published). The latest paper uses Planck’s data to reanalyse BICEP2’s results. When the newly refined signal from the interstellar dust is subtracted, the purported gravitational waves disappear. The BICEP2 team had seen only a cosmological will-o-the-wisp.

    Making such a big announcement only to retract it a year later may seem embarrassing. BICEP2’s researchers were criticised in some quarters for rushing to promulgate their discovery prematurely. But, as this latest paper proves, one of science’s advantages is its ability to correct itself.

    Nor is the quest for primordial gravitational waves over. Just because BICEP2 did not see them does not mean they are not there. Several other telescopes have been hunting for the waves, and Planck’s high-quality maps of the interstellar dust will help them with their quest. Since BICEP2’s detection has proved a false alarm, there is once again everything to play for.

    I’m not a subscriber either, so I’m not sure how I was able to access the article, but in any case, here you go.
    (heeeeeeeey, Preview worked this time!)

    ****

    Lynna @73:

    Problems arise only when a member makes “a public, sustained opposition to the church itself or the church leaders and tries to draw others after them,” Christofferson said, and that support swells into “advocacy.”

    But the Church can advocate for any damn thing they want-such as preventing same-sex couples from marrying-and there’s no problem.

  77. says

    Good evening
    cicely
    I’ll turn the horse into an applique.
    I’m planning to get her hooked on digital design come a few years.

    rq

    Husband plays a lot of the simple lotteries, scratch-offs included. Mostly as an insurance policy for getting rich. :D And yes, we realize there’s a very small chance of winning, For us, at least, it’s a harmless bit of ‘what if’. And besides, if we win several millions, I’m going to set up a permanent Horde Fund. ;)

    Wait, you’re married to my husband?
    That’s about Mr’s startegy as well. He plays the lottery every Saturday together with his parents. Actually, last year we won about 1.800 € together. Of course, if they’d simply stuffed all the money they spent over the last 20 years on lottery tickets into a sock it would have been much more at that point, but who am I to deny their fun?

    +++
    Hullo New People!

  78. Vatican Black Ops, Latrina Lautus says

    Thank you for the welcome cicely!

    On Peas: Delicious with steamed rice and a dash of sea salt and butter.

    On Horses: Lovely, complicated animals that sometimes have a sadistic streak in them. I ride Western, poorly.

    On Cheese: Aged white cheddar or a creamy brie. Also, cheese food, but only with celery and only for a hangover.

    On The Miracle Whip™/Mayonnaise Question: Annihilate both. I’d rather eat a Toilet Duck.

  80. says

    Vatican Black Ops:
    I’ve seen a few of your comments in here and never properly acknowledged you. My apologies. Welcome to the Lounge. I’m off work today, so there is no one tending the Lounge bar. Feel free to help yourself though. We have everything stocked. You may want to stay away from the Camparri though, as that bottle was earmarked for a certain Latvian friend of mine who inhabits these here parts.

  81. says

    Here’s some good news from Oregon:

    On Monday, Oregon lawmakers considered a pair of bills that could significantly reduce the gap in average earnings between working men and women, which currently means the state’s women make 80 percent of what men do.

    House Bill 2006 would make it unlawful for employers to pay workers of different genders who do equivalent work differently. House Bill 2007 would make it illegal to punish workers who ask about or discuss their pay with each other.

    […] As written, equivalent jobs wouldn’t rely on having the exact same role at the exact same company. Rather, equivalent jobs would be those that are the same when the required skills, training, education, effort, responsibility, and working conditions are the same. For example, women who coach girls’ teams couldn’t be paid less than men who coach boys just because boys’ teams bring in more money. Employers could still have differing pay grades based on merit, seniority, training, and education differences among workers.

    Rather than pay equality as we imagine it now, where only men and women with the same job titles should be paid the same, such an approach, often called comparable worth or pay equity, would seek to equalize pay for people doing different but similar work. […]

    http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/02/10/3621531/oregon-gender-wage-gap/

  82. says

    Tony @74:

    Lynna @73:

    Problems arise only when a member makes “a public, sustained opposition to the church itself or the church leaders and tries to draw others after them,” Christofferson said, and that support swells into “advocacy.”

    But the Church can advocate for any damn thing they want-such as preventing same-sex couples from marrying-and there’s no problem.

    Exactly. The LDS Church can even tell its members what to wear and how not to drink coffee. Members are free to disagree as long they don’t say it out loud, and as long as they don’t act on their disagreement. Moments of Mormon Madness, cult category.

  83. rq says

    Giliell @75
    And you wonder where he is on the weekdays. ;)
    Don’t worry, we’ll split the millions.

  85. says

    An Atlanta man, Kevin Davis, called police for help after a man stabbed his girlfriend.

    Police arrived, did not identify themselves of say anything. They shot Davis’s dog, leading Davis to believe that the criminal had returned. Police still did not say anything nor did they identify themselves, and then they shot Davis. After they shot Davis, the police paused to say “Drop your weapon.”

    The police took the fatally wounded Kevin Davis to Grady Memorial Hospital. There, in a decision that is incomprehensibly cruel, police prevented his family from visiting him for nearly 48 hours as he died and took the opportunity to criminally charge Davis with aggravated assault on his death bed.

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/10/1363567/-Beloved-Atlanta-area-man-Kevin-Davis-wrongly-killed-by-police-after-he-called-them-for-help

    Kevin Davis and his girlfriend, April Edwards, lived on the outskirts of Decatur, GA, a predominantly black community just outside Atlanta. Davis, 44, was a longtime employee at Sawicki’s, a sandwich shop located in the more affluent downtown area of Decatur, where Edwards also worked. By all accounts, he was kind-hearted, generous, never late, and a visible contributor to his relatively small community of family, friends and colleagues.

    http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/kevin-davis-called-cops-help-out-friend-trouble-and-was-shot-death-police-his

  86. says

    Remember Kris Kobach, the rightwing dunderhead from Kansas that is known for developing many of the tactics used in the Republican War on Voting Rights? Well the creep has been caught lying about voter fraud, but is not backing down. In fact, he has come up with a few new lies.

    Kris Kobach: Kansas’ Republican secretary of state is pushing a two-tiered voting system that would let those who provide proof of citizenship vote in all elections, while restricting those who don’t to federal elections. He’s also leading a data-sharing effort among states that’s aimed at finding improperly registered voters—typically an error-prone process that critics call a purge mechanism.

    Maddow Blog link.

    In a Nov. 6 letter sent from Grissom to Kobach and obtained by The Associated Press through an open records request, the prosecutor responded that his office received no such referrals from Kobach, and chided the secretary of state for his statements.

    “Going forward, if your office determines there has been an act of voter fraud please forward the matter to me for investigation and prosecution,” Grissom wrote. “Until then, so we can avoid misstatements of facts for the future, for the record, we have received no voter fraud cases from your office in over four and a half years. And, I can assure you, I do know what I’m talking about.”

    Link to AP story.

    Returning to the Maddow Blog link:

    Kobach now concedes that when he said he’d referred voter-fraud cases to the U.S. Attorney’s office, he had not, in reality, referred voter-fraud cases to the U.S. Attorney’s office. [He said his] predecessor had alerted the federal prosecutor to two relevant cases and Grissom ignored those referrals.

    It turns out, that’s not true, either: federal investigators looked into those 2011 allegations and, as the AP report noted, they concluded they were not voter fraud.

    Why in the world would Kobach make such demonstrably false allegations? Because he wants Kansas’ legislature to empower his office directly to go after voter-fraud cases – which, remember, are largely imaginary. […]

    This asshat is so bad that I find it hard to believe that Kansans reelected him.

  87. says

    Looks like some officials in Alabama listened to Roy Moore:
    http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/davidbadash/alabama_minister_arrested_after_offering_to_perform_same_sex_wedding

    A same-sex couple who went to the Autauga County courthouse in Alabama to marry say an ordained minister who offered to officiate their wedding ceremony was arrested after refusing to leave the probate judge’s office.

    Courtney Cannon and Morgan Plunkett (photo), together three and a half years, say they received a marriage license from a “very nice” clerk.

    They were surprised when the situation began to “blow up.”

    “I don’t even know her name, but she said she was an ordained minister and wanted to marry us,” Cannon told a Montgomery Advertiser reporter on camera. “She was standing up for our rights to get married. Judge Booth called the deputies after he told her to leave.”

    “Judge Booth said there was a lady in the office who wouldn’t leave when he asked her to leave,” Autauga County Sheriff’s Office chief deputy Dave Hill said.

    The reporter told them this particular county was not marrying people, which they say they did not know. It seems the judge, in addition to refusing to marry anyone, is refusing to allow anyone to marry in his office, regardless of who officiates. The Autauga County probate judge’s office stopped performing all weddings on Friday, they say, due to workflow issues.

    Anne Susan Diprizio was charged with disorderly conduct.

    “I didn’t think it would blow up like this,” Courtney Cannon said. “We just wanted to get a marriage license. We weren’t thinking of getting married in the probate office until she offered to perform the ceremony.”

    “I don’t think she deserves to be arrested,” Cannon added. “They say they have stopped all marriages at the probate office. But I guarantee if a heterosexual couple went in there they would marry them in a heartbeat.”

    Dear Alabama:
    Clinging so tightly to bigotry and hatred is doing nothing for your image in the eyes of the rest of the nation. Yes, many people stereotype Alabamians (and Southerners in general) and often cast their insults with a far too wide of a net, but sometimes those criticisms are borne out of very real issues with the state.

  89. says

    Tony! @ 79
    I would love to see that!

    CaitieCat @ 84
    :D

    Lynna @ 85
    That is absolutely heartbreaking. I can only hope for some kind of justice to be done upon those cops. But we’ve all seen how those things turn out.

    —-
    Today I bought a Dala Horse as a belated birthday gift to myself*. I think I shall also raise a glass to my late Swedish grandma at dinner tonight.

    *Okay, I also bought a set of three little Scandinavian folk-art-ish paintings. And an embroidered pillow cover. And a bucket of spackle. Splurge!

  90. Grewgills says

    1) Peas can be good if fresh or fun if blown through a straw.
    2) Horses love carrots.
    3) Cheese is one reason I love bacteria.
    4) I will give mayonnaise a pass in honor of my Dutch wife and Hawaiian home, but I much prefer mustard. Miracle whip is an abomination.

  92. Grewgills says

    @Tony #87
    Roy Moore is going off the deep end. It looks like he will be removed from office AGAIN by the ACJ. His latest moves instructing justices not to issue marriage licenses and then threatening those who did with legal action could well get him disbarred (even in AL). Here’s hoping he ends up on his ass with no job and no legal credentials. Of course that might not hinder him in his bid to be reelected. There are several reasons I moved away.

  93. says

    Does anyone have any better-than-Google resources for scholarships for women in STEM? My stepdaughter is a hich-school senior and intends to major in something mathish.

    (I know I can Google it, but I trust you folks more than the vastness of the internet)

  94. says

    Grewgills @89:
    Peas are especially fun to blow through a straw after they’ve soaked in Spam juice…

    ****
    Can I haz a bit of Internet search related help? I was thinking about doing a post on my blog that collects the various Tales I’ve related in these parts. The only thing is I have no idea how to quickly find the posts. The overwhelming majority of them have been in the Lounge (a few were in the Tdome, IIRC). How would I search for them on Google?

  96. says

    Dalillama @ 95:
    Ah, that’s the search function I was hoping for. Thank you!
    I think it turned up fewer results because I didn’t initially label them ‘Tony Tales’ (the story I shared in the Dome about having a long post-sex talk with a guy who felt a tremendous amount of religious guilt about gay sex was not labeled a Tony Tale, for instance).

  97. Ice Swimmer (was Nakkustoppeli) says

    If one were to change the word “police” to “muslims” in comment 85 by Lynna, how many middle eastern countries would Fox news demand to be invaded?

  100. says

    I just realized it’s Girl Scout Cookie time and I have no cookies. I need some of those delicious Lemon cookies that Portia sent me last year (they’re only available in certain regions).

  102. says

    Tony! #99
    My biggest quibble is that Pestilence wasn’t namechecked; Conquest isn’t actually one of the horsemen. (Incidentally, I think you’ll get a kick out of the Master Chief pic I linked earlier, if you haven’t checked it out.)

  104. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    Does anyone have any better-than-Google resources for scholarships for women in STEM? My stepdaughter is a hich-school senior and intends to major in something mathish.

    (I know I can Google it, but I trust you folks more than the vastness of the internet)

    Where, geographically?

  106. chigau (違う) says

    I always thought that “ripped” was for body-builders.
    as opposed to people who have muscles that they use for stuff other than posing.

  107. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    I would guess it stems from “rippling” muscles, which doesn’t necessarily mean gigantic *bulging* ones (that are mostly water anyway, from what I’ve read).

  111. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    ….damnit, wrong thread:

    …..okay, so before I get committed to anything in the DSK thread, I seem to remember Jacob Schmidt being a pretty run-of-the-mill average horde member. Does he have, like, a pre-reform-Walton-style “A History” or something that I’m missing or….

  115. opposablethumbs says

    O noes, they got Tigger! DON’T TELL THEM ABOUT THE ESCAPE COMMITTEE, TIGGER!!!!!!

    ::flies tail at half-mast::

  116. rq says

    Giliell
    Oh! I missed that link. :D Personally, I’m wondering about the identities of the animals in photos 7 and 12 (I think).
    Also, people dressed in animals costumes that limit motion and visibility act just like escaped zoo animals? I had no idea!!!

    opposablethumbs
    The tiger looking on looks absolutely outraged at poor Tigger down. :(

  117. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    @rq, #110:

    Thanks for the links. So frustrated with violence. So frustrated with differential value placed on victims. Gah.

  119. Saad says

    Terrorist kills three Muslim students in North Carolina

    The victims were Muslims: Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23; Yusor Mohammad, 21; and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19.

    Barakat was Mohammad’s husband; Abu-Salha was her sister, the school said.

    Barakat was a second-year student at the UNC School of Dentistry, who was raising money on a fundraising site to provide dental care to Syrian refugees in Turkey.

    He had been married for just over a month to Yusor Mohammad, who was planning to begin her dental studies at UNC in the fall, according to the school.

    Her sister, Razan, was a student at North Carolina State University

    All three had been shot in the head

  122. rq says

    Saad
    No worries, the more links to that, the more evidence that it’s getting out to the public!

    carlie
    HA I just loved the name Mobius, I didn’t twig to the fact that their last name was Loop. :D

    +++

    Upthread, Tony offered up some male semi-nudity.
    Here’s some more, in the form of half-naked ballet dancer doing what a dancer’s body does best – modern ballet! Sergei Polunin, “Take Me to Church” by Hozier, Directed by David LaChapelle.
    And okay, that’s a man dancing, but women’s roles are no less strenuous, so I would like to kindly spit upon anyone who laughs at young girls for wanting to be ballerinas – because really, it’s consigning them to a life of physically brutal athleticism. In feminine trappings, true, but again it jsut shows how feminine things are so easily considered lesser (this goes for boys and men in ballet, too) even if the physical and mental efforts required are as great as, if not more than, those required for the more ‘masculine’ sports.
    Anyway. Apologies for some ranting. :) I love ballet, and I love watching awesome men dance ballet. Yum.

  123. Saad says

    A great rendition of the best music in a video game. I miss playing Civ IV.

    It’s a Swahili version of the Lord’s Prayer. I just love both of these men’s voices, especially the one in the black vest. Very beautiful and powerful.

  125. says

    Anybody want a Faasekuche, aka Berliner, aka Pfannkuchen (deep fried cakes made from yeast dough)?
    They did not quite turn out as supposed. I made them for the first time, to grandma’s recipe, and since she used to know how to make them, the recipe is the bare ingredients. So my dough was too soft and I rolled them out too thin and my glass for cutting them out was too big, but I just had one two with cinnamon and sugar and they’re delicious.

    Saad
    That’s beautiful.

  127. says

    Giliell, thanks, I’ll have one with my tea.

    I am feeling excessively sorry for myself today. I was looking forward to a couple hours alone in the house tomorrow while Younger Daughter was at class, but it looks like Husband and Elder Daughter’s mountain birding trip will have to be put off until Saturday because of high winds in the passes they have to drive through. Which also means that the Valentine’s Day lunch out with Husband is out, although we might go out to lunch tomorrow or Friday (he’s taking tomorrow and Friday off). Sunday is his book group and he’ll be dropping off groceries at Aged Mum’s on the way, so that’s out too.

    I feel like crying, which is really stupid. It’s just a day of the week, why should it matter? Except that we haven’t gone out on an actual special day of any sort in years, and I’m tired of thinking of everybody else first. I’m being stupid. I’ll get over it.

  128. birgerjohansson says

    Beck: Measles Outbreak Just a Tool of Government Oppression http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2015/02/10/beck-measles-outbreak-just-a-tool-of-government-oppression/
    ROFL!

    — — — — — —
    Emergent super-ethics. http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3637#comic
    (evil chortle)

    — — — — —
    Muslim Democrats of the World, Unite! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/felix-marquardt/muslim-democrats-unite_b_6648898.html
    Actually this makes sense even from an atheist point of view. One cannot expect a billion people to change worldview overnight, better to let them arrive on their own to a more mellow version of religion, like the Europen (and most American) christians did.

  129. rq says

    Anne
    I don’t think it’s stupid. I know very much how you feel. :(
    *hugs*
    I hope you two manage to find a way to have the lunch date anyway, preferably on the real day!! And that the birding can be done on Friday.

  130. Scr... Archivist says

    rq @124,

    The article on CNN right now attributes a quote about insulting religion to the shooter’s web presence. But if my Google results are to believed, the original source of the quote was Pat Condell.

    If that’s true, it wouldn’t surprise me that the murderer was a fan of that hateful bigot.

  131. The Other Lance says

    Saad@119: How does an apparent on-going neighborhood dispute over parking spots turn into terrorism? Seems like you are inflating the situation for shock value.

  132. opposablethumbs says

    Giliell, yes please!

    Anne, sorry about the spanner in the works :-( Hope you do get lunch after all in the end, or at the very least another nice occasion instead, to go some way towards making up for it.

  133. Saad says

    The Other Lance, #131

    You’re right. Maybe them being Muslim wasn’t part of the reason. He could just be a vile man who would kill people over parking spots. I guess we won’t really know unless more stuff turns up from his past and online activity.

  134. rq says

    The Other Lance
    Take it to the Thunderdome.

    Saad
    Interesting how many major headlines read ‘Did their faith play a role?’ Like wow…

  135. Saad says

    SPOILER ALERT: Only click on this link if you’re caught up with the TV series The Fall (or if you don’t intend to watch it).

    For those that have seen it, that’s a highlight of Gillian Anderson’s character Stella Gibson basically being a badass throughout the show, often it’s against misogyny and rape culture. My favorite part is at 13:22 when she calls out her supervising officer on othering and being a dudebro rape apologist all in one dialogue.

  136. says

    The KuKluxKlan has decided to back Judge Roy Moore in Alabama. Look at all of these birds of a feather flocking together:

    The seething, bigoted spectacle taking place in Alabama this week after becoming the latest state to join the nation in marriage equality has been predictably nauseating. With Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore ridiculously ordering the state’s probate judges to refuse marriage licenses to same-sex couples, chaos has ensued across the state.

    This has professional bigots such as Tony Perkins, The National Organization for Marriage and The American Family Association celebrating his illegal action like the second coming. Joining the hateful fray, The United Dixie White Nights has posted a message of support of Moore’s misguided actions on its website.

    The Mississippi Klan salutes Alabama’s chief justice Roy Moore, for refusing to bow to the yoke of Federal tyranny. The Feds have no authority over individual States marriage laws. The fudgepackers from Hollywood and all major news networks are in shock that the good people from the heart of Dixie are resisting their Imperialist, Communist Homosexual agenda! […] since the 2nd war for independence was lost in 1865, the Federal Government by way of it’s foreign masters seems set to push this abomination, on the God fearing people of Alabama. [snipped more Civil War faux history here]

    We call upon all Klansman and White Southern Nationalist to help in the massive protest’s coming, Not by wearing your colors, but by joining in with the Christian community’s protests that are surly [sic] coming against tyranical Federal judges. [snipped Zionist controlled media blather here]

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/10/1363643/-Ku-Klux-Klan-takes-a-stand-with-Alabama-Chief-Justice-Roy-Moore

  137. Saad says

    rq,

    Sorry for being dumb here, but in regards to your

    Also, not a word about the shooter (who happens to be white and an atheist, so brace yourselves), but constant cries of ‘they were Muslim!!’ as if that makes everything obvious (I mean, in a way it does…).

    and

    Interesting how many major headlines read ‘Did their faith play a role?’ Like wow…

    Do you mean the cries of “they were Muslim!!” as the media implying they probably did something wrong, or as the media saying it’s a hate crime by an atheist?

    I guess I’m confused because both groups in this case (atheists and Muslims) are portrayed in a negative light in the U.S. so you could have meant either. I’m leaning toward the former though.

  138. says

    As noted above, the KKK is not the only group of whackos supporting the anti-gay marriage movement in Alabama, in part by expanding the don’t-obey-the-law crap to other states.

    Gordon Klingenschmitt [said] on his “Pray In Jesus Name” program yesterday that requiring conservative Christians who work in government positions to follow the law when it comes to gay marriage is “the yoke of slavery.”

    […] Religious Right activists are increasingly claiming that “religious liberty” ought to entitle them to engage in anti-gay discrimination, and that is exactly what Klingenschmitt is arguing. […]

    “We do pray against this demonic yoke of slavery,” Klingenschmitt said, “which is being forced by some liberal judges upon the good people of North Carolina … Father I pray that you would enable each individual person in North Carolina, whether they are a private or public servant, that they would retain their right of conscience, they would not be forced and compelled by the government to participate in somebody else’s sin if it violates their religious views. God, give us religious freedom, especially for those now being compelled by the government to sin” […]

    Right Wing Watch link.

    yadda yadda yadda … “religious freedom,” “yoke of slavery,” blah blah

  139. rq says

    Saad
    So far it sounds like the media are being victim-blame-y, which was my point, which was not meant to be confused with the fact that the guy is atheist… Sorry about that. :P Yes, it’s a hate crime, that part seems obvious. But other articles haven’t developed that part, have simply focussed on the victims being Muslim and left it without analysis. From what I’ve seen so far.
    I mean, if it were a Muslim shooter, the media would already be all over the terrorism and violence inherent to the religion, etc. At least the victims this time are being portrayed positively.

  141. says

    More rightwing nut jobs on the anti-gay bandwagon:

    Mission America’s Linda Harvey is urging conservatives to use Valentine’s Day to “promote true love,” which […] means opposing LGBT rights. She urges readers to mark the holiday by demanding that companies drop their support for LGBT equality […]

    “Don’t be afraid to say, ‘Not true!’ when some maintain that sodomy and abortion are the high ground, as is same-sex ‘marriage,’ that children should be encouraged to change genders, that Americans are all racists and that Christianity is hateful,” she writes.

    Harvey also tells readers to oppose “vicious feminists” and schools that teach “anti-American, pro-Marxist lessons.” […]

    Right Wing Watch link.

  142. Saad says

    rq, okay, thanks for the clarification. That’s what I was guessing you were saying.

    One thing I’m definitely not going to do is look for FOX News’ take on this. Malign the atheists or malign the Muslims? I bet they’re like a kid in a candy store right now having to decide between M&M and Reese’s.

    Can’t imagine what the victims’ friends and family are going through right now :(

    May the guy rot in prison.

  143. Saad says

    Lynna, #136

    The KuKluxKlan has decided to back Judge Roy Moore in Alabama. Look at all of these birds of a feather flocking together

    I love when this happens. When some mainstream person is promoting something bigoted and the vile scum of society come out in their support. Enjoy your new friends, Judge Moore. :)

  144. says

    Anne
    You’re totally right in thinking about yourself once in a while and not putting others first. In German we have a saying: aufgeschoben ist nicht aufgehoben. Postponed is not cancelled, so even if you can’t have a night out on Valentine’s day, do it another night.

    +++
    Stories from life:
    When picking up #1 today one of her teachers called “Ms. Kiddolastname!” Upon saying it she said “no, sorry, that’s wrong, but for the life of me, I cannot remember your name, I have so many names to remember. Why don’t you just get married?*”
    Me: Well, how am I supposed to do that, we already are?
    She: But why don’t you…, well, you’re right, my husband and I have different last names, too!
    I

    *We are on such friendly terms, that’s OK

  145. says

    Here’s some good news — kind of late to the party, but still good.

    On Tuesday, a draft statement from the Group of 20 finance officials warned that growing income inequality could harm economic growth, the first time the group has voiced concern over the issue. […]

    Think Progress link.

  146. says

    While the East Coast is freezing, we’ve had such mild weather in the western states that grizzly bears are waking up early from hibernation.

    Grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park are rising out of hibernation weeks earlier than usual this year due to mild winter weather. According to the Yellowstone National Park Service, the first confirmed grizzly bear sighting happened on February 9th when a bear was spotted scavenging a bison carcass. On Tuesday, park spokesman Al Nash said that “the arrival of spring-like weather, with warmer-than-usual temperatures and rain instead of snow” was causing grizzlies to emerge roughly a month earlier than in recent years.

    The bears start looking for food shortly after coming out of hibernation, and they are especially drawn to elk and bison carcasses. Visitors to the park are advised to stay in groups of at least three, make noise on the trail, and carry bear spray, according to park officials. […]

    Bears don’t pay any attention to National Park boundaries. Largish populations of grizzly bears roam the terrain adjoining the Parks. Bears are everywhere, people, beware.

  147. says

    Well. Okay, then. Here’s a good example of christian conservative rightwing love. I guess I’m just surprised that she said “bitch.” The rest of the hate spiel is par for the course.

    Not all conservatives used the death of American hostage Kayla Mueller to highlight the brutality of the Islamic State — some decided to focus their disgust on the 26-year-old’s humanitarian work for Palestinians.

    “No tears for the newly-departed Kayla Mueller, the ISIS hostage whose parents confirmed today that she is dead,” conservative blogger Debbie Schlussel wrote on Tuesday, under the headline, “Kayla Mueller: Dead ISIS Hostage Was Jew-Hating, Anti-Israel Bitch.”

    “Mueller was a Jew-hating, anti-Israel piece of crap who worked with HAMAS and helped Palestinians harass Israeli soldiers and block them from doing their job of keeping Islamic terrorists out of Israel,” she wrote.

    Schlussel condemned Mueller’s humanitarian work in the “so-called ‘West Bank'” to prevent the demolition of “terrorists’ ‘houses.'”

    “I have no sympathy for any of these ‘American’ (in name only!) hostages of ISIS,” she continued. “And my attitude when I hear they’ve been snuffed out is, so sad, too bad.” […]

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/conservatives-kayla-mueller-israel

    The article goes on to list other rightwing asshats who are busy dissing Kayla Mueller.

  149. says

    Just what we need, more young neo-Nazis in the USA.

    Late last week, on the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe, a hooded individual distributed fliers and hung posters declaring a war on immigration. Using the most recent covers of Charlie Hebdo as a backdrop, the flier was intended to be a call to action and an ominous warning: “America is ours, and we are tomorrow.”

    The group behind the campaign, the National Youth Front, was no secret. It’s the newly formed youth wing of the white nationalist American Freedom Party, and it is only the latest in a growing number of racist organizations targeting youth on college campuses. […]

    But while those organizations have ties that run deep into the white nationalist movement, particularly to Jared Taylor’s American Renaissance, neither have ever served as a direct pipeline to a well-established hate group. NYF does exactly that, hoping that those they recruit in college, between the ages of 18 and 35, will help rejuvenate an already aging landscape. […]

    Salon link.

  150. says

    Thanks, Giliell, rq, opposablethumbs. Hugs returned with interest.

    I know I should be a grownup about this, but my special occasions always get postponed, seems like, and it’s very depressing, especially when I’m already stressed. But I had a nice walk around Staples (office supplies) and Michael’s after I finished the grocery shopping, and picked up a nice takeout lunch to share with the Elder Daughter, so there.

  152. blf says

    Bears don’t pay any attention to National Park boundaries.

    Delineate the park boundaries with elk, bison, and Republican carcasses, and they will. As long as the carcasses last at any rate.

  153. blf says

    Using the most recent covers of Charlie Hebdo as a backdrop, the flier was intended to be a call to action and an ominous warning: “America is ours, and we are tomorrow.”

    I rather suspect the satirists at Charlie Hebdo would have a field day with this. Unfortunately, you’d probably first have to explain to these nutters that it’s in French, and then what satire is.

  156. blf says

    Being a grownup means not smashing the furniture over being disappointed.

    The mildly deranged penguin is respectfully jumping up-and-down on the splintered remains of the couch in disagreement, and screaming “No, yer wrong! No, yer wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrrrroooong, and where’s the fecking cheese!? You stole my cheese! Did to!! Did too!!!”

  157. says

    Anti-vaccination doctor says he doesn’t care if his children make others sick:

    Anna Jacks checks her baby’s forehead over and over again. Is he hot? Does he have a rash? Is his nose still runny?

    Her son has been sick before, but this time it’s different: Last week Eli was at a Phoenix Children’s Hospital clinic with a woman who had the measles, which spreads easily from person to person. Now he’s showing signs of the virus, such as runny nose and cough and fatigue.

    At 10 months old, Eli is too young to get vaccinated and would be especially vulnerable to serious complications of measles, such as deafness and brain damage or even death. But his parents have an even bigger worry. If Eli does have the measles, he could give it to his 3-year-old sister, Maggie, who has leukemia.

    So far Maggie is feeling fine, but her parents know that with her immune system wiped out by chemotherapy she’s even more vulnerable than her brother to complications.

    “My biggest fear is that I’ll lose my child, or that she’ll become deaf,” Anna Jacks said. “My family has been through enough with cancer. I don’t want her to go through anything else.”

    According to Arizona health officials, the woman at the clinic who put the Jacks children in danger was herself infected by members of a family that doesn’t vaccinate and got measles during a visit to Disneyland, where the outbreak began more than a month ago.

    This week, Maggie and Eli’s father, Dr. Tim Jacks, wrote a blog post in which he expressed his feelings to this family.

    “Towards you, unvaccinating parent, I feel anger and frustration at your choices,” wrote Jacks, a pediatrician. “Why would you knowingly expose anyone to your sick unvaccinated child after recently visiting Disneyland? That was a boneheaded move.”

    “Your poor choices don’t just affect your child,” he continued. “They affect my family and many more like us. Please forgive my sarcasm. I am upset and just a little bit scared.”

    Jacks signed the post “Papa Bear.”

    The Jacks family asked a CNN crew not to enter their home or meet with Eli. Out of an abundance of caution we also chose not to meet with Maggie or with Tim Jacks, who has limited immunity to measles. We spoke to Anna Jacks in person because blood tests show she has complete immunity to measles.

    The Jackses don’t know the identity of the vaccine refusers who put their children in danger, but Anna Jacks said she knows what she would say to them if she ever met them.

    “Your children don’t live in a little bubble. They live in a big bubble and my children live inside that big bubble with your children,” she said. “If you don’t want to vaccinate your children, fine, but don’t take them to Disneyland.”

    But Dr. Jack Wolfson said it’s the Jacks family who should keep themselves at home, not him.

    Wolfson, an Arizona cardiologist, refuses to vaccinate his two young sons. He said the family that didn’t vaccinate and endangered the Jacks children did nothing wrong.

    “It’s not my responsibility to inject my child with chemicals in order for [a child like Maggie] to be supposedly healthy,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s very likely that her leukemia is from vaccinations in the first place.”

    “I’m not going to sacrifice the well-being of my child. My child is pure,” he added. “It’s not my responsibility to be protecting their child.”

    CNN asked Wolfson if he could live with himself if his unvaccinated child got another child gravely ill.

    “I could live with myself easily,” he said. “It’s an unfortunate thing that people die, but people die. I’m not going to put my child at risk to save another child.”

    He blamed the Jacks family for taking Maggie to the clinic for care.

    “If a child is so vulnerable like that, they shouldn’t be going out into society,” he said.

    Anna Jacks said she hopes vaccine refusers get educated and change their minds. In the meantime, she prays that her daughter recovers from leukemia and that both her children avoid getting measles.

    Leukemia from vaccinations?
    Don’t leave the home if you’re ill?
    I don’t care if my actions cause others to suffer?

    What a fucking ass.

  158. toiger says

    1) Peas: I make sad eyes until my girlfriend saves me from their onslaught of mediocre taste. Split pea soup can be fantastic, though. I sometimes wonder if chopping them in half neutralizes their foulness.

    2) Horses: They’re like giant dogs that you can use as cars. Am not sure whether snuggling one would be a good idea.

    3) Cheese: I need it to live.

    4) Mayo/Miracle Whip: I have never had miracle whip, and am cautiously optimistic regarding Mayo’s utility. Irrational, childhood-bred fears of salmonella significantly decrease my ability to enjoy it, though.

  159. says

    Damn. Thanks to her fundamentalist parents, 19-year-old Alecia Faith Pennington is a de facto non-entity in the eyes of the U.S. government:

    In a video uploaded to YouTube and quickly going viral, Pennington documents the various ways her parents have managed to prevent leaving even a single speck of evidence to help her gain an official identity or to prove that she is a United States citizen. For starters, they gave birth to her at home, and declined to get a birth certificate or social security number. She was then homeschooled, and the family never took her to a hospital or doctor’s office.

    As a result, this profound lack of documentation has meant that Pennington is a de facto non-entity. She is boxed out of nearly every aspect of social or professional life:

    “I am unable to get a driver’s license, get a job, go to college, get on a plane, get a bank account, or vote.”

    She is essentially stuck in a dizzying catch-22: You need documentation to get other documentation in order to get the first documentation.

    Pennington’s troubles seem to lie squarely with her parents, whom are extremely religious and appear to reject engaging in many of the basics of society that many of us take for granted. Pennington says that she has since left home, unable to deal with her parents’ lifestyle any longer.

    A blog maintained by a Lisa Pennington appears to be Alecia’s mother. Recent articles, penned by Lisa, lament the fact that her daughter had committed an act of “betrayal” and left home. Her account largely matches that of Alecia’s, although with almost no acknowledgment that she or her husband were irresponsible.

    “On Wednesday, September 24th my life was changed forever. My 18 year old daughter left home. She gave us no warning, no signs that it was coming. She didn’t try to talk to us about it or work with us. She, with the help of my parents, just left. And with her she took pieces of my heart that had been torn to shreds.”

    Later Lisa decries her parents as aiding Alecia’s escape.

    “We got no real answers. Only more confusion as some of the circumstances unfolded. We discovered that my parents had been planning this with her without telling us (as you can imagine, an additional part of my grief is not only the loss of my daughter but the total end of the relationship with my parents). We also learned that she has been telling exaggerated stories about what is going on inside our home to a godless woman who has been giving her foolish counsel and encouraging her to deceive us and get out.”

    In a bizarre twist, Alecia’s mother seems to be using the situation to alternatively throw a pity party for herself and opportunistically hock “essential oils” that she sells on the site and swears are helping her cope with the stress. In an article titled “How I Get Through The Hard Times,” Lisa briefly mentions her daughter leaving home and then helpfully links to her website’s essential oils store – which looks to be connected to a pyramid scheme.

    For her part, Alecia seems focused on building a life for herself that has so far been blocked off. She has created a Twitter account and Facebook group called “Help Me Prove It” that is soliciting advice from people around the country who may know how to navigate the red tape and procedural mess that is preventing her from being documented.

  160. says

    Gol-durnit! I’ve been remiss again.
    Welcome to the Lounge Toiger. Can I offer you a tasty adult beverage from the extensive selection available in the Lounge bar? Or alternatively, I can fix you a delicious N/A drink (sparkling strawberry/mango lemonade is quite delish, with or without alcohol).

  161. says

    I’m putting you all on notice: this is a PEA-FRIENDLY blog. I love peas. I will have no further besmirching of the good name of the noble pea.

  162. says

    Anne @127:

    I feel like crying, which is really stupid. It’s just a day of the week, why should it matter? Except that we haven’t gone out on an actual special day of any sort in years, and I’m tired of thinking of everybody else first. I’m being stupid. I’ll get over it.

    I don’t think there’s anything stupid about how you’re feeling at all. You and your husband haven’t had a special day together in a long time and there’s nothing wrong with you wanting a little bit of personal time with him. Moreover, there’s nothing wrong with wanting that day to fall on February 14.

  164. rq says

    Anne
    If being a grown-up means no longer caring about special days or rare dates, then I’m also not a grown-up.
    As Giliell says, it’s okay to feel bad and sad and depressed about it, especially if (as it seems) you’re like me, where the actual date-days are extremely few and very far between, and still get moved around like they’re second-best. It’s extremely discouraging, because it feels like the next time doesn’t deserve the same amount of effort and energy in planning, or even anticipation of actual execution. So I feel you, and it’s okay to feel bad.
    Being a grown-up about this means realizing that shit happens, and trying again, even when it’s difficult. :P Most especially when you want to be small and spiteful and just yell “NEVER AGAIN” because it seems more satisfactory. In the short run. ;)
    So let’s have some tea, and here’s to having an awesome take-out lunch! And we can grumble over cake. Because grumbling is allowed.
    *hugs*

  165. blf says

    Leukemia from vaccinations

    That exceptionally implausible claim rang a bell. Orac mentioned the same story and this Dr Wolfskin-for-brains recently, observing “Dr. [Wolfskin-for-brains] has to be one of the most vile antivaccinationists I’ve ever encountered… [H]e’s blaming cancer on vaccinations without a shred of evidence to support his viewpoint.”

  167. says

    I’m feeling less smitey and put upon now. I think we got things sorted – I told Husband that I want to swap Thursday’s plans with Saturday’s, period. It wasn’t much of a plan anyway, just Art Supply Warehouse and lunch at the good Thai restaurant in Irvine, but we’ve had to keep putting even that off for so long…

    Anyway, Elder Daughter can still do the backyard bird count on Friday before she and I run our errands, and on Monday (Sunday she’s counting birds at the local arboretum). I may stay home Saturday, or I may not, but I’ll try to do what I want. THBPBPTHPT.

  169. blf says

    I make sad eyes until my girlfriend saves me from their onslaught of mediocre taste. Split pea soup can be fantastic, though. I sometimes wonder if chopping them in half neutralizes their foulness.

    Hum… that might explain why I can tolerate split-pea soup (especially the famous Andersen’s), but otherwise find them tasteless with the most remarkably bland texture — when you eat one mixed with other stuff (say, in a stew), there’s a weird void in your mouth coincident with the pea.

    They seem to have gotten to poopyhead, however. But unless the blog’s name changes to Pearyngula or Peamageddon or Ejaculations from a Peabrained Poopyhead or whatever, the cheese, MUSHROOMS!, grog, and mustard are all probably safe.

  170. Saad says

    toiger, #158

    Horses: They’re like giant dogs that you can use as cars.

    Funniest thing I’ve read all day.

    And welcome :)

  171. says

    blf:

    Delineate the park boundaries with elk, bison, and Republican carcasses, and they will. As long as the carcasses last at any rate.

    Excellent idea. In fact, we should position the carcasses slightly inside the boundaries of the National Park, and then grizzly bears roaming outside the park will go back to where they belong.

    In Glacier National Park, rangers trying to protect hikers post signs noting grizzly bear activity. I saw all kinds of bears ignoring those signs. They amble right past them and enter the supposedly safe, or safer, zones.

  172. Vatican Black Ops, Latrina Lautus says

    Tony!
    You are a courageous fellow, tempting the wrath of The Grand Oversquid like that. Mess not with His Peas, for His Peas are Sacred.

    Also, I feel like falling asleep at my desk at work. I have a fuckton of higher-brain work to do, but I worked late last night and didn’t get much sleep, so here I am, hopped up on four coffees, a diet cola, a handful of chocolate covered coffee beans and a caffeine energy drink. I feel foul, sleepy and I dare not pass the gas that’s building up in my gut lest some enterprising soul smells it and thinks I’m a civet.

  173. Saad says

    What is the idea behind saying USian? Is it to replace the word American because it’s more specific to the country and not to the Americas in general?

  175. toiger says

    @161.
    Apparently not easy to appease, he mires us in rules against pea-smirchment of an inexplicably favored vegetable. And for those who disagree, well, he’ll pisum off.

  176. says

    Oh, my. More Republicans saying stupid stuff. This one is particularly had to believe. Here’s the backstory: the Republican-dominate House and Senate cut off funding for Homeland Security. The Republicans did that, not the Democrats.

    Now Republicans are saying that is the USA experiences a homeland-security breach that results in the deaths of Americans, the Democrats will be held responsible. Moreover, coffins should be lined up outside the Capitol Hill offices of Dems.

    What Democrats supposedly did to deserve this blame is this: they decided not to support the anti-immigrant provisions Republicans had inserted into the unrelated funding bill.

    It’s a very dangerous game. If we have a successful terrorist attack – all the dead Americans from that should be laid at the feet of the Democratic caucus,” Kirk said. […]

    “In the end, [Democrats] have to defend the country. They have sworn the allegiance to do that. They need to live up to their oaths of office,” Kirk said. “In the Democratic mind, politics is everything. I would say to them, politics is not everything. If you don’t have a country to defend, what is the purpose of politics?”

    That’s Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois speaking. He is not alone in his blame-the-Dems strategy. This is so stupid it’s laughable. But its also dangerous.

    http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/mcconnell-says-senate-is-stuck-it-s-up-the-the-house-on-dhs-20150210

    The anti-immigrant provisions the Republicans added to the funding bill:
    – defunding DACA (Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals) — so, yeah, they want to deport a bunch of children, teens, and young adults, the “Dreamers”

    Sounds like a boneheaded idea to me.

  177. rq says

    Honestly, there goes Peasy with his censorship again.
    I will say what I want about peas, but I will say it nicely, because this is still the Lounge.

    Welcome, toiger!

  178. says

    This is a followup to comment #176:

    […] Right now, hundreds of activists are protesting inside the Capitol Hill offices of Republican 2016 hopefuls, leadership, and outspoken anti-immigrant leaders.

    “Republicans have engaged in ceaseless attacks on hardworking immigrant families,” said CASA de Maryland President Gustavo Torres. “When our children vote in 2016 they will not forget the party that sought to destroy their parents.” […]

    See the hashtag #GOPMoveOver for more.

  180. says

    Do you suppose Peasy will ever grow weary of peas? Maybe if we inundated him with peas?

    In other news, police brutality has paralyzed a brown-skinned man who was visiting the USA:

    Madison, Alabama police last week roughed up a 57-year-old Indian citizen who was walking on the sidewalk outside his son’s home, leaving the older man temporarily paralyzed and hospitalized with fused vertebrae.

    “He was just walking on the sidewalk as he does all the time,” said his son, Chirag Patel, this morning. “They put him to the ground.”

    No crime had been committed. Madison Police on Monday issued a statement saying the department had suspended the officer and were investigating the use of force in this case. The police statement wished the man a “speedy recovery.” Alabama.com link.

    While he was out for a walk in his new neighborhood on Friday morning, Patel was stopped by two Madison police officers who said they were responding to a suspicious person call.

    When the officers began to question him, Patel said “no English” and “India” as he tried to point to his son’s house and repeated the house number. Sherrod said Patel was walking on the sidewalk and not acting suspiciously.

    Unable to communicate with Patel, the officers began patting him down before they claimed the man put his hands in his pockets and “slammed him to the ground,” Sherrod said. America AlJazeera link.

  183. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    I’m putting you all on notice: this is a PEA-FRIENDLY blog. I love peas. I will have no further besmirching of the good name of the noble pea.

    Okay, pea-friendly, fine. I won’t assault the peas. I even fix them for family members. I even eat the snap-pea kind. Occasionally I’ll even toss snow peas in a stir fry.

    But there ain’t no kind of pea that can hold a candle to a long, slender green bean fresh from your garden in a homemade ginger/garlic sauce. And I don’t care if the PEA is fresh from your garden in a homemade ginger/garlic sauce.

    Mmmmm, fresh green beans, lightly stir fried with generous garlic and moderate ginger, a dash of soy, a dash of vinegar and just a bit of blackstrap molasses.

    Now we’re getting close to eggplant territory, and not more than a stone’s throw or two from asparagus with olive oil and pomegranate.

  184. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    If passed, the new indecency law would ban, among other articles of clothing, yoga pants.

    D:

  185. blf says

    There is current a very LOUD bunch of, ah, yokels, at the local pub — within earshot of the lair — who are either trying to sing La Marseillaise or Silent Night, Holy Night, Feck all the Angels in Sight; or, maybe, alter the Earth’s rotation, orbit, and fundamental physics.

    Whatever, it’s exceptionally annoying…

  186. blf says

    The “morally misguided … motherfucking, power hungry self-aggrandised bigot in the stupid fucking hat” Fraudcis strikes again: “…[Fraudcis] has chided couples who choose not to have children, saying the decision was a ‘selfish’ act.”

    So all you cootie-bearing baby-cannon-equipped ones out there, get shooting! Fraudcis insists.

  188. rq says

    blf @185
    But singing to myself helps me work! I’ll try to keep it down from now on, but you know how it is with headphones – best to yell to be sure you’re heard.

  189. blf says

    the Republican-dominate House and Senate cut off funding for Homeland Security. The Republicans did that, not the Democrats.

    Gary Younge in The Grauniad had an excellent opinion article on this debacle the other day, Deluded and dysfunctional, the Republicans have lost the plot:

    …

    What has become evident since Republican victories in November’s midterm elections, which delivered them both houses of Congress, is that they don’t just have a problem compromising with Democrats — they cannot even compromise with each other. For the past four years they have revelled in their dysfunctionality, using Obama as a foil. Apparently unaware that brinkmanship is supposed to take you to the edge, not over it, they have shut down the government and almost forced the nation to default on its debts through a series a spectacular temper tantrums.

    As the Republican congressman Marlin Stutzman pointed out in a particularly candid moment 18 months ago, when Republican obduracy caused a government shutdown, “We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is.”

    These hissy fits have invariably been aimed at forcing Obama to undo the very things he pledged to do if elected, and to which Republicans have no plausible, coherent response: during his first term that was Obamacare; now it is immigration reform. Opposition, in short, had become not a temporary electoral state but a permanent ideological mindset in which their role was not to produce workable ideas but to resist them.

    When they won the Senate as well as the House, they were supposed to work together to produce Republican legislation that Obama would be forced to veto, definitively exposing the real source of the gridlock. In fact, they are simply imploding under the weight of their own obstinacy. They’ve run out of people to blame for not compromising with them. So now they’re blaming each other.

    …

    Their current internal feud was prompted by Obama’s executive order for modest immigration reform, which was enacted last November. It aims to prevent the deportation of up to 5 million undocumented immigrants living in the US, provide many with work permits, and shift the focus of immigration control to deportations of convicted criminals and recent arrivals.

    The Republican-controlled House, where funding bills must originate and legislation can be passed by a simple majority, has voted for a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) bill that would eviscerate Obama’s reforms. But to get the bill through the 100-seat Senate they need 60 votes. Senate Republicans have only 54 seats and Democrats, who are unanimously opposed to the bill, keep filibustering it.

    In a functional party the Republican Speaker, John Boehner, would work out what changes he could make to the bill to give the Republican Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, a fighting chance of getting the requisite majority to pass legislation they could both take credit for. Instead, Boehner has offered McConnell not compromise but commiserations. “He’s got a tough job over there; I’ve got a tough job over here. God bless him, and good luck.”

    The House has sent the same bill to the Senate twice. The Senate has failed to pass it several times. In effect, they’ve treated the Republican-controlled Senate no differently to how they treated its Democratic predecessor, with similar results. Reflexively, House Republicans have their bottom lip extended and at the ready. “We sent them a bill,” representative Michael Burgess told Politico, “and they need to pass it. They need to pass our bill.” A tantrum is not far off. …

    …

    If they don’t find a solution by 27 February, then the DHS will be shut down and Obama won’t have had a thing to do with it. The true source of the gridlock over the past six years will be clearer than ever. …

  190. blf says

    But singing to myself helps me work! I’ll try to keep it down from now on…

    They do seem to have quieted down somewhat now. Either passed out, gone for piss, the beer supply has been cut off, finally forgot all the words they couldn’t remember, and/or wandered across the street / Esplanade and fell into the sea.

  191. blf says

    Saad@173, Yes.
    I myself used USAian and similar for years, before switching to USAlien in the past few years, for essentially that reason. I now prefer USAlien (USAlienstan, USAlienstani, …) because the USA and USAians are so alien to the rest of the planet.

  192. says

    blf @191:
    And in the nicest, kindest way possible, I’ll say I’m not a fan of your wording. Those of us living in the US are not aliens. We are not “others”. We are human beings with the same kinds of hopes, dreams, motivations, and lives as people across the globe. We suffer from the same kind of problems people around the globe have. While some decisions made by USAmericans might seem perplexing to outsiders, when you strip things down to the core beliefs and motivations, we are not so different as your USAlien label would imply.

  193. says

    Thank you, Tony. As usual, you said it all and beautifully.

    blf, our ways may seem strange to you, but we were all born on this planet, we’re all human, and in the long run we’re all in this together.*

    *Mildly Deranged Penguins not included in the above statement. A vague disclaimer is nobody’s friend.

  195. jste says

    Speaking as an Australian, I just want to echo Tony!‘s 192.

    —

    Alright, mad scientists need to pick up their game already. Why can’t I buy a pet cat/duck thing yet?

  196. says

    Scott Walker said some more stupid stuff, only this time he said it in London. I think his excuse should be that he is following in the footsteps of Mitt Romney, Bobby Jindal, and Chris Christie, other Republicans who went to London and made fools of themselves.

    Maybe the Republicans are intent on proving to citizens of the United Kingdom that the rightwing in the USA is indeed stupid beyond belief. Good comedy fodder.

    Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) on Wednesday dodged a question about whether he believes in evolution. Speaking at the Chatham House foreign policy think tank London, Walker was asked: “Are you comfortable with the idea of evolution? Do you believe in it?”

    “For me, I am going to punt on that one as well,” he said. “That’s a question politicians shouldn’t be involved in one way or another. I am going to leave that up to you.

    The questioner responded with, “Really?” and then went on to note that “Any British politician, right- or left-wing, would laugh and say, ‘Of course evolution’s true.’”

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/11/scott-walker-dodges-question-on-whether-he-believes-in-evolution_n_6663218.html

  197. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    Maybe the Republicans are intent on proving to citizens of the United Kingdom that the rightwing in the USA is indeed stupid beyond belief.

    From what I hear, they’re sorely in need of it.

  198. carlie says

    Anne, I understand completely. You deserve that special time AND you deserve to get to be sad that it’s evaporated. *hug*

  199. says

    Oh how I wish the Lounge bar existed in meatspace. I’m developing a headache (thanks in part to the response of some people to the Chapel Hill murders) and I have only half a bottle of Moscato at home.
    I need something stronger…
    Crap! I forgot I bought a bottle of Fireball yesterday!
    ::whisks off to the refrigerator::

  200. says

    We’re doing the art-store-and-lunch thing tomorrow, so that’s okay. But I was so looking forward to/in need of a morning to myself… Maybe I can convince Elder Daughter to bird one of the local big parks sometime next week. I’ll even drive her there and she can take the bus home.

    Silly, but sometimes I just like to be able to put the radio or TV on full blast and potter without worrying about bothering anyone but the cats.

    Thanks everybody for letting me vent and being supportive.

  202. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Question for the horde in the know. I’m turning 65 in a few months. But I’m not planning on needing Medicare or SSA as I will be working for another year or so, until the Redhead is available for benefits. Do I apply and defer for both Medicare and SSA for my next birthday?

  203. Grewgills says

    @Giliell #187
    Her ankle bracelet had my (lack of) sleep addled brain thinking she was hanging from that tree for a moment.
    Also, that she can hold her pose that well with the distraction of baby is impressive.

  204. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    Hey, Tony, here’s another drink recipe you can borrow, which turns out to be pretty good acshully:

    1oz gin
    1oz bourbon
    1oz cognac
    1oz Jagermeister (chilled)
    Splash grenadine

    Shake first three ingredients with ice and strain, if desired. Layer over Jagermeister, drop splash of grenadine into glass.

    I call it the “Treaty of Versailles.” :)

  205. se habla espol says

    Nerd, I went through that a few years ago. As to Social Security, no. The longer you put off collecting SS, up to age 75, the more it is when you finally sign up.
    Medicare, OTOH, is more complex. In part, it depends on your employer’s healthcare coverage. The little outfit I worked at when I turned 65 had HC coverage that coordinated with Medicare, and required Medicare coverage to coordinate with. (‘Twas a mess, because nobody told me about that.) Other HC plans don’t seem to have this feature. You need to check with your employer or HC provider to get the details of your plan.

  206. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    You need to check with your employer or HC provider to get the details of your plan.

    Thanks Se halba espol. Done that. Evidently my HC plan (according to our HR person) is sufficient that I must take it in lieu of Medicare. which is good for the Redhead.
    My present plan is to retire/go on Medicare after the Redhead qualifies for Medicare. I will get a lot more rest, as I can sleep in.

  207. says

    His name was Michael. He lived in Nashville, TN. He was my last boyfriend. We broke up in 2002.
    I’m so tired of being single, and I fucking hate that I can go about my daily activities and not think about that at all, but one single Facebook post can remind me of how fucking lonely I am.
    I think I need a good cry.

  212. Grewgills says

    @Hershele
    If her grades and board scores are great she can get tuition forgiveness in a lot of places. Shop around a bit and see what the schools she likes can offer. If her grades and/or board scores aren’t very high it can be a good idea to find a community college close by that has a very high transfer success rate to top colleges. If she excels in the CC there can be some scholarship opportunities to jump up to university.

  215. birgerjohansson says

    *”When ISIS Ran the American South” http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/isis-american-south-lynching/
    The article mentions several cases of men being burned to death.
    “Until recently, some longtime residents still remembered when the two Arthur brothers were tied to a flagpole and set on fire at the city fairgrounds in 1920”

    *This is from The American Conservative, a place for the three or four non-crazy conservatives left in USA

  217. rq says

    opposablethumbs
    I love the bit about firefighters. :D And – hooray! – they wrote firefighters.

    Tony
    *megahugs*
    You’re a treasure, and someone romantically inclined is bound to discover that. In the meantime, allow me to appreciate all that you are, and shake my head in sadness over those who are missing out.

  219. bassmike says

    Tony! all the hugs in the world for you. I was single for a lot longer than I would care to enumerate and it wasn’t pleasant. I sincerely wish I could help. As it is, I hope you find someone soon. You deserve all the happiness in the world.

    Anne @193: nice Buffy reference!

    Having a bit of an odd day today. Ah well!

  220. opposablethumbs says

    Parcel of hugs for the Lounge, parcel of – just put it down here, then, shall I? ::unpacks basket:: Right, we’ve got ankle, pounce, fluffy, virtual, commiserative and congratulatory – oh, and there’s an extra packet tucked in here marked “for Tony!, please collect if wanted”.

    I hate the high visibility of St. Valentine’s, just because it’s very difficult for things like this not to hurt those people who don’t have any romantic connection in their lives but wish they had (one of whom is a young person I know). Some good advice over at Captain Awkward, as there so often is.

  222. Saad says

    Tony, #207

    Sorry to hear what you’re going through. I have moments of loneliness like that too so I understand. You’re an awesome person, and I hope you’ll meet someone great soon.

  225. says

    In reference #202 and #205, Nerd’s question about Social Security, and one answer.

    The longer you put off collecting SS, up to age 75, the more it is when you finally sign up.

    While that is true, you need to look at the actuarial tables. You can get less money per month over a longer period of time by retiring early, or you can get more money per month over a shorter period of time if you retire later. In the end, it doesn’t make much difference for most people.

    Take your own sex, health, lifestyle etc. into account. It’s a sad fact, but caretakers for other elderly people die sooner. Being a caretaker is a health hazard.

  226. says

    birger @224, I loved some of the photos at the top of that presentation. The color photos towards the end of the presentation depended on a kind of color manipulation I don’t really care for — and too many of them failed when it came focus from foreground to background.

  227. says

    The oil and gas industry continues to bride the U.S. Senate:

    The oil and gas industry gave nearly $250,000 to each of the 62 senators who voted in favor of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project late last month, according to MapLight, a nonpartisan research organization that tracks the influence of money in politics. The revelations come as the House of Representatives is set to vote on and expected to pass the Senate legislation Wednesday that would approve the pipeline and start transferring oil in western Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast. President Barack Obama has threatened to veto the project on a number of grounds, including environmental concerns.

    The oil and gas industry, which stands to benefit from the Keystone XL pipeline, gave $236,544 on average to the senators who voted yes on Keystone, or about 10 times more than the senators who voted no. The 36 senators against the pipeline received about $22,882 apiece in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry. There was no data on contributions to House members.

    International Business Times link.

  228. says

    Add this to the overwhelming evidence that police forces in the USA are out of hand, and are not serving the public well:

    With just 59,000 residents, the Pasco Police Department in Washington state have shot and killed four people in the past six months – more than police in the entire United Kingdom, which has over 80,000,000 citizens, in the past three years combined. In fact, Pasco police are on pace to have more police shootings than Germany, also with 80,000,000 citizens, over the current 12 month period.

    On Tuesday, February 10th, three Pasco Police officers shot and killed an unarmed man who had been throwing rocks. It’s hard to imagine, if the American public was told the below video [see link for the video] was from Iraq or Syria or Cuba, that our entire nation wouldn’t be disgusted at the abuse of power and unethical use of force to senselessly kill a man.

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/12/1363996/-Pasco-Washington-police-have-killed-more-people-than-police-in-Germany-the-UK-combined

  229. says

    Hehe, I think I’ve been declared “honorary Russian*”. My neighbours are always a bit surprised when I don’t answer their Russian questions and look sheepish.
    *Fun fact: I am actually the grandchild of a Russian German woman, but I don’t have a “migratory background”.

  230. rq says

    Lynna @228
    Holy shit! Mind posting that up on Later This Morning? Pasco made that thread today. :P I don’t think it’s an honour, in this case.

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

    Tony,
    *hugs*

    I’m not exactly in the same boat, but I think they might be part of the same fleet.

  233. rq says

    Damn… And I realize that posting that specific link right now might be insensitive to Tony. :( Sorry, Tony. *hugs*

  234. says

    rq @230. Done. Thanks for the reminder. The Pasco Police force should probably be disbanded. They need to start over. It looks like institution-wide failure to me.

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

    I think a lung or possibly both is fighting for freedom from the oppressing constraints of my body.

    In other words, can this horrible cough stop, please?

  237. rq says

    Beatrice
    You’re such an oppressor, trying to keep your lungs inside your body. Don’t you know they’re human?? Every cell of every lung contains your entire DNA code! SET THEM FREE!!!
    *hands over some sea buckthorn lozenges* <- They're just delicious, not sure about any medicinal value. Might want to try ginger tea for that.

  238. Morgan!? the Slithy Tove says

    Tony, my friend,
    Long term loneliness can be corrosive, as I am sure you know. I know moving to a different city is a radical move, but it might be a very good radical move. There are a lot of places that are more friendly to gays than the one in which you live. I could suggest several places that are lovely to live, but it isn’t me that would be moving. Bottom line, I sincerely hope your singleness ends soon. If I were a single gay man I’d be on an airplane headed in your direction in a flat New York minute.

  240. savant says

    Hi everyone! Tony suggested I say hello here, so I’m doing that. Long time reader, first time writer, yadda yadda. I unfortunately don’t have a lot of commenting time, so I can’t be too chatty – I am one of those full-time-student-slash-full-time-worker peoples. Working from home affords me an occasional blog break though, and working in a well-funded research group is worth all of the trials. I’ll try to keep up!

    Regarding the recent Briane invasion in the “Some Atheists Get It” thread; I have no idea how you guys keep up with the constant inane questions. I’ve been reading this blog for a long time now, and it’s always the same noise, with absolutely no desire to actually discuss things. No idea how you manage to keep it up.

    Tony @ 239
    I know we haven’t talked before, but I’ve read your comments here for a long time – I guess that puts me at something of an advantage. I know how hard loneliness can be, too, and I really hope your path is on its way back up. You deserve as much.

  241. says

    savant @240:
    Welcome in.
    I’m sure rq will be around with a fun little questionnaire soon.
    I can fix you up a virtual adult beverage if you like, or you can choose from a selection of N/A drinks from the Lounge bar.

    Also, thank you for the kind words :)

  242. savant says

    I’ve been a fan of the Poor Man’s Black Velvet for awhile now – pint glass half-full with sweet cider, carefully pour (using a spoon to keep separate) a half pint of black stout. The cider cuts down on the bitterness of the stout somewhat and gives it an apple aftertaste. Magical.

    Oh dear, I didn’t know that there was an exam. Is it open book?

  244. rq says

    savant
    You can open all the books you want, but they won’t help you!!
    The questionnaire reads as follows:
    Please share your opinion on
    1) horses
    2) peas
    3) cheese
    4) Miracle Whip (contrary to popular opinion, this question does not refer to mayonnaise, but Miracle Whip only – and yes, it has graduated from BONUS question to question #4).
    There is a right answer, but we have no consensus on what that right answer is, yet. You’ll just have to partake of the hivemind.
    And welcome in!
    While Tony’s mixing your drink, you think you could ask him to mix up a Campari and orange, too?

  245. savant says

    That sounds fantastic. I don’t even know what Campari is, but it sounds delightfully tropical.

    1) Why, a horse is a horse, of course of course.
    2) I prefer frozen peas to frozen peaches, but mushy peas is for soups and that’s about all.
    3) I like cheese, but it doesn’t like me very much! I don’t know what I did to deserve my lactose intolerance, but it must’ve been pretty terrible.
    4) I refuse to acknowledge the existence of this “Miracle” Whip. I’m sure that there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for it, whipped or not.

  247. says

    savant:
    I see you’re a pea-lover like our Squidly Overlord. I suppose we won’t hold that against you :)

    As for Campari:

    Campari is an alcoholic liqueur, considered an apéritif (20.5%, 21%, 24%, 25%, or 28.5% ABV, depending on the country in which it is sold), obtained from the infusion of herbs and fruit (including chinotto and cascarilla) in alcohol and water. It is a bitter characterised by its dark red colour.
    Campari is often used in cocktails and is commonly served with soda water, wine, or citrus juice. It is produced by the Alfredo Campari Group, a multi-national company based in Italy.

    I personally don’t care for it, and when I take over the world, I shall ban the production and sale of it. Bwahahahahahahahahaha!

  248. rq says

    Tony
    I want no part of a world that has no Campari in it, so you’ll have to do without me, too!
    *grabs all the Campari and jumps out the window into a fully-equipped spaceship and heads for alternate universe where Tony is not so intolerant*

  249. says

    Darnit.
    Ok you win rq. I prefer a world with you than one without you, so I give.

    ****
    Starting now, it will be much easier for people to jump from one carrier to another and take their smartphone with them:

    Starting Wednesday, all US carriers must comply with requests from postpaid and prepaid customers to unlock their devices, as long as certain parameters are met. The rules officially came down in 2013, and the industry group CTIA committed last year to have all wireless carriers adhering to the regulation by February 11, 2015.

    The debate over phone unlocking has come a long way in just a few short years. Unlocking a phone allows owners to put the device on whatever carrier network they choose. For years, carriers have locked down devices, allowing them only to connect to their own networks. The move was designed to keep customers close and not see them stray to other carriers.

    “We are pleased the FCC acknowledged the participating wireless carriers met the deadlines to unlock their customers’ devices per the Consumer Code for Wireless Service,” said Scott Bergmann, the CTIA’s vice president for regulatory affairs, in a statement. “We also remind consumers that an unlocked device does not necessarily mean an interoperable one since different carriers use different technologies and spectrum bands.”

    For customers, the inability to unlock handsets had been a nuisance. Many consumers, seeking better network coverage or data plan pricing, have wanted to be able to move to a different network without having to buy a new device. An unlocked handset would allow that interchange between, say, AT&T and T-Mobile networks. Locked devices force customers to stick with their carrier networks and if they decide to switch, to buy a new device on the other carrier.

    ****
    This Macbook Air is fucking durable!

    ****

    Trigger Warning:
    AZ man rapes woman he saw at bar, says “now you have a baby bless it and take care of it”

    According to KPNX, court records showed that a woman woke up on Nov. 4 at around 4 a.m. to find 54-year-old Tilfert D. Vaughn standing naked behind her bathroom door with a large serrated bread knife.

    The woman said that the suspect made her lie down on the bed, and he raped her while holding the knife to her throat. The woman’s friend, who was also in the bed, woke up and struggled with the suspect. But the knife wounded the man so badly that he was later forced to have surgery to repair the nerve damage to his hands.

    Both of the victims said that felt that they would die if they did not obey Vaughn’s commands.

    “Now you have a baby. Bless it and take care of it,” Vaughn told the woman after raping her, court documents said.

    Vaughn was also accused of stealing sunglasses, toiletries, beer, food and other items from the victims apartment. Investigators said that he stashed the items in another apartment before returning to rape the woman.

    Investigators used evidence compiled from a forensic exam on the woman and surveillance video to determine that Vaughn was the perpetrator. The court ordered Vaughn to provide a DNA sample, which was later matched to evidence obtained during the victim’s forensic exam.

    Vaughn has denied raping the woman, but he did say that he was near her apartment on the night that she was attacked. He was being held without bail due to nature of the charges.

  250. rq says

    *rq returns and parks spaceship in appropriately labelled parking spot, brings all the campari back*

  251. says

    Oh good, you returned the spaceship. I just heard that the temperatures tonight will be below freezing, so I’ll need to borrow that ship so I can fly somewhere warmer. Brrr already.

  257. says

    I got my art supply store trip and Thai lunch date with Husband, yays. As a bonus, when we got home, there were 0 messages from Aged Mum.

    This hugs basket looks a little empty; I will refill it forthwith. Also, anyone who would like some of our lovely warm windy weather (high 80s, current rh 11% and falling), help yourself. Please. Take it all, I beg you.

  258. says

    And… I spoke too soon. Aged Mum just called. She just wanted to make sure she said, that there was enough money in her account to cover the check she was writing for some repairs to the house. Yes, and she knows there is, she just wanted an excuse to call and bother me. I love her, really I do, but she wears me out.

  259. Saad says

    Listen up, womenz. This man tells you how you feel about rape… and driving.

    Historian Saleh Al-Sadoon: Western women drive because they don’t care if they’re raped on the roadside

    “They should listen to me and get used to what society thinks,” Al-Saadoon said.

    Since the rape argument didn’t seem to be convincing anyone, Al-Saadoon tried another approach, claiming that women are treated “like queens” in Saudi Arabia because they are driven around by the men of the family and male chauffeurs. That led the host to ask if he wasn’t afraid that women might be raped by their chauffeurs.

    Al-Saadoon agreed.

    “There is a solution, but the government officials and the clerics refuse to hear of it,” he said. “The solution is to bring in female foreign chauffeurs to drive our wives.”

    That caused the female host to laugh and cover her face with her palm.

    “Female foreign chauffeurs?” she said. “Seriously?”

    I love that the woman facepalms and laughs at him.

    CNN has a clip of the discussion. I wish they had video of her facepalming.

  262. says

    ::initially darts in front of the intertoob outlet to get to the mint chicken and jasmine rice before Saad…then realizes that sharing is cooler than hogging, and only takes a portion::

  265. says

    Oh, the GamerGaters and assorted misogynists are going to shit their pants:
    http://towerfall.tumblr.com/post/110562144181/alternate-archers

    Next up is the alternate blue archer. If you keep up on gaming news she may seem familiar – her appearance is loosely based on feminist games critic Anita Sarkeesian. Anita’s work has been an inspiration to the TowerFall team. Her “Tropes vs Women in Games” video series gave us a valuable new lens through which to assess our character designs. TowerFall is about bringing people together, so it’s vitally important that the cast of playable characters makes everyone feel invited to join in. Simply put, this wouldn’t have occurred to me if not for Anita, and feedback from players has reinforced how important it really is. We’re very excited to immortalize Anita in a small way, as the alternate Last of the Order.

  266. savant says

    TowerFall is brilliant! Always have liked that game and those developers. I also expect there to be some shouting amongst the gators about that one, but just for the Anita shout-out – as far as I know they’ve been pretty quiet about the game otherwise.

  271. says

    Savant
    Hello and welcome in!

    Morgan

    I know moving to a different city is a radical move, but it might be a very good radical move.

    It is a radical move, and one fraught with difficulties, but that said:
    Tony!
    I don’t think it’s gotten below freezing at all this year in PDX (indeed, temperatures are around 60 Fahrenheit and the daffodils are blooming, which is just damned unnatural for February here). Also, we actually have a public transit system that’s a sight cheaper than cabs. And a vast supply of Thai food (although not as vast as the selection of Pho places, which nearly rival coffeeshops in prevalence lately), plus a surfeit of food carts in an endless variety of other styles of food. Plus there’s a vibrant gay scene, and I’m pretty sure I know some places that are needing bartenders. Just saying. :)

  274. says

    The military has approved hormone therapy for Chelsea Manning.

    ****

    Father of a child who shot and killed another a neighbor’s child sentenced to 3 years in prison.

    He was charged with keeping a loaded .22-caliber rifle unlocked in his bedroom, where his son found it in April 2013. The boy took it outside and shot Brandon Holt once in the head. The child died the next day.

    I wish this were a signal to other gun owners not to leave their loaded guns lying around the home.

  275. A. Noyd says

    rq (#254)

    Oh, and this (NSFW): If Disney Couples Starred in “Fifty Shades of Grey”.

    Good grief. FSoG fans are so inappropriate. The Pocahontas one squicks me out big time. Pocahontas was a real life victim of rape and abuse by a white man (perhaps John Smith himself), and a large number of Native American women continue to be raped and abused by white men to this day. Really, portraying any of the princess of color in the role of Ana is creepy given stereotypes about their races’ supposed submissiveness or lasciviousness and the sexual abuse they’re subjected to because of those stereotypes. Then there’s the fact that a few of those characters are canonically underage.

  278. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    PDX, specifically, is the Portland International Airport code, which has been adopted by AmTrak, the Portland Kink Community, and random people around Portland, among others, as shorthand for the metropolitan area as a whole.

  279. says

    A. Noyd @275:
    I read the comments following the article I linked to @269, and boy oh boy, the 50SoG fans were out in force, arguing that the rape scene wasn’t really rape and generally supporting all the horrible shit in the novel.

  281. Morgan!? the Slithy Tove says

    When I was a kid there was nothing on this earth that could convince me to eat green peas. I didn’t care how they were cooked or combined with other stuff. Not doin’ it. Many years later I discovered minimally cooked veggies (my mother cooked everything to death) and although I wasn’t overly fond of peas, lightly steamed with butter and lemon was palatable. Fast forward many more years, I now seem to like the little buggers, but not overcooked. In tribute to this transformation, I am planting peas in this year’s garden for the explicit purpose of being able to eat them raw.

    Am I still allowed to be a Hordeling, if slightly disgraced?

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

    Friday 13th, Valentine’s day and 50 shades coming out… make for a dangerous concentration of stupid in the town at the moment.

  288. birgerjohansson says

    From Dispatches from the Culture Wars: “Mikey Weinstein gets email” http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2015/02/12/mikey-gets-email-19/
    “I hope the Isis captures you and skins you alive for your family to see. Then watch you beg our marines and soldiers who walk in Christ to save your pussy ass jewboy. But it will be too late for you as you will burn in hell.”

    (sarcasm) ”Can you feel the love tonight” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1hcc1QvM2Q

    Also, interesting grammar have you.
    Encyclopedia you need.
    medical condition “pussy ass” unknown is.

  289. bassmike says

    So once again it’s 14th February tomorrow. It’s always a cause of some frustration in our household as it is my wife’s birthday (as I may have mentioned last year). So this means that we can’t just go for a quiet meal together because everywhere is hyped up for Valentine’s Day. Anyway, we’ve planned coffee and cake for the afternoon and a takeaway in the evening.

    Here’s some more hugs and an iron for the snark hat.

  291. rq says

    carlie
    The best part is that it just looks like a cool pattern until you look closer (just like with the pi pattern). :D
    I wish someone would do the corresponding clothing line for boys, with unicorns and fairies and flowers.

  293. birgerjohansson says

    Regarding hate mail from kooks @ 288:

    “You have never been in love
    until you’ve seen the sunlight thrown
    over smashed human grammar
    .
    We are the petty pretty kooks
    and you’re standing on our street
    .
    Hector was the first of the kooks
    with a keypad in his hand
    the first to press “send”
    and the first of the kooks to lie
    oh my”

  294. ledasmom says

    rq @ 232: I’m thinking number 9 is a fungus-infected ant. Can’t quite see it well enough to be sure, though.

  295. says

    Hi Folks

    1.) I haz haircut. yes, that is such a rare event it bears mentioning. I’m practically bald with a mere 50 cm left. It’s actually quite pretty.

    2.) I’m going to Heildelberg on that college sponsored trip. There are only 2 other students in that class, so I’m not taking up somebody else’s place. And I think I can do with 4 days of being profesional student instead of profesional parent.

    3.) It’s carnival. #1 went as a puma this morning. Her teacher came in badly done blackface. *sigh* What do they teach teachers these days in school? As it was badly done (I first thought she was being a hippie in that overall and with the light brown curly wig and with the suntan brown make up, but the black baby doll in a sling shattered my illusion), I hope the black kids didn’t notice. What does she think she’s telling those kids when their very skin colour and kinky hair gets turned into a carnival joke? Oh, right, it’s probably not a thought that has ever crossed her mind because she’s not “a racist”.
    *sigh sigh sigh*

    ++++

    Some language fun: 40 brilliant idioms that simply can’t be translated literally. As if any idiom can be translated literally. But some fun with words in there!

    I find it more disturbing when they have literal equivalents. I never dare to use them because I sound “so German”. Like “something has given up the ghost”.
    From that list:

    From Swedish translator Matti Jääro:

    The idiom: Det är ingen ko på isen
    Literal translation: “There’s no cow on the ice.”
    What it means: “There’s no need to worry. We also use ‘Det är ingen fara på taket,’ or ‘There’s no danger on the roof,’ to mean the same thing.”

    Those Swedish bastards, let us do all the work!
    Because in German, when you need to resolve a tricky situation, you have to get the cow off the ice.

    From Thai translator Kelwalin Dhanasarnsombut:

    The idiom: ชาติหน้าตอนบ่าย ๆ
    Literal translation: “One afternoon in your next reincarnation.”
    What it means: “It’s never gonna happen.”
    Other languages this idiom exists in: A phrase that means a similar thing in English: “When pigs fly.” In French, the same idea is conveyed by the phrase, “when hens have teeth (quand les poules auront des dents).” In Russian, it’s the intriguing phrase, “When a lobster whistles on top of a mountain (Когда рак на горе свистнет).” And in Dutch, it’s “When the cows are dancing on the ice (Als de koeien op het ijs dansen).”

    Apparently, cows on ice are an issue in Europe. But for the phenomenon described we have a patron saint, Sankt Nimmerlein (St. Neverly). So things get postponed to St. Nimmlein’s Day, which obviously never comes.

    From Latvian translator Ilze Garda and Kristaps Kadikis:

    The idiom: Pūst pīlītes.
    Literal translation: “To blow little ducks.”
    What it means: “It means to talk nonsense or to lie.”
    Other language connections: In Croatian, when someone is obviously lying to someone, you say that they are “throwing cream into their eyes (bacati kajmak u oči).”

    In German we have at least three expressions for that I’m aware of. Mightily popular in the Lounge might be “don’t tell me stories from the horse”. Others are “don’t try to sew a button to my cheek” and “you want to bind a bear to my back”.

    From French translator Patrick Brault:

    The idiom: Sauter du coq à l’âne.
    Literal translation: “To jump from the cock to the donkey.”
    What it means: “It means to keep changing topics without logic in a conversation.”

    A bit vulgar here: Du kommst vom Kuchen backen auf Arschbacken
    To go from baking (backen) cake to buttcheeks (cheeks = Backen)

    The idiom: Les carottes sont cuites!
    Literal translation: “The carrots are cooked!”
    What it means: “The situation can’t be changed.”
    Other language connections: It’s bit like the phrase, “It’s no use crying over spilt milk,” in English.

    The MDP might prefer this one: The cheese is eaten

    From Polish translator Kinga Skorupska:

    The idiom: Z choinki się urwałaś?
    Literal translation: “Did you fall from a Christmas tree?”
    What it means: “You are not well informed, and it shows.”

    I have no equivalent for this, I simply love it

    The idiom: Iets voor een appel en een ei kopen
    Literal translation: “Buying something for an apple and an egg.”
    What it means: “It means you bought it very cheaply.”

    That’s literally the same in German

  296. rq says

    From Silent No More, the stories of twelve young aboriginal women in Canada.

    How do you tell the story of aboriginal women in Canada today? You can do it with horror stories and grim statistics: 1,200 missing and murdered; 54% more likely to suffer assault, abuse, threats of violence. You can do it with politics: national outrage, political roundtables, calls for a formal inquiry.

    Or you can reach out to the people most directly affected and give them the tools to tell their stories. This unique project put cameras in the hands of 12 aboriginal girls from Maples Collegiate in Winnipeg and taught them how to document the reality of their lives. We took the conversation to the frontlines.

    Here’s what the girls had to say. We all need to listen.

  297. says

    Giliell, “given up the ghost” is used in English too. :)

    It is VERY FUCKING COLD here. -25 C atm, and forecast to get colder yet. Yes, chigau, I know in Edmonton that’s just Tuesday, but here it’s a problem. Very few people have block heaters in their cars, e.g..

    In the US, you’d call it -13F. I can feel the cold off my well-frozen window – it has a thick sheet of ice on it, and the humidity in here has to be about 5% as a result.

    Brr. Don’t come here, Tony, you’ll freeze your adorable ears off. OTOH, you’d also find more men willing to get close and cuddle, so… :) I hope you find someone soon. You deserve to be loved by someone as much as we here love you.

  298. says

    Caitie
    I know, that’s why I used it as an example (I just can’t bring myself to use it)
    Others are “that speaks volumes” and “to put somebody in the picture”. Can’t wrap my head around them. What I also find funny are those that could mean the same cause they’re so close but don’t. In English you have “that’s not my cup of tea” and in German, how could it be otherwise, “that’s not my beer”. Only that it doesn’t mean “that’s not my taste” but “that’s not my problem”

  299. azhael says

    @232
    Yeah, picture #9 is a fungus infested ant, more specifically a ponerine ant consumed by Cordyceps.

  300. Saad says

    azhael,

    Yeah, picture #9 is a fungus infested ant, more specifically a ponerine ant consumed by Cordyceps.

    Phew, I’m glad I didn’t post my guess.

  301. rq says

    Saad
    When in doubt, crowd-source to here and save yourself the embarrassment. :D It’s why I asked, I had a few… interesting… guesses myself. ;)

  303. Saad says

    “Some sort of bug with worms coming out of it” doesn’t quite have the same effect as “a ponerine ant consumed by Cordyceps”.

  306. rq says

    Saad
    It’s for Vaaaalentine’s Day, sooooo romaaaaantic!!!! :P
    I probably should have TW’ed that…

  307. rq says

    bassmike
    I hope you and Wife manage the kind of day that makes the two of you happy, with as little of the over-produced romantic sappiness intruding as possible! (With some true romance of your own tastes instead.)
    *hugs* and happy birthday to your wife!

  309. Saad says

    Just read about this over at Ophelia’s:

    Pope Francis said that couples who opt not to have children are being “selfish” as he spoke of a “greedy generation” that’s choosing not to procreate.

    Is there enough iron on our planet to produce this much irony?

  310. azhael says

    @309 Saad
    I think i’m finally understanding what papa Paco is about. He is trying to become so ludicruously surreal that people will start doubting that such a ridiculous creature could possibly be real at all. He hopes to exploit that old christian tradition of assuming supernatural creatures that are so preposterously contradictory and non-sensical that they must be very powerful indeed to exist despite being so blatantly incoherent. Basically he is trying to emulate his role model, god, and become impossibly absurd.

    That, or he is just an old, priviledged fuck who is so lacking in self-awareness that he doesn’t even realise how much of an arsehole he makes himself look like every time he opens his gob.
    I vote secret machiavelic plans to become superpowerful. It just makes sense.

  311. birgerjohansson says

    Saad,
    we are being selfish for not giving in to the selfish genes who want us to fuck so the genes get a new generation of survival vehicles.

    I just realised: The Pope and his church are part of the meme complex that “wants” us to reproduce without constraint.
    So technically, the Pope is a mind parasite co-conspirator!
    If he actually had acid for blood, he would be cool.

    — — — —
    revised verse about hate mail from kooks @ 288: “…The First to Lie”

    “You have never been in love
    until you’ve seen the sunlight thrown
    over smashed ALL CAPS gibberish**
    .
    We are the petty, pretty kooks
    and you’re standing on our street
    .
    Hector was the first of the kooks
    with a keypad in his hand
    the first to press “send”
    and the first of the kooks to lie
    oh my”
    — — — — — — —
    ** Alternately
    “over badly spelled kook hate mail”

  312. Nick Gotts says

    So technically, the Pope is a mind parasite co-conspirator! – birgirjohansson

    How do you mean, “technically”? :-p

  314. birgerjohansson says

    Nick Gotts,
    I was regarding the memes as mind parasites, but it would be cooler if they are biological in nature.
    .
    I suppose the pope’s funny hat serves to mask the odd appendages and antennae.
    If he inserts eggs in the brains of his followers we have a complete explanation for the history of the church. Luther was carrying a mutant brain parasite that rebelled.
    — — — — — —
    Scientists go to great lengths to extend superlow friction http://phys.org/news/2015-02-scientists-great-lengths-superlow-friction.html
    If this could be used to lubricate mechanical hearts, power supply would be the remaning problem, and be a more tractable problem thatn lubrication has been.
    .
    Also, the wheels neeeded for attitude adjustments of space telescopes.

  317. says

    Last night I watched some of a miniseries, Mankind:The Story of All of Us. Apart from being a bit overproduced, It has so far presented Babies and Crops as inventions of women, while Hunting, War, Civilization, Writing, Trade, Building, Bronze, Iron, Weapons, Democracy are all manly arts. In fact, after they cover agriculture, there is like one woman at all on screen, and she’s being ogled by a dude. Maybe I’m being a bit sensitive. But, “the story of ALL of us”?? Also, is there any evidence to suggest women didn’t hunt or trade or understand smelting? I don’t expect them to be all-inclusive against evidence, but geez.

  318. Yellow Thursday says

    Count me among the single folks trying to get through tomorrow’s overly-hyped day of roses, chocolates, and everything pink. I never cared much about Valentine’s Day, but this is the first one in my adult life that I’ve been alone. I decided I’m going to spend the day with romcoms, homemade salsa with tortilla chips, and assorted flavored margaritas. I bought the following to mix and match:

    Cuervo “gold” tequila (I’d love to get some aged tequila, but I can’t afford it.)
    triple sec
    blue curacao
    peach schnapps
    creme de cocoa (I also have a little bit of kahlua left, and I want to try making a chocolate margarita.)
    and sweetened lime juice

    I’ll report back with recipes and reviews on Sunday, if I’m not sleeping off a hangover.

  320. says

    Yellow Thursday @318:
    Commiserations.
    I have to work all day tomorrow, which is a good thing in a way, bc then I won’t stew in my own sadness (which I typically do bc I’ve never had anyone to share V-Day with; seems petty I know, but darnit…stop Shoop. Don’t go there again). I’ll be making margaritas at work all day. I hope yours are good and you enjoy your romcoms. Do you have any specific ones you want to watch?

  321. says

    For Valentine’s Day tomorrow I am loving myself, cutting myself some slack for procrastinating on one unpleasant job, and feeding myself Fran’s Chocolates and Erath wine. Will also spread some long distance love to my two excellent progeny.

    As far as the 50 Shades of Gray thing goes, nope, not going near that movie. You know how christians betray some of their true predilections by backing anything that subdues women, and by being cruel in other ways as well? Yes, 50 shades is doing especially well in the red states that are also dominated by fundamentalist Christians. Southern Bible Belt states top other states in pre-sales, with many showings of 50 Shades sold out. Maddow found the humor in this.
    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/50-shades-a-hit-in-religious-rights-home-398477891837

  322. says

    Tony!
    I know it’s not the same, but everyone here loves ya. If I were a gay man…I’m a straight ol lady and I’ve got a bit of a crush on you! Don’t give up. You’re a real catch and you’re bound to meet someone worthy of you.

  323. says

    Well, didn’t you know, women weren’t invented until 1987 or so…

    +++
    Sometimes, life is a fucking cliché
    When Mr came home he didn’t notice the 15cm hair that are missing. Yes, I had to tell him I’d gotten a haircut. Then we went to his grandma’s birthday. First thing his gay brother said was “I really like what you did with your hair”. If that were a scene in a TV series I’d roll my eyes so hard that they’d be spinning in their sockets.

  325. Yellow Thursday says

    Tony @320:
    I have several romcoms on DVD. I’ll probably watch The Wedding Singer and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. (I also like You’ve Got Mail and French Kiss, but I’ve watched both of those recently.) And then I’ll see what’s on Netflix. If you (or anyone else) want to give me some suggestions, that would be awesome. :)

    [side note] I just realized what The Wedding Singer, You’ve Got Mail, and French Kiss have in common. They all show the main characters actually getting to know each other over the course of the movie. There’s no love at first sight or similar crap.

  326. says

    Yellow Thursday @325:
    I don’t have any suggestions as I’m not a fan of romantic comedies.
    I do very much dislike that “love at first sight” dreck though. I dislike it with the passion of an erupting volcano. It’s so much wishful thinking to think that you can love someone without even *knowing* them. Or having just met them. In the evenings, I’ve had the radio tuned to the channel with Delilah, a radio host who loves to drone on about god and who gives occasionally good, but often horrible advice for listeners. She often features callers who share their love stories and more than once I’ve wanted to puke when I hear someone talk about how they “fell in love with their current spouse upon first seeing them”. ::Blech::

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

    Yellow Thursday,

    I love French Kiss!

    I’ll sleep in tomorrow. Further than that, I don’t know. Maybe feel sorry for myself a bit? I’ll try not to.

  329. a_ray_in_dilbert_space says

    Hmm. Valentines Day….50 Shades of Grey opening around the country

    Oh to be the admissions nurse in an emergency room of a large hospital in a moderate-to-large city in the heart of the Bible Belt this weekend. I’m sure they will have tales to tell…

  331. says

    I can’t decide what I’ll do tomorrow. Honey will be with his wife, so the day is all mine. Do I attempt to be productive and sand the spackle patches on the walls? Or do I succumb to the sweetness of netflix in bed all day?

  332. rq says

    Yellow Thursday
    Husband and I are huge fans of Music & Lyrics for a re-watchable romcom, I recommend!

    Also, Tony, you’re also at the top of my list of Awesome People (you kind of share the top spot with a couple of other Loungers), and sometimes you make me wish I was a gay man, too. A gay man in Florida. :)

    +++

    I have plans for tomorrow: ha! Work! Several hours of it. Just me, the robot, the analyzer and a computer (which will hopefully be properly hooked up to the necessary internal network). And an evening with Eldest, as Husband has just carted Middle Child and Youngest off to the country with him, for some uber-romantic firewood chopping with the relatives. So I’ll be at the TV and enjoying some solo viewing, too. Not so solo, actually – I’ll probably spend time with that large bottle of Campari that Husband brought back for me from the Alps. After I put Eldest to bed, of course.

  334. rq says

    awakeinmo
    I know what I’d go for. But it’s your choice! ;)

    Tony
    That’s why I like Music & Lyrics, because they at least try to have the characters get to know each other before discovering they’re in love.

    Also, I’ve never seen French Kiss. Hmm…

  336. rq says

    Giliell
    re: haircuts
    Unless Husband knows I’ve been to the frizieris, I give him about a week to notice something has changed. :P :)

  338. Yellow Thursday says

    Beatrice @328 & rq @334:
    Yes, French Kiss is a great movie! It reminds me that I need to watch more movies with Jean Reno in them. He only had a small part in French Kiss, but I loved him in Wasabi. I’ve never seen Nikita, if you can believe that.

  339. rq says

    Tony
    It used to be about non-existent, but with the advent of western culture and hype around American movies, it’s slowly becoming a thing – a very commercial thing, but still a thing. I don’t like it.

  340. carlie says

    Tony, I am not clicking on that link, but on NPR this morning I heard a commercial for Vermont Teddy Bears, who is now offering a 50 Shades of Gray bear for Valentine’s day. That is multiple layers of horrible.

  341. says

    Mormons in my neck of the woods are going to sneak in to see 50 Shades, hoping their Bishop doesn’t see them. Supposedly, R-rated movies are verboten. Maybe they’ll go see the movie and then schedule a ritual repentance meeting with their Bishop.

    Twice a year, mormons hold a General Conference in Salt Lake City. Prostitutes from surrounding states flock to the event — lots of demand in the local hotels/motels for sexual services on the sly. Hypocrites.

    In other Moments of Mormon Madness, Utah legislators who are mormons are trying to pass the most egregious “religious freedom” bill I’ve seen. They are working to elevate “religious freedom” above other rights.

    A bid to give sweeping protection to religious liberties ”may raise significant constitutional issues,” and, because it goes further than any other state has, may be susceptible to a court challenge on multiple fronts, according to an analysis by a legislative attorney.

    The analysis of Rep. LaVar Christensen’s House Bill 322 says the measure could allow ­— for the first time — people of faith to sue other individuals for imposing on their beliefs, while tipping the scales against the defendant, and could elevate freedom of religion above other constitutionally protected rights. […]

    […] while most proposals have only sought to limit government actions that might impair religious liberties, HB322 is unique because it explicitly restricts actions by individuals and private entities that might impact another’s religious beliefs.

    In essence, Christensen’s bill would allow a person of faith to sue another person or business if the religious person contends his or her beliefs have been burdened. And the church-goer would win the suit and be awarded damages unless the defendants could clear an exceptionally high bar — showing that the actions they are accused of taking were the only available to prevent a grave risk to public health and safety.

    HB322 would also significantly expand what constitutes a burden on an individual’s religious beliefs, in a way that “potentially extends religious freedom protections to arenas of public commerce, property, individual freedoms, and fundamental rights that have not traditionally been subject to religious exercise exemptions in this manner,” the analysis said. […]

    “What it means is, essentially religion is always going to prevail in any suit against discrimination, it’s always going to win […]

    http://www.sltrib.com/home/2174846-155/memo-religious-liberty-bill-pushes-into

    Instead of Sharia Law, this sounds like Mormon Law for Utah.

    Tony, thanks for the good wishes for Valentine’s Day. Same to you, Pharyngula buddy. Love and hugs of the virtual kind to all of the denizens of the Lounge.

  342. rq says

    And before I forget, savant @245
    I see your answer to question #1 is a total cop-out on sharing your opinion. I call shenanigans! Wait… can it be… you’re actually someone with completely neutral thoughts on horses???
    I’m afraid you’ll have to choose sides. It’s a deep rift, dontcha know.

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

    For some reason I am now reminded of Run Lola Run. Haven’t seen that movie in years, but I remember liking it a lot.

    Tony,
    Valentine’s day has slowly been becoming a “thing” since maybe early ’00s. Capitalism, yay

  344. jefrir says

    I’m really looking forward to Valentine’s this year – we have plans with some friends of ours involving a public staged argument about whose partner is the best, followed by everyone revealing concealed LARP weapons and attacking each other. It’s going to be glorious and ridiculous and so very right for this relationship.

  345. azhael says

    Yeah, Valentine’s day and Halloween both…except that i always liked Halloween xD
    To be honest, people don’t seem to actually care all that much about Valentine’s day…although the hype has been steadily increasing. The ones who do care, though, are shops…
    It’s a bit like Christmas, really, you get bombarded with it from every conceivable commercial angle but in the end, most people don’t really give that much of a fuck…

    Also, Tony, i don’t know if this will help at all, but some of us haven’t even had a serious relationship xD I just turned 30 and the longest romantic relationship i’ve ever had fell short of three months…Yes, i am that much of a catch.
    My advice, which you didn’t ask for but i’m going to give to you anyway, is to make the most of your sad. Dwell in it for a while, watch some movies that hit your emotional buttons, get a good cry and enjoy it! :P After you are done just remember that you are awesome and go out there in the full knowledge that you are a good human being with more to offer than most.

  347. opposablethumbs says

    V-day used to be a moderate thing here, and as far as I can tell it has increasingly become a red-and-pink-crap-everywhere OVERBLOWN THING!!!!! now :-(((
    My only hope for V-day is that Spawn#2 is not utterly miserable. Unfortunately I don’t think this hope is all that realistic.
    :-((((((
    (I’m hoping he might come over for a couple of hours so that at least he won’t spend the whole day alone, but I don’t know if he’s going to be persuadable)

    My idea of the perfect V-day? A whole bunch of us descending on Tony!’s bar, and Tony! is off-duty and can be persuaded to hang out with us :-).

  349. says

    Here’s some good news:

    A Nebraska district judge has halted TransCanada’s attempts to use eminent domain to force landowners to turn over their land for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, an act that anti-Keystone activists are calling a major win.

    Nebraska State District Court Judge Mark Kozisek issued a temporary injunction against TransCanada on Thursday after a hearing during which nearly 70 landowners called on the judge to grant the injunction. The injunction will remain in place until Nebraska’s Supreme Court takes up the landowners’ case against state law LB1161, which gave TransCanada the right to use eminent domain against the landowners. […]

    http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/02/13/3622816/keystone-xl-injunction/

  351. a_ray_in_dilbert_space says

    Tony@333, Not about to click on that link on a computer in a federal workplace, but my imagination is working overtime. I consider myself an adventurous soul, but I would hope that even an adventurous soul would consider how they will sound explaining how object 1 wound up in orifice A in the emergency room and perhaps reconsider some of the more inventive fantasies. There are some fantasies best left as fantasies.

  354. says

    Question:
    Is it common for medical professionals to refer to fetuses as babies? I’m writing a post about a massively wrongheaded post by a conservative columnist at the Washington Times (about the true threat to black lives-the murder of black babies in the womb). I wanted to clarify the differences between a fetus or embryo and a baby. I checked out WebMd and they have some a slideshow of images of fetal development, but they refer to the fetus as a baby. I want to clarify terms, not introduce further confusion.

  355. Saad says

    Tony,

    It’s a patient communication thing. Saying things like doing such and such is “beneficial for your baby” or this medication poses “no risk to your baby” are considered more appropriate than using the term fetus. Of course it can be customized depending on who the patient is, but as a general rule, it’s better to go with the option that would feel nicer to the patient. Technically it’s not always accurate, but many pregnant people refer to the fetus inside them as their baby.

  357. Saad says

    In my experience, whenever doing medication counseling for a pregnant patient or one planning on becoming pregnant, I’ve made a habit of using the same term that the patient uses in asking the question. The vast majority of the time it has been baby.

    WebMD is largely a patient resource so that’s probably why they’re labeling the diagrams with the word baby. I’d be surprised if medical journal articles would do that.

  362. rmpislv says

    OK, I’m sure this has been asked/answered many times before so please bare with me.

    What differentiates atheism – plus from secular humanism?

  363. says

    rmpislv @362:
    My understanding is that some people want to retain the label of atheist, while also declaring their support for social justice. Hence Atheism+. To some it’s a matter of semantics. To others it’s an issue of labels. The goals of both are quite similar.

  367. says

    Crip Dyke @364, That confirms, once again, that christianity is a hate cult.

    The loving Jesus thing, making Jesus your Valentine, is just fucking strange. Think of all the historic accounts, some from nuns, describing orgasms or orgasm-like experiences while contemplating Jesus.

  369. azhael says

    @362
    Secular humanism is consistent with but not explicitely atheistic (you can be a secular humanist and a christian, as incoherent as that might seem), and so it fails to include atheism within the frame it’s built on.
    Personally, for me it’s not enough to say i’m a secular humanist if i’m trying to convey that my morality is developed in a purely atheistic context and is in fact shaped and affected by it.

  370. rq says

    awakeinmo @360
    Umm, there’s also this. If you don’t want to click that link, or read it in case you do, the basic message is that nothing spices up a marriage like bringing Jesus into it. Or more Jesus into it.
    Now I’m having dirty thoughts about threesomes and Jesus. O.o

  371. says

    Republicans are doing stuff so dumb that it amounts to lying. Here’s what happened: the Washington Free Beacon published a bunch of photos from the conflict in Ukraine — except that these were not really recent photos. The photos were years old and from different conflicts.

    The whole idea is to foment public pressure for the USA to enter the fray and fight Russian troops that are entering Ukraine. Based on false photos and false photo captions.

    The Washington Free Beacon claims it got the photos and captions from Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.). Other reporters have confirmed being offered scoops consisting of photographic evidence involving Russia and Ukraine, and these offers have come from other Republicans as well as from Senator Inhofe.

    Bogus shit is being sent to conservative media outlets from supposedly reliable sources, including Republican committee chairs, Republican members of the Armed Services committee, etc. Fucking travesty.

    Some back up links for this info:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/02/13/what-was-fake-on-the-internet-this-week-the-kanye-award-show-ban-pirate-cats-and-misandrist-abortions/ Scroll down to #6

    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/inhofe-helps-set-falsehood-motion

  373. azhael says

    Raise your hand if you’ve had a wank looking at an image of “Jesus”. *waves hand in the air*
    What? I like thin dudes with long wavy hair and blue eyes…it’s not my fault they’ve made their imaginary savior look like a 90’s teenager wet dream.

  374. rq says

    Lynna
    If they really want support for Ukraine, they don’t need old photos from different conflicts. :/
    I believe these photos, though, were handed over by a delegation of Ukrainians themselves. Who handed them over to some representatives, who have apparently used them nefariously. I’ll see if I can remember that link, one moment, please.
    …
    Ah, here it is. BuzzFeed.

  375. Saad says

    Tony & Crip Dyke

    Ah, I used to wonder why this obsession with loving the Prophet over your own family is so important in Islam. Interesting to find out it has a Christian version too. One of the famous hadith goes something like this:

    You will not have faith until you love me more than your father, your mother, your children and all of mankind.
    – Bukhari, Book of Belief

    And

    If it be that your fathers, your sons, your brothers, your mates, or your kindred; the wealth that ye have gained; the commerce in which ye fear a decline: or the dwellings in which ye delight – are dearer to you than Allah, or His Messenger, or the striving in His cause;- then wait until Allah brings about His decision: and Allah guides not the rebellious.
    – Qur’an 9:24

  376. rq says

    azhael
    Unfortunately Jesus has always been too ‘surfer-dude’ for me. Now St Michael, on the other hand – pretty much always wielding a sword and/or spear? Slaying a dragon? Wearing nothing but a cute pair of short armour?
    I say no more.

  378. says

    Crip Dyke @364:
    I knew I was on the right track. Thank you.
    (Btw, I miss your presence here and I haven’t forgotten the package)

    ****

    I just finished writing a thing I’m rather proud of. Conservative columnist is egregiously wrong.

    ****
    azhael @373:
    I was brushing my teeth when I read your comment and nearly spit out the toothpaste bc I didn’t anticipate what you were going to say as I read along.

  381. David Marjanović says

    I’m busy and missing all the fun, it seems. Meanwhile I’ve accumulated 22 tabs that I need to dump upon the world.

    In German: EU parliament demands “immediate and unconditional” freedom for Badawi. The conservatives voted against the resolution because it compares Saudi Arabia to the IS.

    Petition to the Federal Communications Commission: “Chairman Wheeler’s proposal to protect the open Internet with Title II authority is a historic step toward protecting Net Neutrality. Don’t give an inch to telecom lobbyists or Republicans in Congress who want to weaken the rules. If you pass strong Net Neutrality rules without dangerous loopholes or handouts to industry, I will fight to defend them.”

    “Petition to Congress demanding paid sick days for all workers.” I’m pretty sure that’s actually a human right; and yes, the US has ratified the convention.

    Detailed article (more than half of it a repost) about the implications of the fact that the pope has declared Oscar Romero a martyr – which looks like a self-evident, massively overdue thing to do, seeing as Romero was gunned down while celebrating Mass for not yielding to a dictature, but pisses off the reactionaries (including of course the pope emeritus), because Romero was a liberation theologist and the dictature was supported by the US – including evangelical figures who believed the Third World had a long history of demonism.

    “Add your name to say you support President Obama’s plan” “to close corporate tax loopholes and give middle-class families a tax break”.

    “Tell Congress to say NO to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and NO to fast track authority”

  382. rq says

    awakeinmo
    Yah, I read her disclaimer, and had a moment of *pfffft*, having read the title. Like, honestly, how non-PG can she get? Not a single dirty word in the whole article. Oh, wait, she did say ‘pornography’ once. Ha! Taking sex back, indeed. Nope, no taboos to be seen here, none at all!

  383. Saad says

    David,

    “Petition to Congress demanding paid sick days for all workers.” I’m pretty sure that’s actually a human right; and yes, the US has ratified the convention.

    Yup, it sure should be. I’m one of those who get zero paid sick days. It makes no sense whatsoever. Some people shouldn’t be expected to get sick? Also, the healthcare field isn’t a good place to force people to use their vacations to sit at home miserably with an illness. Sick people coming to work in a clinic is no good.

    By the way, that link goes to the Net Neutrality page, not the sick day petition.

  385. carlie says

    rq – I’m closed union with awesome benefits, and even where I work we started with zero sick days and earn one a month.

  386. rq says

    Wooooooow. *hugs socialized medical care close*
    I don’t think I have a limit on sick days – if I need one or two here and there. But if I’m on extended sick leave, which also counts for cases of the flu (you get three weeks off) I get paid by the state, not my job, so technically they don’t lose anything, and they have to keep my spot for me while I’m on sick leave. All I have to do is get the proper paperwork signed by my GP, which is about the easiest thing to do. And people like my parents (dad due to chemo, mum due to hip replacement) can take six months off work and still come back employed.
    Actually I think the upper limit is six months, but you come back to work for six months and can take six months off again after that. Or something.
    I have to confess, I’ve never had to think about it much.
    Wow. No sick days at all. Heck, I can get sick days if I have to be home because the kids are sick.
    *offers socialized medical care to all Loungers*

  387. David Marjanović says

    An elephant caught in the wild in the 1970s is kept alone in a zoo in Târgu Mureş, Romania, under conditions that are just horrible for an elephant. Petition to do something about that.

    “This is What Happens When a City Gives the Homeless a Home”

    “The right’s dinosaur fetish: Why the Koch brothers are obsessed with paleontology
    Why would climate denialists and Tea Partyers like paleontology? Because dinosaurs are layered with symbolic weight”
    Goes back to Carnegie.

    Gallery (click on “Bildergalerie starten” right in the middle): All except 8 of the 74 largest cities in China, all the way north to Harbin, surpassed the smog limits last year.

    In German, from February 4th: Boko Haram kills dozens, maybe 100, in Cameroon “in the mosques, on the streets and in their homes” – not only locals, though, but also 9 soldiers from Chad and 3 from Cameroon, apparently in revenge for the army of Chad killing at least 200 Boko Haram fighters in Nigeria. It is estimated that Boko Haram has killed some 15,000 people since 2009. Chad has sent several thousand soldiers into Cameroon to fight Boko Haram.

    Also in German: “Number of crimes in Vatican increases” – 842 citizens are enough for economic crimes, corruption, paedophilia and cocaine trafficking. Very few people have been arrested, though; a former prelate has been sentenced to four years for severe fraud. There are ongoing investigations in such cases as the legate who had 100,000 files of child porn on his computer after probably deleting another 45,000. In March, the customs officers at a minor airport in Germany found a package with 340 g of cocaine packaged in condoms and addressed to the Vatican; Germany’s biggest and worst newspaper spilled the beans, so nobody showed up to claim the package, and nobody has been charged. Then there’s the former… comptroller or something of the administration of the Vatican’s properties, called “Monsignor Cinquecento” because he allegedly always had 500-€ bills at hand; he’s suspected of having had anonymous accounts at several banks, including the Vatican bank, to have transferred millions to Switzerland, and to have tried (without success) to send 20 million € in cash by plane from Switzerland to Rome.

  388. David Marjanović says

    By the way, that link goes to the Net Neutrality page, not the sick day petition.

    Oh. Thanks for telling me. Here it is.

    Lungfish hear airborne sound! They can use the whole head as a very crude eardrum. Open-access news feature from the journal itself, paper to which even I don’t have access.

    “Better than fish on land? Hearing across metamorphosis in salamanders” – salamanders, too, lack eardrums, and they, too, can hear airborne sound by the lungfish method, except they’re better at it because they have a mobile bone or cartilage (in different species and life stages) next to the inner ear. A fascinating paper that overturns everyone’s expectations. I think it’s paywalled, though.

    Then there are two long articles in German about the people in the new Greek government and about the way the IS governs (hint: with a secret service just like Saddam and Assad), but it’s close to midnight, I’m tired, and they’d take too long to explain.

  390. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    O, Heady Hallucinogenic Hallelujas!

    Kate Brown is my governor!

    Sort of.

    For extremely large values of governor.

    But KATE BROWN!

    Do you know how long I’ve loved Kate Brown? She was the only out queer in the legislature for a while (though Gail Shibley came out first, she was the 2nd queer and first bi person of any gender in either house….and in BOTH houses, eventually, then sec state, now the BIcameral legislator will be head of the sheBIang!

    If ever oh ever a w00t! there was, this moment’s w00t! is one because, because because BI-cuzzzzzzz

    because of the wonderful things she does!

    Yay team Kate Brown!

  391. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    Also, with KB as governor, I’ve STILL shaken hands with every governor of Oregon to take office after Neil Goldschmidt* … and am I ever glad I didn’t shake either of HIS hands.

    (Ted Kulongoski was the only one whose hand I shook while he was in office. Barbara Roberts was Governor-elect, I think, or maybe still a gubernatorial candidate. No, I think she was Governor-elect. Kitzhaber was after his first two terms while Kulongoski was in office before Kitzhaber ran again. Kate Brown was a year or two after she came out, in the 90s, while she was in the House. So, 2 in the nineties and 2 in the naughties.)

    Also, this means I have also shaken the hand of ever living governor or former governor of Oregon…save again, the life-destroying Goldschmidt.

  392. says

    Argh. Aged Mum bushwhacked me with the grocery list again. Wait until the last possible minute, then throw in a lot more stuff, sit back and watch Anne run around in circles trying to buy all of it before Sunday afternoon… Well, Anne don’t play that game no more. I told her what I can manage at which stores; if she demands more than that, too bad.

    I’ll still feel guilty about being a Bad Daughter and failing my aged mother, but I’m not going to run myself ragged either. “THBPBPTHPT!”

    Hugs for all. One of these days, I’ll get around to sharing what my hugs look like – embroidered, beaded and be-sequined. Heh.

  393. tccc says

    Hi all, sorry to interrupt, but I am literally in the middle of writing and code of conduct/harassment policy for an oss conference and have a question about terminology I am not really seeing answered anywhere from my googling.

    I want to make sure we are including transgender and transsexual people in our “with regard to” section and the ada initiative/geekfeminism model code of conduct uses the phrase “…gender expression and identity.” Does that include transgender and transsexual people? I think it includes transgendered people, but I am not sure it includes transsexual people.

    Any advice?

    The model code of conduct is here:
    http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Policy

    If I need to make my own modification to make sure transsexual people are included could some one suggest the right phrase to use please. “with regard to …. transsexual status, age, ability….” is that correct?

    Again, sorry to barge in, but this is the easiest place I know to ask.

  395. A. Noyd says

    I don’t know why I didn’t think to program HTML tags into my iPad/iPhone’s keyboard shortcuts until just a few days ago, but it makes things sooooooo much easier. Now I can get an empty set of blockquote or hyperlink tags by typing in “bq” or “ahr” respectively.

  396. raven says

    Alecia Pennington can’t prove she’s an American – or even exists. What would you do?

    To the government, Alecia Pennington doesn’t exist. And her parents refuse to help. She has been unable to get a driver’s license, get a job, go to college, get on a plane, get a bank account, or vote. What can she do?

    You know what is coming. Her parents are anti-government fundie xians of course. And oh yeah, they are in….Texas.

    This girl has no birth certificate (homebirth and illegal without filing the certificate) , never been to school, never seen a doctor. She has zero legal documentation.

    She is escaping from home and the cult at age 19. Her parents refuse to provide any information. And oh yeah, the father hasn’t filed income taxes for 19 years and the IRS wants to know why.

    It turns out you need ID to get ID.

    I read the comments which for once, weren’t bad. It turns out this is a not uncommon situation for many reasons, one of which is weird cults of xians who refuse to follow US laws. I’m not sure why her parents are refusing to help. I’m guessing they were intending to sell her to some other xian as a “wife”.

  397. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    @tccc –

    Does your code of conduct also reference sex?

    If it references sex, gender identity, and gender expression, then together I think you’ve hit all eventualities relevant to trans, trans*, transgender, transsexual, and gender variant people who otherwise identify.

    If it doesn’t reference sex, you might consider adding it.

    While I personally consider “gender identity and expression” to cover all the various expressions of misogyny and trans* hatred I see, remember that the point of the policy isn’t JUST for you to be covered.

    It’s also so that participants know what to expect.

    Lawsuits after the fact and pointing to a clause and saying, “Yep, this is why we kicked you out and this is where it was in our policy, thus we weren’t discriminating against you,” is, of course, useful if it gets that far. However, we’d rather it not get that far.

    Also, you want marginalized people to know that they’re welcome. If you are unsure about the phrase, then what happens when a trans person wants to go to your conference and is unsure about the phrase?

    I doubt that would happen with someone whose been around the block as a trans* activist, but there are more people coming out everyday. I grew up at the edge of an urban growth boundary. My immediate neighbors were suburbanites, but hop my back fence and you were in agricultural land, with a forest maybe a dozen yards from one corner of my back yard. We built forts out of the hay bales every summer wheat was harvested and the baler came through but before the equipment came to pick up the bales and transport them to ranchers and horse owners nearby. While we were throwing wheat heads like darts we weren’t learning much about trans* experience or terminology.

    So you have a tricky job in balancing the amount of words/space you use on one topic with the goals of 1) expressing your policy clearly to the employees and volunteers who have to enforce it, but will have other training and support, and 2) expressing your policy less clearly, but clear enough so that bigots don’t feel welcome but everyone else does, even if they never have a chance to talk to your staff for clarification.

    “Gender identity and expression” is a relatively new phrase, where activists know what you mean, but not everyone does.

    “Sex” is frequently misused, but even if used accurately is also an entirely inappropriate and yet too-frequent basis for discrimination and harassment (well, for harassment there is no appropriate basis, but you get what I mean). The benefit is that even though it’s often used to mean gender, in accompaniment with gender its meaning is clarified as distinct, plus it’s a little more accessible to some.

    Adding that word doesn’t change the word count much. It’s good to include, I think.

    Also, think about putting a statement wherever the policy appears that more info can be found on your website, then when you write your website, include links for things about which you think folk might have questions.

    Whenever you link to one site for trans* information, however, I’d link to at least 3, including at least 1 that is explicitly anti-racist, at least one that is specifically for FtM folk, and at least 1 that is specifically for MtF folk. Different people have very different takes on trans* justice, and I wouldn’t want you, or your attendees, to trust one site as an authority.

  399. savant says

    @rq

    Do I like horses? I’ve never met a horse that I didn’t like, but I really haven’t met many horses. Can I be a horse-agnostic?

  400. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Dang, I made a wrong choice a while back. I saved some of the Redhead’s knitting shows as .avi files, which isn’t recognized now by the Apple TV. Converting them to .mp4 which is. *sigh*

  401. F.O. says

    When debating apologists, I often get the “this is a very good question, but it’s too complicated to answer on [online forum], but you can find a good explanation here [link to apologist website]” answer.
    I am starting to be seriously pissed with this attitude.

    It’s a lazy cop-out.
    Am I justified to think that if you can’t explain something with your own words then you don’t understand the argument you are trying to make?

    WTF, people can explain arguments about fucking *quantum physics*, why can’t they do the same on religion?!

  402. says

    Valentine’s Day is apparently quite popular in Japan. Girls and women give boys and men chocolate of various sorts, often homemade. The intent can either be a genuine expression of interest in the male giftee, or merely a fulfilling of obligation to people like co-workers. A month later, March 14th, is White Day, where males are supposed to respond with their own gifts of chocolate.

  403. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    @Anne, 398:

    Me too. I worked with a ton of people who didn’t have ID and had barriers to getting ID and some of those people did not have ID specifically because of actions by abusive parents or partners.

    But I’ve never worked with someone who had **never** had any form of ID. That wouldn’t stop me for trying to advocate for a client, but damn, I’d be completely clueless as to how to start. I’d have to actually educate myself on the legal requirements for establishing identity before I’d even know whom to contact.

    Of course, with our diverse commentariat, one also has the option of dropping a note here so that while one is educating oneself about the basics, you can leave a lure here to catch anyone with sufficient knowledge/expertise to make actual recommendations. I’ve used y’all more than once that way. It’s a privilege to be part of such a helpful and educated community.

  404. tccc says

    @CaitieCat and @Crip Dyke thank you very much for the advice. Word count doesn’t matter to me, what matters to me is everyone feels included in the policy and not just “Ya, I guess that covers me” Maybe hoping for _everyone_ to feel it specifically includes them is too much to hope for, but I will try. We are also not afraid to say transgendered and transsexual, sometimes I think policies avoid using those words for some reason, even if by short handing them to trans*

    Anyway, as I said, I really appreciate the advice.

    And while I’m here, not related to my CoC project, I do outreach for Outreachy:
    https://wiki.gnome.org/Outreachy
    paid internships for new comers to open source software projects “This program is open to anyone who was assigned female at birth and anyone who identifies as a woman, genderqueer, genderfluid, or genderfree regardless of gender presentation or assigned sex at birth.” + people who are or were in the Ascend program.

  405. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    Thanks for the Outreachy info!

    I’m glad you’re not afraid to spell out transgender and transsexual.

    Hope everything goes well with the conference!

    And that you enjoy staccato replies!

  406. rq says

    Maybe I shouldn’t have. A couple of days ago on a friend’s post re: the Chapel Hill shooting, I apologized on behalf of white people. Other person commented that what made him a killer was his ideology – that is, being an anti-theist. And that all of his white friends are non-hateful people. So I told him it wasn’t the ideology of anti-theism that made him a killer, but being an intolerant asshole.
    Any recommendations on how to proceed further?

  409. savant says

    rq@406:

    That’s really a tough one :\ If a certain brand of people want to believe that someones’ motivations are X, they’re going to believe that their motivations are X regardless of the evidence. I get the impression that you’re talking with/to that brand of person, because someone who doesn’t think that way doesn’t tend to take the Ideologies = Motivation route anyways. In my humble perspective at least!

    Ideologies are applied *after* motivations. We get our instinctual urge to do a thing, and then our ideologies and experiences shape a rationalization of *why* we want to do that thing. Go team Human.

  410. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Been a rough morning. Couldn’t get back to sleep after the 3 am changing.

    RQ #406, the shooter was a bigot. His bigotry and hatred caused the shooting, not his atheism.

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

    Crimson Peak trailer
    Gothic horror?
    Tom Hiddleston?
    Brilliant cover of Nick Cave’s Red Right Hand?

    I hope I won’t forget about the movie by the times it comes out.

  413. says

    rq @374:

    If they really want support for Ukraine, they don’t need old photos from different conflicts. :/
    I believe these photos, though, were handed over by a delegation of Ukrainians themselves. Who handed them over to some representatives, who have apparently used them nefariously. […]

    Thanks for that info. Why didn’t the Republicans verify the images and captions before they sent them out? How did the Ukrainians know that the Republicans would be that gullible?

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

    Can I take some tea without the ice, please? I think ice is what got me where I am in the first place (coughing and sick again).

  419. says

    David M. @387, I’ve been seeing more and more of that dinosaur nonsense. Remove dinosaurs from the school curriculum!
    http://abc13.com/society/are-dinosaurs-a-65-million-year-old-lie/514514/

    A bunch of mormon mothers in the morridor have taken up the cause and are blogging about it. I think they are too ignorant to realize that at least some of the anti-dino movement may be satire.

    http://www.popsugar.com/moms/Group-Wants-Take-Dinosaurs-Out-School-Curriculum-36861484

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

    Anne, thank you for the offer. Both, please. As long as you keep milk away from it. (ew)

    Saad, every time it happens I think it’s an isolated incident, that more people wouldn’t actually go and murder others because of cartoons… and then it happens again.

  421. says

    David M., regarding your link and comment about the number of Vatican crimes inching up toward 900 now, I heard that the Pope is getting considerable resistance when it comes to cleaning up the mess. He was supposedly elected with a mandate to clean up Vatican corruption, but the rest of the Vatican lowlifes have territory and money to protect.

    Seems likely that drug trafficking, pedophile groups, money laundering, etc. will just continue — with perhaps one more veil hastily thrown over the nastiness.

    I also heard a new report that said the Pope had made some headway when it comes to tamping down rumors, gossip and backbiting.

  423. azhael says

    Blerghhhh……i just witnessed a racist piece of shit making me feel ashamed of being human in the chinese variety shop right across the street…
    It was a young guy too, which hurts even more. How the fuck does someone with a similar educational background and living in my society end up being that disgustingly bigoted? I feel unclean…

  424. rq says

    savant
    I actually received a pretty thoughtful reply. Turns out he was speaking to the commenter before me, and acknowledged that it wasn’t godlessness that was the root cause.

    Nerd
    Yes, that was part of my original comment, too – and as mentioned above, the reply was rather uplifting.

    Beatrice
    Hope you manage some rest, too. More tea?

    Saad
    :(

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

    to be honest, I’ve been doing nothing but resting and drinking tea pretty much the whole day

  427. says

    A Republican argument against education funding:

    During a House Education and Workforce Committee proceeding on Wednesday to reauthorize the nation’s elementary and secondary education law, Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA) said, “Socrates trained Plato in on a rock and then Plato trained in Aristotle roughly speaking on a rock. So, huge funding is not necessary to achieve the greatest minds and the greatest intellects in history.” […]

    […] he thinks the answer to improving education in this country “would be to get private sector folks into every one of our schools, get the CEOs in the schools and move beyond this just narrow policy debate and really have a revolution.”

    The committee is considering a Republican version of reauthorization that could change the way federal funding is distributed to low-income students living in communities with high concentrations of poverty, or what is known as “portability.” To mitigate the challenges students face who are living in places with a high density of poverty, current law targets $14 billion to schools and school districts based on the number of students living in these communities. The Republican legislation would give states the option to allocate the same amount of federal dollars per poor student whether they live in a high poverty community or not. Under this provision, for example, Los Angeles Unified School District would lose out on more than $75 million while the Beverly Hills Unified School District would gain $140,000. […]

    http://thinkprogress.org/education/2015/02/13/3623158/brat-education-plato/

    Sounds like a plan to provide better education to rich kids, while conveniently putting public education funds into the pockets of the “private sector” CEOs.

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

    rq,

    hihi, honey badger cat don’t care, honey badger cat don’t give a shit

  433. raven says

    Lynna:

    A bunch of mormon mothers in the morridor have taken up the cause and are blogging about it. I think they are too ignorant …

    1. Strangely enough, Utah is a world class area for dinosaur fossils. And BYU used to have and may still have an active paleontology program. Dinosaur National Monument isn’t too far from the Utah border and I’ve even been there.

    The ignorance of where they live is stunning.

    2. But not surprising. Mormons and Utah are a hotbed of polykookery and crank magnetism. I suppose if you are discouraged from thinking and questioning and believe one silly thing, you might as well believe them all. A lot of Mormon alt medicine and anti-vaxxers. It used to a penny stock haven until the Feds shut them down.

  434. raven says

    BYU Museum of Paleontology – Department of Geological …
    geology. byu.edu/museum/

    This museum showcases many fossils from the Jurassic Period, which spans a … from the Jurassic Period in the world and has been featured in magazines, …

    I’d like to see those Mormon moms go after BYU. It turns out BYU does have a geology department. If BYU is overrun with Fake Mormons, I’d hate to meet a Real Mormon.

    Utah parents, fearing apocalypse, fatally drugged children …
    www. cnn. com/2015/01/28/us/utah-family-deaths/

    Jan 28, 2015 – Utah parents, fearing apocalypse, fatally drugged children, themselves, police say … This contributed to their determination of suicide.

    This family of 5 all ended up dead to beat the apocalypse, a double suicide and three murders.

    Weird stuff like this happens in Utah constantly. A few decades ago, some parents threw all their kids off of a highrise building in SLC and then jumped.

  435. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Long day here at Casa la Pelirroja. Besides computer maintenance, laundry and a big grocery run, I made the Redhead a steak dinner with garlic mashed potatoes, fresh green beans, fried mushrooms, butterscotch pudding (it was supposed to be chocolate, but the chocolate pudding was cook and serve, not instant), and peach sparkling wine. She chowed down. We toasted to a happy Valentine’s day, and many more to come.

    Now, to bed after one last change, including her blankets to keep her warm, as we are expecting minus digits tonight. Night all.

  436. rq says

    Good night, Nerd, glad you had a good evening, get some rest!

    +++

    I just saw the sun right now for the first time in, I think, more than a week. I only just realized it was a week or more. I cannot tell you how happy that makes me feel – the sun, not the week’s absence of it. :P

  437. says

    Good morning
    We went over to my parents yesterday since we couldn’t go for the usual Friday visit. Everything was fine until grandmas fell out of the wheelchair.
    *sigh*
    It was a single mistake by my sister, who, as you may recall, is her primary caregiver and really devoted to her. They’d been outside, and upon getting back in, she underestimated the steepness of the ramp, the weight of the wheelchair plus gran and overestimated her own strength. So they got stuck on the ramp, and I was already on my way to help, when gran slid out of the wheelchair (it doesn’T have a safety belt). My sister became completely upset, my mother acted like “I told you you’d break your toy”. Thankfully gran didn’t get seriously hurt. A shallow cut on the forehead and a bump. Ironically she was much clearer and more talkative afterwards…

    +++
    On the nice side we hunted rabbits.
    Better said, we hunted a particular rabbit.
    Pünktchen, the big buck just jumps in and out of his hutch. No matter what. But Mümlie can only fall out of her hutch and needs to be caught in order to put her back in. She’s also badly tempered and will attack poor Pünktchen whenever she can, not caring that he’s almost twice her size….

  438. rq says

    Got stopped by the cops on the way to birthday party / work (routine check, nothing that I did!!). Guy looks at my driver’s license, beside which is the wallet window showing my work ID. “Oh, you work for the police? You should have said something! You’re free to go!”
    Yup, that’s how it works over here, too.
    (The reason I don’t say anything is because I don’t actually mind being checked along with everybody else. I do admit, though, that I keep my driver’s license beside my work ID for a reason. Just in case, as it were. They’re less assholes when they talk to one of their own.)

  439. opposablethumbs says

    Hope your gran is OK, Giliell – sounds like it was a nasty scare, but good that she wasn’t badly hurt – and that your poor sister is OK!

  440. says

    THanks, opposabethumbs
    Just got a message from my sister, gran seems ok and can’t remember anything (which is, sadly, normal), but our father has been an asshole towards her.

    +++
    Horde Help needed
    Do you know any Kiddie song about animals with Wh-questions like “where do horses sleep” or something like that?

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

    Inauguration today. Ugh.
    “So God help me” Ugh

  444. David Marjanović says

    David M. @387, I’ve been seeing more and more of that dinosaur nonsense. Remove dinosaurs from the school curriculum!
    http://abc13.com/society/are-dinosaurs-a-65-million-year-old-lie/514514/

    That’s the other right-wing dinosaur nonsense. The Koch brothers are not creationists; the article is about why they sponsored the dinosaur wing of the American Museum of Natural History and why they’re now doing the same in the Smithsonian.

    And yes, there’s perfectly cromulent paleontology being done at BYU.

    David M., regarding your link and comment about the number of Vatican crimes inching up toward 900 now, I heard that the Pope is getting considerable resistance when it comes to cleaning up the mess. He was supposedly elected with a mandate to clean up Vatican corruption, but the rest of the Vatican lowlifes have territory and money to protect.

    Yep.

  445. birgerjohansson says

    The morridorians apparently think Kal-El (the one who came from another planet) created the dinosaur fossils as a practical joke to play on the paleontologists of the future.
    Question: Would you trust a creator who got drunk with the angels on the evening of the sixth day and decided to play a practical joke?

  446. Ice Swimmer (was Nakkustoppeli) says

    Sick again, third time in the space of a month. Vomited the stomach empty and there’s some temperature. What is it with this winter and contagious diseases. Is it just hype or has Mr Pestilence become bored of playing cards with DEATH? 8-)

  447. birgerjohansson says

    A situation report from Sweden (and Copenhagen). This week, three neo-nazis got arrested outside the office of the Expressen newspaper, suspected of planning an attack.
    During Saturday a crowd of 600 muslims and non-muslim Swedes created a “human chain” between a mosque and a church in Gothenburg to demonstrate solidarity.
    Later in the afternoon the culture center in Copenhagen was hit by what appears to have been a “lone gunman”. Guards prevented him from entering but he fired a lot of rounds from the entrance. One visitor dies, three policemen were wounded.
    The perpetrator fled in a stolen car, dumped it and called for a cab using a cell phone (this may be what made it easy for the police to identify him).
    A huge manhunt started in Copenhagen, extending to nearby Sweden.
    Late in the evening, he made an apparently poorly planned /improvised attack on a jewish synagogue where a Bar Mitzva was underway. The place was guarded, and he was unable to enter. He fired his gun again and killed a man. Later police managed to track him down. During the confrontation he was shot to death.

    Since the initial target seems to have been Lars Vilks, and since the murders took place so near Sweden this has caused a very big reaction in Sweden.

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

    Ice Swimmer,

    *contagious high five*
    I think I’ll take advantage of this beautiful socialized health care we have and take a couple of sick days, for the first time.

    I’ve been coughing for weeks, with this being the second burst of fever and general crumminess in that time. Going like this, I’ll just spread the joy at work and drag this along for a while more. Better try to actually get better.

    I’ll share my tea if you can keep it down.

  449. Ice Swimmer (was Nakkustoppeli) says

    Thanks, Beatrice. You can some of my mineral water if you’d like to.

    Having limited number of sick days and then being forced to come to work and spread it to the colleagues seems preposterous to me. Yay for the socialiced medicine.

  450. rq says

    I can offer Magic Chamomile to you both, if that helps. May the illnesses pass quickly!

    Giliell
    Glad to hear grandma is okay, I hope she feels better soon, as does your sister!
    And yay hunting rabbits :P, did the women participate too? ;)

  451. birgerjohansson says

    Regarding films and graphic novels:

    If you want a good antidote to “Fifty Shades o Gray” I can recommend the Swedish-language graphic novel “Eva: Asbesthjärta” by Tinet Elmgren http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinet_Elmgren
    The hard-as-nails protagonist is a young woman living in a fantasy city that is part Shanghai, part Berlin and seems influenced by “Sin City” and Hong Kong action films.
    .
    It is not for timid readers; for instance when she learns that a friend that is a drug addict and street prostitute has become the victim of a serial killer, she and her trusty makarov go out on the streets to get Dexter-style justice. Her much-suffering boyfriend, the postman Ting Yay is relegated to cleanup duty (”bring a saw and some plastic bags”).
    Despite the splatter-film elements, the book is full of love and dark humor. Yum.

  452. sff9 says

    America Strikes Somalia, Without the Drones

    [The US Government] has just cut off one of the major channels through which the Somali community in America were able to send funds back home. This money contributes directly to the rebuilding of a Country and individuals that are overcoming decades of conflict.
    […]
    So herein lays the baffling decision making of the American Government, on one hand they have harped on about wanting to support the Somali people and ridding the world of the threat from [terrorist group] Al-Shabaab through sending in military personnel to Mogadishu to assist troops, coordinating drone attacks and the like. On the other hand they have just taken away what for many people is their major source of income, which they would use to educate their children, build a business and keep themselves and ultimately the Country on the road to recovery.

    Furthermore, this move provides Al-Shabaab with its greatest weapon; unemployed and frustrated young people. Numerous studies have found that high levels of unemployment and socio-economic frustrations provide ‘fertile ground for terrorist recruitment.’ (A 2012 UNDP Human Development report indicated that 67 percent of youth in the country are unemployed)

  453. rq says

    Shite, PZ, the Later This Morning thread went down – isn’t it a day or two early? Is there a new one?

  454. says

    Thanks, Grewgills and everyone. Her grades are fine; the only reason she isn’t valedictorian is that her school doesn’t have a valedictorian (I mean, not to brag or anything).

  457. says

    rq
    rabbit hunting was a women only activity, including the rabbit.
    You know, stalking and catching such a magnificent prey requires teamwork and good communication skills, things women are naturally good at. That’s why we left the menfolks at home to marvel at our prey upon our return. Didst thou not click ye linky? It shows yours truely at the moment of the heroic catch.

  458. Saad says

    ISIS beheads 21 Egyptian Christians.

    The terrorists known as ISIS released a video on Sunday that seems to show the militant group beheading 21 Egyptian Christians kidnapped in Libya.

    [. . .]

    Each of the victims, who are all male, is paired with a masked, knife-wielding terrorist and, after a brief statement by the ISIS leader, they are all beheaded.

    The video is called “A Message signed with blood to the nation of the cross” and was released by the group’s Al-Hayat Media Center, according to Flashpoint Intelligence, a global security firm and NBC News consultant.

  459. rq says

    giliell
    Alas, I did not click the linky as it appeared while I was at work and it warned me of Entertainment! within. But I have clicked now, thank you for the reminder.
    Such bravery, such mental acumen! :D And nice catch!

  461. Ice Swimmer (was Nakkustoppeli) says

    Rq, at the moment it looks good. Temperature back to normal and no vomiting. Thanks for the magic chamomile. 8-)

  463. says

    Question for the Horde-
    I received a comment on a post I wrote called ‘Bishop whines about not being able to force his beliefs upon others’.

    Maybe you should get over your on “privilege”. If you want to use birth control, you shouldn’t expect someone else to pay for it. Try pulling your own weight.

    I’m not 100% certain, but don’t employees pay for their health insurance? The company they work for does not, correct? Which means that no one but the employee would pay for birth control.
    I wanted to make sure of that before I responded to this person.

  465. says

    Good morning
    Why? Why? WHY?
    We could have slept into day (carnival). But nooooo, at half past six, teh very time I usually have to pry them from bed with a crowbar, the kids were having a shouting match.
    WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?

    +++
    Grewgills
    That’s cute!
    Sadly not what I’m looking for. I need to introduce Wh-questions and instead of writing yet another text, I’d like to have a song…

  466. rq says

    Men Care More About Having Fancy Kitchens Than Women Do – spec., this quoted bit:

    When asked what features were “very important” in the survey, 32% of single men, compared with 21% of single women cited new kitchen appliances. Similarly, granite countertops were a must-have for 24% of men, but only 11% of women, and 19% of men wanted a kitchen island, compared with 8% of women.

    … And I wonder if that has more to do with a perceived status thing rather than actually wanting a nice kitchen in which to spend time. I know when we were buying a house, I looked at kitchens for functionality – did they work, where were they placed, how much space I have to work. Husband was all ‘well, this isn’t new, this isn’t new, this isn’t new…’. Not with everything, but enough to make me think that this survey isn’t actually breaking any gender stereotypes (or not as many as strongly as they believe). I mean, a granite countertop? Would be nice, but not something I look for.
    If you’re gonna keep a woman, it’s best to keep her in a pretty cage, huh?

  467. says

    rq
    What is the use of a kitchen island except showing that you can waste all that space?
    I think you’Re right with the status thing. I remember similar studies about cars, showing that women were much more rational, looking at their needs, mileage, taxes, insurance and then they’d like to have all that in orange, while men were much more interested in the status factor of the car, going for cars way bigger and more expensive than what their actual needs are.

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

    [man:]Who says I don’t care about house work? I want you to have a great kitchen with new appliances to make it easier for you.

  469. rq says

    Giliell
    Well, if you have a large enough kitchen, the island DOES fill up empty floorspace and add additional cupboard space, plus a worktop, which is always nice.
    The only island I’ve ever really seen to work, though, is the one in my best friend’s mum’s house – it served as a divider between the rather-large kitchen and the huge living room (it was like one giant open-space room). And it contained the stovetop and the oven and was very functional.

    Beatrice
    That’s often disguised as “I don’t like using old appliances”.

    *Note: This status-seeking behaviour does not apply to all men, though it seems to be a common, culturally acquired thing in many men. #notallmen

  470. Grewgills says

    @rq 466
    I’m thinking that people that think granite countertops are required aren’t responsible for the maintenance of said countertops.

  471. azhael says

    @466 rq
    Speaking for myself and some of my friends, it’s because we actually like cooking. I want a large kitchen with a quality countertop and certain appliances because it makes cooking easier, cleaner and more comfortable. I cooked in a ridiculously tiny kitchen for several years, with no space for even a small chopping board, and now i dream of a spacious, comfortable, versatile kitchen island…
    I have no doubt that there are men out there who want that pretty cage for their woman, but i know plenty of cases where it has nothing to do with that…it’s about the couple, man included, wanting gadgets and a nice place to cook.

  472. azhael says

    @469 rq
    Oops, didn’t mean to come across as whining about #notallmen. I hadn’t seen that post when i wrote mine.

  473. rq says

    azhael
    I totally get you, and I agree (also having worked in a small kitchen for a few years before having the presently-adequate one).
    I’m more complaining about the way the article presents this stuff as breaking gender stereotypes, when – if you look at the things they list – it’s more a matter of having the gadgets rather than the functionality, for appearances. And definitely, I would love some new appliances and a beautiful marble countertop (and a robot to do all the work, ha!), too – but it’s not at the top of my priority list, as it seems to be for the men in the article.
    Though I have to say, I don’t think anyone has yet to design the 100% ideal self-cleaning, self-maintaining, self-organizing kitchen that also looks good and is available within a middle-class-and-lower budget. Unless someone has evidence to the contrary. :)

  477. Saad says

    Tony, #463

    I’m not 100% certain, but don’t employees pay for their health insurance? The company they work for does not, correct? Which means that no one but the employee would pay for birth control.

    Generally, the employee does pay for it (but a lot of plans are contributed to by the employer to different degrees though). But the reason behind the birth control mandate is that unwanted pregnancy is a legitimate women’s health issue, and thus refusing to cover contraception is gender discrimination. The reason for requiring the contraceptives to be covered at no charge to the patient is two-fold: (1) the burden created by an unplanned pregnancy for a person who couldn’t afford birth control will fall on the parent(s), the baby, and the healthcare system, and (2) since contraceptives are preventive, the idea is that offering them free of charge will actually lead to lower costs for the insurers down the line when the pregnancies are prevented in the first place (think of reason behind dental cleaning being free under most dental plans). I imagine it would take a while for the actual figures to be out to validate or refute that point, but that’s the idea anyway.

    And besides, birth control isn’t the only thing required to be covered. Insurers also have to cover things like prenatal care, domestic violence screenings, and well-visits for women with high-risk pregnancies. So I’m afraid the whining about birth control is just plain old misogyny. They just don’t want women to be having sex for fun.

    Besides, as we all know, the religious right isn’t losing any privilege in this. They’re still privileged as fuck:

    Health plans sponsored by certain exempt “religious employers,” like churches and other houses of worship, don’t have to cover contraceptive methods and counseling. If you work for an exempt religious employer and use contraceptive services, you may have to pay for them out-of-pocket.

    No “religious freedom” is under attack. To the contrary, women’s health continues to be under attack by the religious.

  478. Saad says

    Giliell, #476

    That’s one of the most backwards thing I’ve read. Reading that headline, you’d think we’re talking about some ISIS policy.

    I didn’t know almost killing the mother of your children granted you the right to be updated on the kids.

  479. rq says

    Giliell
    The guy is a fucking abuser and they can’t realize that?? Holy fucking shit, that’s a whole new level of traumatizing. :(

  480. rq says

    Saad @477
    Also, isn’t Viagra usually covered? Which means penis-wielding men are okay to go out and have fun.

  481. Saad says

    Actually, erectile dysfunction drugs are not covered. I’ve yet to see any plan that does cover them. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’m not opposed to them being covered but they are, after all, recreational rather than preventive.

  482. Saad says

    I should clarify, when I say I’m not opposed to them being covered, I don’t mean free of charge. That would be just plain silly. I mean covered as in being treated like a higher-tier drug.

  484. Ice Swimmer (was Nakkustoppeli) says

    I wonder if the same employers who don’t want to cover birth control would still want to fire women who get pregnant?

    BTW, calling the Pills for men “birth control pills” is a bit funny. It makes sense because the controlling the number of births is the motive for using them, but something like insemination control pill would sound better to me. Then again I’m not a native English speaker so I don’t really have a say in this matter. In Finnish birth control is raskauden ehkäisy (lit. pregnancy prevention) or usually just ehkäisy (prevention).

    About the abuser’s father’s rights case: Based on the article I wonder why the abuser didn’t get charged and sentenced for attempted homicide? He should lose all rights of visitation and any lesser rights for his kids. But which would work better for the abused families: Automatic loss of parent’s right for all abusers who commit (say) aggravated assault or worse while abusing a family member or should there be more discretion for the judge or cps on the matter?

  485. says

    Ice Swimmer
    It’s the same in German. Birth control is “Verhütungsmittel”, “prevention means”, contraceptive. I guess in English it’s a case of being stuck with a term that was accurate when it was conceived (ha!) but now it doesn’t quite fit, but it’s not going to change.

    +++
    As for the homicidal father: Which person could think that this man would be a good influence in the lives of the children? Apart from the fact that yes, some men love to use joint custody as a means to hurt their exes and bully them.

  486. says

    Ice Swimmer@484,

    I wonder if the same employers who don’t want to cover birth control would still want to fire women who get pregnant?

    Of course they would, women who don’t want to get pregnant should keep their legs closed, and anyway, women should stay home where they belong. Next question?

  487. Ice Swimmer (was Nakkustoppeli) says

    Giliell, I think the Finnsh term is a calque from either German or Swedish. We have tended to follow Swedes and Germans in a lot of things.

  488. says

    Giliell
    Poor grandma! Glad she’s OK.
    Also, bunnies!!! Eeeeeee! :D
    Also also, possible “Wh-” song here.
    ——–
    My elderly neighbor and I have a little game. When it snows, I try to get her driveway cleared before she catches me. I thought I had it wrapped up this time, but she came out when I was two shovel fulls away from finishing.

  489. rq says

    Ice Swimmer
    The decision to see the abuser should be the victim’s, and the victim’s only. How can she be expected to recover psychologically, with the constant forced contact?
    I suppose that, in a sense, it means his (in this case) rights as a parent are suspended. Considering his crime, I don’t see that as a problem.

    awakeinmo
    I hope she didn’t pull any karate-granny skills on you and dump the snow back? :D

  490. Yellow Thursday says

    Thanks again, everybody who offered me advice for Valentine’s Day. I gave up on my romcom marathon after two movies, but I enjoyed several different variations on the standard margarita. My favorite was the chocolate orange margarita:

    2 parts tequila
    1 part creme de cocoa
    1 part triple sec

    It was sweet, but not too sweet.

  492. birgerjohansson says

    Article analysing ISIS: “What ISIS Really Wants” http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

    TRIGGER WARNING

    (excerpt) ” …Denying the holiness of the Koran or the prophecies of Muhammad is straightforward apostasy. But Zarqawi and the state he spawned take the position that many other acts can remove a Muslim from Islam. These include, in certain cases, selling alcohol or drugs, wearing Western clothes or shaving one’s beard, voting in an election—even for a Muslim candidate—and being lax about calling other people apostates.

    Being a Shiite, as most Iraqi Arabs are, meets the standard as well, because the Islamic State regards Shiism as innovation, and to innovate on the Koran is to deny its initial perfection. (The Islamic State claims that common Shiite practices, such as worship at the graves of imams and public self-flagellation, have no basis in the Koran or in the example of the Prophet.) That means roughly 200 million Shia are marked for death. So too are the heads of state of every Muslim country, who have elevated man-made law above Sharia by running for office or enforcing laws not made by God.”

    (snip)
    …”According to Haykel, the ranks of the Islamic State are deeply infused with religious vigor. Koranic quotations are ubiquitous. “Even the foot soldiers spout this stuff constantly,” Haykel said. “They mug for their cameras and repeat their basic doctrines in formulaic fashion, and they do it all the time.” He regards the claim that the Islamic State has distorted the texts of Islam as preposterous, sustainable only through willful ignorance.

    “People want to absolve Islam,” he said. “It’s this ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ mantra. As if there is such a thing as ‘Islam’! It’s what Muslims do, and how they interpret their texts.” Those texts are shared by all Sunni Muslims, not just the Islamic State. “And these guys have just as much legitimacy as anyone else.”

    “All Muslims acknowledge that Muhammad’s earliest conquests were not tidy affairs, and that the laws of war passed down in the Koran and in the narrations of the Prophet’s rule were calibrated to fit a turbulent and violent time.
    In Haykel’s estimation, the fighters of the Islamic State are authentic throwbacks to early Islam and are faithfully reproducing its norms of war.

    This behavior includes a number of practices that modern Muslims tend to prefer not to acknowledge as integral to their sacred texts. “Slavery, crucifixion, and beheadings are not something that freakish [jihadists] are cherry-picking from the medieval tradition,” Haykel said. Islamic State fighters “are smack in the middle of the medieval tradition and are bringing it wholesale into the present day.”

    (snip)
    …” If al-Qaeda wanted to revive slavery, it never said so. And why would it? Silence on slavery probably reflected strategic thinking, with public sympathies in mind: when the Islamic State began enslaving people, even some of its supporters balked. Nonetheless, the caliphate has continued to embrace slavery and crucifixion without apology.
    “We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women,” Adnani, the spokesman, promised in one of his periodic valentines to the West. “If we do not reach that time, then our children and grandchildren will reach it, and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave market.”
    — — — — — — — — — — — — —
    HOLY. F*CKING. SH*T !!!!!!!

  493. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    @awakeinmo:

    My elderly neighbor and I have a little game. When it snows, I try to get her driveway cleared before she catches me. I thought I had it wrapped up this time, but she came out when I was two shovel fulls away from finishing.

    This is **awesome**. On so many levels. But on the level least predictable to you Hordies, it’s because in the bedtime stories I tell, there’s a chef (who is actually a walking, talking, vegetarian 5′ tall stalk of celery creatively named “Celery Guy”) who is great friends with Rema, a friendly but older wolf who, for the comfort of her joints, sleeps on a comfy cushion in front of the kitchen fire (with her girlfriend Felicia, who is, literally, a fox). Celery Guy makes up batches of “treat bones” for Rema and Felicia, and every day places a new bag in the pantry. Every day Rema tries to sneak over to the pantry without being seen to snag them and get them back to her comfy bed-cushion. She usually has to try 10 or 12 times before succeeding, cuz Celery Guy is super-aware of everything going on in the kitchen.

    Okay, now back to your average, everyday, non-surreal reality.

  494. Grewgills says

    @Tony #463
    Not exactly. Employers often pay a substantial portion of the insurance for employees. That is (or should be) irrelevant for a few reasons. Saad mentioned some above. Additionally the insurance is compensation for services, so in that sense it is something the employee pays for. The SC ruling on this was stated to be very narrow, but is a nightmare of a potential precedent.

  495. says

    awakeinmo: I love the stealth hugs from the elderly neighbor. That is just awesome.

    In other news, this is, in a way, a followup to birger’s post @492 about ISIS. What I’m increasingly seeing from the rightwing is the metastasis of the idea that President Obama is secretly supporting ISIS. This is an outgrowth of the “Obama is a Muslim” meme.

    The really troubling development is that more and more mainstream Republican politicians are repeating or hinting at the “Obama is in league with ISIS” nonsense. This does not bode well for the prospect of having a reality-based debate in Congress about authorizing actions to be taken against ISIS.

    At a right-wing forum last week, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) said he feels “duty bound” to authorize the use of force against Islamic State targets, but he’s conflicted. The far-right lawmaker argued, out loud, that he fears President Obama may be “working collaboratively with what I would say is the enemy of freedom and individual freedom and liberty and Western civilization and modernity.” […]

    The Pennsylvania lawmaker added that he wasn’t sure how he could vote to give the president the “power to take action” when he knows in his heart “he won’t.” On the contrary, Perry said. Obama might use his power “to further their cause.”

    A day later, Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.) argued, “I don’t believe that the president really wants to prosecute a war that would truly destroy ISIL, I don’t think he has any intention of doing that it.”

    Yesterday, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee lent credence to these bonkers perspectives.

    Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said on Sunday that he doubted the administration’s “commitment to dealing” with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). […]

    Corker said, “I think there is a lot of skepticism about the administration’s commitment to dealing with ISIS or Daesh or ISIL or whatever you want to call them.”

    […] On one side we see President Obama, who launched a military offensive against ISIS targets last August and who took the lead in assembling an international coalition to go after the terrorist group.

    And on the other side we see the Republican-led Congress, which has done … nothing. […] Who’s demonstrated an actual “commitment to dealing with ISIS” and who’s done a lot of talking without doing any actual work?

    To be sure, it’s entirely possible Obama’s actions won’t have the desired effect. It’s the sort of thing a functioning Congress might want to, I don’t know, debate or something. […]

    Even by 2015 standards, this is a bit bizarre. As we discussed a couple of weeks ago, I’m all for Republicans – and Democrats, and journalists, and the public, and our allies – asking questions about the U.S. mission. […]

    But the prerequisite to having a credible debate about U.S. military intervention abroad is acknowledging that U.S. military intervention abroad exists. It’s on this point that conservative lawmakers seem lost.

    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/far-right-skeptical-obamas-offensive-against-isis

    http://thehill.com/policy/defense/232889-gop-senator-lot-of-skepticism-about-obamas-commitment-to-fight-isis

    http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/arizona-congressman-suggests-obama-faking-war-isis

  496. Saad says

    At a right-wing forum last week, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) said he feels “duty bound” to authorize the use of force against Islamic State targets, but he’s conflicted. The far-right lawmaker argued, out loud, that he fears President Obama may be “working collaboratively with what I would say is the enemy of freedom and individual freedom and liberty and Western civilization and modernity.”

    WTH. That is straight up falsely accusing the president of treason…

    How is that not a crime?

  497. says

    John Boehner admitted out loud and on tape that he is partnering with the government of Israel to undermine the foreign policy of the USA.

    Boehner said that he did this in secret to avoid interference from the White House.

    Speaker Boehner, you just admitted to being a saboteur, and you contradicted your claim that you had alerted the White House, “gave them sufficient warning.”

    Boehner said he purposefully instructed Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, not to tell the White House about the invitation. “I wanted to make sure there was no interference,” he told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”

    Fox News gave Boehner a platform for this mind-boggling approach to undermining foreign policy.

    Meanwhile, five former Israeli ambassadors have urged Netanyahu not to accept Boehner’s invitation. A lot of people, even on the right, even in Israel, realize this is a bad idea. Boehner has no clue.

    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/republicans-harden-partisan-lines-over-israel

  499. says

    I agree with Saad @496, more and more Republican politicians are accusing President Obama of treason. They should find themselves in court over that.

    Letting this shit move from the ragged edge of rightwingdom into the halls of Congress is just not acceptable.

  500. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    Apart from the fact that yes, some menpeople love to use joint custody as a means to hurt their exes and bully them.

    FIFY.