I don’t want to get into this, and am really peeved that this fight over Ophelia Benson has become an issue, so let’s start off gently. Here are some kittens playing in boxes.
I took away your social threads, and there was wailing and gnashing of teeth. I had my reasons, though: off-topic threads were just getting too cliquish and leading to too much annoyance.
It wasn’t because I was trying to punish anyone. I want to encourage conversations, but productive, focused discussions. I’m going to try something new.
Philadelphia does not have a monopoly on American cuisine. It is Minnesota State Fair season! We’re all gonna DIEEEEE.
It opens 27 August. That’s about when classes start, so I have an excuse to avoid this opportunity to destroy my digestive system, my veins and arteries, my liver, my urinary system, and my olfactory/taste centers.
OK, everyone who has written to me to tell me about Walter Palmer, Minnesota dentist and butcher of wildlife, 5½ million people live in this state. Don’t know him, never met him, and if he were my dentist, I’d be dropping him instantly.
Walter Palmer, a trophy hunter who operates River Bluffs Dental in Bloomington, is believed to have paid about $55,000 to bribe wildlife guards July 1 at Hwange National Park, reported The Telegraph.
The Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force confirmed that Palmer — who has been previously fined for illegal hunts — spotted Cecil the lion at night and tied a dead animal to his vehicle to lure the famed cat out of the park.
That tactic is known as “baiting” and is used by big-game hunters to justify their killings as legal.
A blog is a lousy social medium; heck, social media are lousy social media. I think lately that I’ve been wrestling far too much with the problem of community on the web, and I have become disillusioned. That this particular community has been under siege by trolls and slimers and shit-stirrers hasn’t helped, either, or that there is far too much cliquishness of a painfully artificial sort.
I must also say that I find the wider community we tried to build at Freethoughtblogs is less a unified group than a disparate collection of loosely affiliated blogs that have found a convenient hosting service, which doesn’t help my mood much, either. We are all objects in space, drifting, occasionally bouncing off each other or tugging gently at each other’s masses. And that’s about it.
The Convergence convention ended a few weeks ago, but the survey statistics (pdf) are already out. If you like gender diversity, you might want to join us next year.
The attendees skewed surprisingly young, but then, as a geezer, I might have a skewed perspective myself.
One thing that is missing from the questions asked is something about race/ethnicity — I know, it’s Minnesota, we’re really pale, but it would still be a good thing to pay attention to, especially since I thought there was more diversity there this year than last.
Ted Cruz tried to claim Captain James T. Kirk for the Republican party. This is illogical and must be refuted.
I offer two pieces of evidence.
William Shatner’s own words.
Star Trek wasn't political. I'm not political; I can't even vote in the US. So to put a geocentric label on interstellar characters is silly
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) July 23, 2015
Star Trek wasn’t political. I’m not political; I can’t even vote in the US. So to put a geocentric label on interstellar characters is silly
Does this sound like a Republican to you?
Case closed.
I don’t want one. It’s an Infant Circumcision Trainer
No, don’t click the link. It will haunt you, and the FBI will put you on a list, and Satan will appear in your living room and make an offer on your soul. As another curse, every time you visit Amazon you’ll get offered the strangest stuff. Customers Who Viewed This Item Also Viewed Nicolas Cage Pillowcase Covers
But hey, if you’re in the market for the kind of tchotchke that will scare all the neighbors away and make them whisper warnings to their children about you, it’s only $192.
This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly.
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
I travel a fair bit…a bit more than I can enjoy, actually. To me, an airplane represents a period of tedious antiseptic confinement, and a hotel room is a closet with a bed that I’ll use for sleeping, nothing more. So this story of a subculture that games the airlines to get constant free travel and hotel rooms is a horror story to me. They fly around pointlessly, land in exotic places and never leave the airport, just waiting to board the next leg of their circuit.
I guess it is a kind of game, and these people are masters of it. I just don’t see the point.
