I don't care what the last installment of the interminable thread was about — I have to show this horrifying clip of a gentle octopus's last moments beneath the jaws of ravening chordates.
OK, now talk about whatever you want…if you can.
(Current totals: 10,157 entries with 983,758 comments.)
'The Age' is running a poll on whether they were justified in sacking Catherine Deveny for making some off color (in some people's mind) tweets.
I reckon it should be pharyngulated
http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/what-a-day-boned-20…
PS Don't mean to spam since I posted this on the old open thread a couple of minutes ago, but didn't want it to disappear so quickly!
Carried over from the last version of Teh Thread:
@Carlie:
With all due respect, Carlie (and you know I love ya), perhaps you ought to be more concerned about her parent putting her into the limelight. Is that not more "inappropriate" than a comedian poking fun (for an adult audience)? I think you might reconsider where your concern is directed, or at least place equal "blame" on the parental unit who's pushed her into the public eye.
@Rorschach:
We all have different tastes in comedy; some will find a joke tasteless, some will be offended, some will find a joke tasteless and offensive and laugh all the more because of it. That's fine. But that's quite different from echidna's comment in the last thread:
Echidna needs to cut the over the top drama. "Destructive?" "Damaging a child?" Please. Newsflash: comedians who make raunchy jokes to provoke raucous laughter aren't "damaging a child," and they aren't endorsing "child damage." The entire world of public discourse does not need to be scrubbed Disney clean for the benefit of someone's - anyone's - child. Adults are allowed to have naughty chuckles, and that doesn't make them monsters.
Why are some people more upset at the ribaldry than they are about her mother, who booked her on Today?
AAARGH. That is really disgusting.
I wrote a response to Rorschach and it got eaten in the switch of threads. Consider yourselves lucky, as I have to go to sleep and don't want to retype it. But basically my kids get plenty of social time, spend very little time at home, and aren't taught only by me (plus they can sing the Narwal song). The "isolate your kids for Jesus" people skeeve me out majorly and it is absolutely infuriating that they're the ones everyone thinks about when they hear the "homeschooling" word.
Happy birthday, Bill! I may ask you to interview my kids when you're in DC in June and assure the endless thread that my spawn don't seem to be socially inept fundamentalists...
Josh:
Agreed, 100%. I'm rather surprised someone can get so upsetty over what a comedian says and doesn't give a toss about mum shoving the kid into whatever limelight is available for publicity and money. Seems to me the questionable person is clear.
OMG, what a horrific video;
Note that leaving the ocean floor apparently a mistake. Climbing into trees during paint-ball is like that.
Using the third dimension is lateral thinking, and a sign of intelligence, but it's not generally clever.
Re: homeschooling - I think how you do it in the US is very, very different from how it's done here; as you've noted there are lots of people doing it and local networks through which the social aspects a regular school education would provided are included.
In Australia it really is the province of woo-sooked (usually Christian) weirdos, and kids who experience it struggle a lot when unleashed on society (or vice versa).
Hence the attitude.
This popped up on the random quote:
That's an astonishing thing to say. So weather breeds dinosaurs does it? I wonder why the hell we aren't being overrun here in ND. How exactly would an underwater fire-breathing dragon work?
Frankly, I'm disappointed (and a little bit piqued) by the humorless tut-tutting from Pharyngulites over this. All of a sudden a bunch of people's personal, emotional, "I've got a child or I care about children" buttons got pushed, and now they're all bent out of shape about a crude joke. Jesus.
Guess what: even those of us who don't have children, or don't want them, care about the welfare of children. Even nasty, potty mouthed Catherine Deveny. Nobody - mark that:nobody- wants to see a child abused or molested.
Regular readers here know that. Do not equate an adult "naughty" or even "outrageous" joke with an endorsement of child abuse. That's bullshit.
Now I've seen everything, an octopus snuff film...
'Tis Himself (last thread), Thanks for that. I guess I had only a vague idea of what the words laissez faire meant (outside the literal). It was dumb of me to throw them out there like that and just expect them to be the right ones. My ignorance of economics knows no bounds, but I still shouldn't have been so sloppy.
Perhaps it would have been better to say "lightly regulated", but that's probably not what I meant either. I was thinking more of tinpot presidents and generals who sold their countries to United Fruit and foreign mining companies.
Re Catherine Deveny, I thought the Bindi tweet was tasteless and unfunny, but I thought the one about Rove's wife (who died of cancer) was much worse. She's been a friend of Rove's for a long time but I don't think that made it any better.
Still not a sacking offence in my book but in this day practically anything you say can get you sacked.
The hatred and vitriol being directed towards Deveny atm is incredible. She's never had a shortage of haters, but it's still pretty extreme. She retweeted some idiot who told her she was a "fucking bitch" who needed "a bullet in the head".
Oh, the poor thing! :(
Wowbagger:
Well, as I noted in my post in the previous incarnation, a great many homeschoolers in the U.S. are the crazy religious, woo-soaked people. However, there's been an upsurge in highly educated, non-religious people going the homeschooling route because of the education standards in the U.S.
The situation is very bad and it's increasingly difficult to get your child a good education. Public schools are hideously underfunded, teachers aren't paid a living wage and depending on your area, too many schools are dangerous. Most are overcrowded. When it comes to private schools, even if parents can afford them, most of them are religiously based.
I'm rather disturbed by that map graphic below the comment box that looks like a thousand nukes going off in America and Europe and various other locations around the world.
Vanquisher of sharks, taken down by a gang of fish. No one is King of the Ocean.
See, that's the point. Comedy is subjective. What one person finds amusing and hysterical will send another person into a rage of apoplexy and fainting spells. Really, who cares that you found one of her jokes awful? Who cares that I found another routine offensive or tasteless?
We get it. People will disagree. Some will like it, some will hate it. But I don't give a shit about anyone else's opinion of comedy, and I don't expect them to give a shit about mine. Sure, the paper is well within its rights to fire her if they think her brand of comedy will alienate their readers. That's not in dispute.
What is in dispute is this puritanical assumption by some that, because they think she went too far, that all the rest of us should agree that, yes, she objectively went too far.
Well, I don't, and bugger off to anyone who gets their knickers all twisted. Doesn't mean I have to twist mine in sympathy.
Ooooh - snuff!
Kissy. Kissy. Kissy. We loooooove youuuuuu, Occi.
Josh:
Amen and all that jazz.
which sort of raises the question: what is the point of a course at a physical university if you're basically learning all this stuff by yourself? Basically, it sounds like all you'd need for those classes is a library with an exam schedule...
Hmmm... looks like PZ must try harder to connect with folks in Siberia, the Sahara, Central Africa and western Brazil. Where the Yanomami at?
Jadehawk:
That's pretty much how I got through high school. I wasn't there all that much, but I did show up for exams.
Well, now that I've figured out what the tweet was, I do think it was sort of tasteless, but it's not like Bindi's mom is such a protective saint.
Plus "getting laid" generally implies that the activity is consensual, and as such, I, too, hope that the poor girl eventually gets laid. I hope that the event doesn't take place until she is over the age of consent (otherwise it's per se non-consensual) and that it takes place with privacy and a considerate partner. I wish the same for all the teens and pre-teens I know, especially the ones from woo-infested families. Also I wish that more parents were marginally sane...
Oy....wrestling with the registration system has been a right pain in the ass. For some reason, Movable Type won't retain my login information; just moved to TypePad and that seems to be working.
That poor octo, beset by vicious bullies!
I think I learned more at Uni when I was in tutorial discussion groups - that wouldn't have happened if we hadn't had to attend.
Josh,
Not that I mind watching you self-destruct, but it's getting a bit painful.
Nobody is asking you to agree with anything, so what's that all about, and you obviously dont seem to know what puritanical means.
People have expressed that wishing for an 11yo girl to get laid is not funny and rather tasteless.
So wtf are you going on about??
Oh, it's not just "sort of" tasteless, it's completely tasteless. And that's what makes it so damned funny.
And this is what marks you out as both:
a. A kind, caring person
b. An uber-concerned liberal
c. (hopefully) a stealth comedian
I mean, sweet fuck. The fact that a joke like this can't pass unremarked, without all the "I don't really want children to be harmed" disclaimers - ugh.
What a drab (and UNfunny) world we live in.
oh, I know it's a nice way to get through classes you don't like (shoot, if my High-School had let me do that, I might have graduated), and it's a pretty good setup for certain online classes, but I figure a physical university is for studying things you like and can't teach yourself. Like the lab-courses David mentioned, for example.
Rorschach:
Specifically, Echinda's comment, which Josh mentioned in some detail. Whether or not a joke is found to be tasteless by some, it's going full court drama to claim it's a terrible action, sure to damage the child, especially when the child in question has a mother who doesn't seem to be overly concerned about making her a public figure.
Jadehawk:
Agreed. College was very different for me because of the interaction and I enjoyed it tremendously.
That video is fucking horrifying. Thanks, homey!
Josh, helloooo? I said I didn't think Deveny should have been sacked. My opinion about the funniness of her tweets is just that, my opinion. Which at current exchange rates is worth three fiths of five eighths of fuck-all :)
I hardly think Bindi would be traumatised. I can just see her saying "Ew! Boys are gross!" and then running of to play with some snakes and shit.
@Rorschach:
What? A good day to you, too.
I explained this very clearly, Rorschach. In very plain, simple terms, I explained why I thought comedy is subjective, and that jokes - no matter how taboo - can't be classed (necessarily) as "damaging."
I explained that I find people who disapprove of taboo jokes simply because they're shocking and taboo to be puritanical. Where, specifically, do you disagree with me?
That's a cheap, stupid, dirty trick that's beneath you. And you know it. I was very clear - you couldn't have missed it - that I do not equate a ribald, "naughty" joke of that sort with an actual command or "wish" that an 11-year-old be abused.
You know damned well the joke (whether you find it "tasteless" or not) stops well short of, and in no way endorses, child sex or rape.
You and I have had our differences, but I'm fed up to here with your bullshit accusations. Knock it off. You don't have to like me, but don't fling that unfair crap at me.
The inability of people to grasp this point, whether in jokes or serious conversations, is why I just issued an edict that my kids weren't allowed to have serious conversations about drug policy, therapeutic ratios, and harm/benefit comparisons with anyone outside our family or approved-friends-of-mom-and-dad-circle - they didn't seem to grasp that kids and some adults would assume they did drugs unless they issued the "I don't do drugs" disclaimer, and that even that might not help with some people.
No drugs were consumed or children harmed in the production of this comment.
Ambulo- Sorry if I overreacted. I'm rather occupied with some other bullshit; sorry if it spilled over on you, that was unintentional.
You can't hire someone as a humorist and then tell them not to be funny. It's like people getting pissed at Wanda Sykes for her jokes at the correspondents dinner or Frankie Boyle getting sacked from Mock the Week. People make jokes that are twisted and sick and that's why they're funny and that's what they were hired to do.
If you're too uptight for that then don't follow it, but don't prevent other people from enjoying a stupid joke. It's retarded (it's satire!).
Guys, Bindi Irwin has been in the public eye since before she was born. One stupid remark by a (IMO--don't care for "mean" humor much) not very funny comedian is unlikely to mean anything at all to her. If the tweets mentioned in the article I saw are an example of her humor then frankly I'll pass. That does not mean I think she should have been fired for them. It's not like she hasn't made it a habit to push the edges. If they didn't want that, they shouldn't have hired her. Her "humor" is ugly. Apparently that is what they wanted. Firing her now is just... stupid.
I am more interested in the new map below. I looked at the closer view. Gee, PZ, you have people in inland China and Russia and sub-Saharan Africa. Cool.
No worries, Josh. I should go and occupy myself with some other bullshit too.
I'll miss Deveny's weekly TV column. It was really funny :(
I do ?
Btw, I find your selectiveness wrt tasteless jokes rather random.So this one is covered by freedom of comedy or some such thing, but if it was a tasteless joke about minority X, then you'd be all up in arms.
Your use of the word "necessarily" tells me that you don't believe in the nonsense you wrote there yourself.
Off to work.
Ambulo:
Thanks:)
Rorschach:
How do you know that? Making such assumptions is an asshole move.
But not the Antarctic... yet.
[strokes fluffy white cat] Soon. Soon.
MATTIR, seriously, your children have never had any drugs at all?
I disbelieve that.
--
(yeah, I get you're speaking of illegal drugs, but drugs are drugs.)
Let's lighten all this up with a quote from one of Australia's best-known comedians:
"I had the misfortune of being born with an opinion and a vagina" - Catherine Deveny
@Rorschach:
Really? Please educate me on the error of my ways.
You know what? Fuck you.
You've been nothing but nasty to me, no matter what I say. I don't know what it is about me that sets you off so, but something clearly does. Fine. I don't like you much either (though only because you've been such a nasty guy; I have no reason to dislike you).
I've given you my email address before so we could continue this (pointless) argument without disrupting Teh Thread. You haven't taken me up on it.
You don't have to email me, of course. But if you're going to be a complete, unremitting, hostile asshole to me in public, you can expect the same. What the hell is your problem, Rorschach?
I think that widget map should show the (solar) terminator.
@John Morales
Ack! My children are drug addicts. I'm be on the phone to Dr. Dobson first thing in the morning. Maybe I also need to be talking to Dr. Rekers about their sexual identities.
Seriously, the story my son told about explaining about the therapeutic ratio for marijuana (as opposed to, say, tylenol), was priceless. They didn't get it, to put it mildly, and just kept repeating "Yes, but marijuana kills people."
Now for real I need to go to sleep. (Hits submit and walks away quickly.)
Rorshach, in the last Thread: And I didnt realise Hawaii was so far from everything else !
You've got it backward.
OK, I'm still in that post-Kaua'i glow. What the world needs now is Aloha, and more chickens. I am fighting off the week-long urge to set ten thousand chickens loose in Berkeley.
I'm wondering about that widget. The pattern of right-now hits doesn't look right. Everywhere in the world except South America is awake and posting?
G'night.
So, Dungeons and Dragons. I have yet to give 4.0 a try. Anyone recommend it?
Struth, did those murderous little fuckers say grace first?
What is it with the whole Bindi Irwin thing? Is she next up for canonization or something? What miracles has she performed, consistent media presence for no good reason and cracking the world's biggest smile so soon after her father carked?
Milawe, happy to oblige (and my home computer uses proxy servers snigger snigger).
Rider@48 the murderous little fuckers all say OMNOMNOMNOMNOM. As stated by Brian@14, there is no king in the sea, everyone is eating and being eaten by something else. Ain't it grand?
WHAT?!? No Neptune. Shit, now who do I pray to that a shark won't eat me?
Yes, with a reservation:
I consider D20 to be terrible if your goal is not fundamentally a wargame with dungeon crawling. When 4.0 came out, and 3.0 players complained that it was just a vidja game with only a combat/dungeon crawl focus, my only response was "That's Dungeons and Dragons for ya."
In this vein (Dungeons and Dragons is awful if you don't want a wargame with dungeon crawling), 4th edition is pretty fantastic. Among other things, it strongly flattens the curve between classes (I won't say it's 'balanced' in a perfect sense. But the difference in power between a fighter and a wizard is significantly reduced), and, has some neat ideas on how to handle skills, and gets rid of the annoying skill point system (I like the idea, but it's pretty much just "Max a few skills, unless you need PrC reqs" in practice)
About the only major complaint I remember that was less applicable to 3.5 is that folks have to track more temporary modifiers, which is a nuisance. Still, despite that, combat tends to flow faster then in 3.0. Dungeon crawls involve more of the party, thanks to the new rules for skill challenges (Which among other things ensure that nobody can sit out.) It works out alright, as long as you like tactics oriented combat being a major focus. And if you don't, well... what are you doing playing DnD in the first place, really?
ydrkkwidrrarrgg... poor widdle octo...
The above were my first thoughts when I saw the vid.
Then I saw that it was filmed in Jervis Bay....
Then I thought...
WHAT THE H*** ... I was snorkeling in Jervis Bay 4 months ago!!! Why didn't I see that! (BIG pout)
Saw other cool things though
and don't forget to vote 'No' guys, please
http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/what-a-day-boned-20…
Someone's awake in South America now. Could be Rio de Janerio.
(This was a public service announcement.)
ICK.
Especially the sex thing. What the girl needs is to get laid? What a old ugly trope that women hear all the time to roll out. Too bad she didn't manage also to call her fat or to suggest that she get her breasts augmented, you know, for some extra-original funnies.
What... like as in a good dicking?
Pfft, good thing I never heard of the adult woman who said those things. Guess she's not that funny. Or important.
Meh, I've always thought (and yes OPINION and PERSONAL TASTE here) that commenter "comedians" are rarely ever funny anyway.
I prefer comics who talk about their own lives.
When did that person (and I forgot who it was and have to hurry) ever say they endorsed mom pushing the kid into the light?
And also how does that excuse yet another adult bitching about the kid being pushed into the limelight?
What like she brought it on herself, the obnoxious brat, because her mom put her out there for us to pick on and her dad was famous?
meh... but then people will just wait around for her to shave her head or cut off her boob so they can talk about it anyway.
Eh... time to go to breakfast but
@51: Okay, so as long as I want to play D&D for what D&D is good at, 4.0 does its job well? Sweet.
Frankie Boyle is a complete fucking assclown who thinks it's OK to mock disabled children.
Comedy is funny, and worthwhile, when it makes fun of the powerful and successful. Taking the piss out of celebrities or politicians is a good thing. So too is making fun of the idiosyncrasies of the majority group, or of one's own in-group. But when comedy is used to belittle already-marginalised groups for a cheap laugh, it just becomes cruelty.
I would say the same thing as regards jokes about religion. Jokes about Christianity are, in my view, funnier and more acceptable than jokes about Islam. Not because Islam is any less ridiculous - it isn't - but rather because Christianity is the dominant, powerful majority religion in Western society, whereas Muslims are a minority group who already face discrimination and oppression. If we lived in a society where Islam was dominant and Christians were a persecuted minority, I would likewise find anti-Christian jokes to be tasteless.
And similarly, I find jokes that belittle a minority group who are already marginalised - disabled people, gay and transgender people, ethnic minorities - to be simply a form of bullying, under the guise of comedy. Sometimes an offensive joke isn't "pushing back the boundaries" or "fighting political correctness"; sometimes it's just offensive.
Where does Deveny fit into this? I don't know. Making fun of a well-known and successful child star is certainly not comparable to making fun of children with Down's syndrome, and I'm inclined to agree with Josh that this particular incident was overblown. But as regards Frankie Boyle, I have zero sympathy with him; to be honest, I think the BBC was wrong to let him continue on Mock the Week as long as they did. He isn't funny; he's an offensive, hateful, bullying asshole.
What's with this stupid map at the bottom that looks like the last scene in Dr Strangelove?
I'm inclined to agree, actually, with Ol'Greg at #55 and #56.
Child stars, especially the children of celebrities, get pushed into the limelight before they are emotionally developed enough to handle it. I think that's an awful thing about our society in general, and I get really pissed off with the way the tabloids and gossip magazines exploit them and pry into their personal lives. They are denied the basic privilege that all the rest of us enjoy - the ability to grow up in relative privacy and anonymity, and develop and mature as a person before entering the adult world.
Making tasteless comments about them is not really OK. I'm not Australian and I don't totally know what the impact or context of this particular remark was, though.
The more I think about it a lot of comedy involves tearing down power. So when they attack powerful people it is funny.
The problem with Bindi and disabled children as a target for teardown type comedy is that they (in my perception) don't actually have that power.
At that point it's just bullying.
While the arthropods cheer wildly!
Life on the reef can be a bitch...
I heartily agree, Walton. Comedy is good when it pricks the powerful but just cruel when it's used to batter the powerless. Not that Deveny was really doing either of those things.
Re: The context of the tweet about Bindi Irwin getting laid. Deveny says it was supposed to be a comment on society's sexualisation of girls (as in children). Bindi was going to a TV awards ceremony so maybe she was dolled up a bit, I dunno. Twitter is so not the right medium to try to tackle that sort of stuff.
Boyle sounds like a total dick.
ambulocetacean (summing up others):
Maybe, but so what.
Comedy ain't about being good, it's about being funny.
Cruel can be funny.
True, cruel can be funny. But picking on Down syndrome kids/homeless people/refugees or whatever isn't funny.
I have had a bite taken out of me by a leatherjacket - still have the scar but lived to tell the tale.
@ Walton & ambulocetacean:
Surely the big thing is whether the comedy is funny or not? Cruel comedy goes back to Aristophanes and beyond. Admittedly he was, as you say ambulocetacean, 'pricking the powerful' but it was quite mean spirited stuff.
I think not making comedy out of the 'powerless' is slightly paternalistic; surely there's no more certain way to keep a marginal group ostracised than to give them a pat on the head and a free pass? I'm not saying the crueler the comedy the better, but it often doesn't hurt! (so to speak)
Deveny was also talking about Bindi getting laid that very night.
*I* suddenly don't find Deveny funny anymore. You are free to think what you like.
Josh, I haven't walked in your shoes; you haven't walked in mine. I have NEVER told you what to think, do, or say, or how much drama you should or should not use. Back off.
In local news: Experts astounded by 'city of gonads' jellyfish.
Ol'Greg, you're doing a better job of saying what I think than I am.
OT, but there's a poll this morning on the Detroit Free Press (freep.com). Is the US a Christian Nation? y or n. I doubt I'll get this link embedded correctly though: link.
PS Comedian Catherine Deveny talks about getting sacked from The Age.
@ Coryat,
I dunno. I've never thought too deeply about it. I've just always had an instinctive dislike of the powerful (or relatively powerful) making fun of the disenfranchised.
I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with making jokes about the foibles of minority groups or individuals as long as it doesn't come from a dark place.
For argument's sake, imagine a white stand-up doing a routine about black people being lazy and stupid and eating watermelons. Is that in itself a value-neutral thing? Would your opinion of the act rest solely on the quality of the gags? Would it make a difference if they were true stories? Would it matter to you if he really hated black people or was simply just a hack peddling old stereotypes for a few dollars?
Maybe comedy that isn't to my taste is simply comedy that isn't to my taste. But I still don't see anything even theoretically funny about Down syndrome, homelessness, serious mental illness, child amputees, stuff like that.
Personally, I get most of my jollies from toilet humour. Poop! Tee hee! :)
You are confusing, as always, criticism of what you say here, in public, with personal dislike.
I am indeed starting to not like you, but that's mainly because you clearly can't tell those 2 things apart and pathologically assume that everything is about you, and personal instead of me or others replying to your comments, with no personal investment towards you one way or the other.
If you go off at other posters here for no good reason, then I will keep telling you what I think of that, and where I think you might be wrong.
Disagree. Dehumanization is a step to actual destruction. It can help bond a group of people around a system of thought. For instance, think Jon Stewart, and how his comedy may make many feel that they are finally getting a voice against the conservative TV powers.
Yet Glen Beck makes fun of people too, immigrants for instance and women (especially feminists), and also gays. Because his humor is about asserting Conservative power against those groups whose very struggle for power is seen as too much and too upsetting to the conservative strategy of oppression.
It's still comedy and somebody truly finds it funny. But some where out there is a man who would find it funny if your daughter was raped. Is it funny to him? Sure. Is it funny? I guess YMMV. I say no.
A few Jew jokes are funny, but then the thread gets Godwin'd.
I don't think it doesn't hurt, or rather maybe it just doesn't hurt you.
But comedy is all about power. That's why traditionally women didn't do comedy, and also why it's still expected that attractive women won't.
I followed the Deveny link at the end of the last thread, and the Bindi comment wasn't anything like what I thought it would be (I was thinking along the lines of when Limbaugh said Chelsea Clinton looked like a horse). It was tasteless, but that's about it. But then again, I don't think there's any problem with her losing one job over it; there's no right to any particular job, and if that employer didn't think she was funny, and being funny is the point of her job, then fine, they let her go. I don't see that it was a particularly awful comment, but I don't get up in arms about someone being fired from a gig based on job performance, either.
Still, though, I don't care if Bindi's family has made her a media star or not; I think children are subject to different, more protective rules regarding media criticism. Not different legal rules, but different social rules of what's ok. If someone makes fun of a kid, I'm going to call them an asshole who picks on people who can't fight back. It doesn't matter if she's been thrust into the spotlight by her family - at this point in her life that's still not really her choice. She's doing whatever she can to please the parent she has left, and she might well get pure enjoyment out of doing it besides because she inherited the performer genes, but she's still a kid.
Ol'Greg,
No, it's about being comical.
Sheesh.
Dear Atheists,
I am a tolerant and accepting sort of Christian, but I have to draw a line at idle banter about comedy. There is no place in God's Holy Bible where he tells a joke or has a good laugh. Nor did the Lord Jesus Christ ever play fast and loose with humor. Verily I say unto you, comedy is a tool of Satan. Being good is a serious business. There's no room in Heaven for hilarity, so CEASE YOUR EVIL WITTICISMS OR GOD WILL...
JESUS CHRIST: Smoggy!
SMOGGY BATZRUBBLE: Jesus?
JC: Shut the fuck up, Smoggy!
SB: Say what, Lord?
JC: I said, fucking well shut up! You're talking through your arse.
SB: Wh... wh... what did I say that was wrong Lord?
JC: Comedy, Smoggy. It isn't Satan's. It belongs to me and my Heavenly Father.
SB: Seriously?
JC: Totally Smoggy. The whole Holy Bible, it's just one big pisstake.
SB: P...p...p...!!??
JC: [pretend stutter] P-p-p-pisstake, Smoggy. Our laugh at creation. God's divine joke on all you sad little mortal mo' fuckers. Dad and I had a contest to see who could dictate the stupidest shit to the most deranged prophets, and then discover what really way out garbage we could get you humans to believe. And the really hilarious thing is that you believed the whole lot of it. Not only that, but you embellished it, you made our stupid even stupider.
SB: I don't understand Jesus. Why would you do that?
JC: Eternity, Smoggy. Do you have any idea how long eternity really is? If you want a clue ask Wowbagger's eponym. Bowerick's an alien who understands the true horror of eternal life.
SB: But... but... some of the shit in the Bible is really horrible Jesus. How can you call it comedy. God fucking an underage virgin... men swallowed by whales...Sodom... The letters of Paul. It's cruel!!
JC: Bollocks Smog! Cruelty is all relative--ask Dad, he pissed himself laughing the whole time I was being crucified. The thing is that in the scheme of things, when your entire planet and every iota of life on it is just a pimple on eternity's left tit, then whatever happens happens, and consequences last as long as the scent of a baby's fart in a hurricane.
SB: That's awfully callous Jesus.
JC: Your callous is my comic Smog. Although I have to say, I'll miss you humans for, oh, about a second or two until Dad and I find another sentient life-form to torment. Though I can't imagine we'll ever find any other species so willing to accept the unacceptable: literal 7 day creation! Noah's flood! The tower of Babel! Parting the Red Sea! The Virgin birth! Resurrection! You swallowed the lot and embellished it with transubstantiation, the inquisition and Sarah Palin. The more I see what you credulous turds believe the more I have to laugh.
SB: Should I be laughing too, Jesus?
JC: It's up to you Smoggy. I don't give a shit...not about you nor about any other human. Though you may as well laugh, especially at the cruel stuff, 'cos it's the closest you're ever going to get to being like me.
SB: Well then, AMEN and HAHAHA Jesus, and I pray that Steve Irwin's in the afterlife enlarging your urethra with the sharp end of the barb that slew him. That should be worth a chuckle.
Define comical?
Who gets to be comical? Who doesn't?
Who is laughing? Why? You're assuming there is simply funny, and I disagree.
There is no universal humor, except maybe for people tripping and falling down (mostly because we all do it sometime).
Again, I think I agree with Ol'Greg at #75.
Comedy can be empowering, when it allows people a means to voice criticism of the powerful and privileged - as with, classically, the court jester being the only one who could get away with mocking the king. Political satire is in general a very good thing: mocking politicians can be a socially-empowering process, because they are the people who have power over our lives, and one of the ways we can criticise them and hold them to account is by making fun of them.
But mocking powerless and marginalised groups is neither funny nor socially-empowering. Mocking disabled people, or gay people, or unpopular ethnic or religious minorities, tends to be indistinguishable from bullying. It's a way of the existing dominant, privileged group reasserting and entrenching their dominance.
This is why I don't like the argument that "if it's OK to insult group X, it's OK to insult group Y." That just doesn't always hold true. Insulting or stereotyping a dominant, privileged in-group is not the same as insulting or stereotyping a marginalised, powerless out-group.
I would argue, perhaps more controversially, that this holds true even as regards criticism and mockery of religion. Hence why it really pisses me off when idiots show up here and whine "You're saying all these bad things about Christianity, but what about Islam? Why aren't you attacking Islam too?" Sure, Islam deserves criticism too in many respects. But in reality, the reason for the difference is that, in British and American society, Christians are the historically dominant, privileged majority - so criticism and mockery of Christianity by non-Christians in our society is a socially-empowering practice. By contrast, Muslims in British and American society are an oppressed, marginalised minority group who face discrimination - and so criticism and mockery of Islam easily fades into simple bullying of an unpopular out-group. Hence why I get so angry with moronic bigots like Pat Condell, who thinly disguise their anti-Asian xenophobia through launching pseudo-secularist attacks on Islam.
Carlie:
Whatever makes you think kids can't fight back?
Child is old enough to have a TV show and be a media presence, child is open to criticism in the media.
--
BTW — You didn't know me as a kid.
I wasn't strong, and I wasn't smart, but I was combative.
Trying to please others was the last thing in my mind, and I'd've loved it if such as you enabled my egoism by declaring criticism of me out-of-bounds. Bah.
Smoggy, you're reminding me of the insane monk in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose* who kept insisting that Jesus never laughed and that laughter was a tool of the devil. (If I remember rightly, he turned out to be the murderer. /spoiler)
*An awesome whodunnit set in a medieval monastery - like a much more intelligent, gritty and realistic version of Cadfael. It paints a rich historical picture of the late-medieval Catholic Church - including some pretty graphic descriptions of the weird sexual practices in which "heretic" groups were accused of participating. You'd like it. :-)
If we are to have freedom of speech, it has to apply to everyone, even if it means jokes aimed at those who cannot protect themselves. Those who don't like a joke or a comment then have the freedom to say so.
I'm really fed up with the current atmosphere of censorship and self-censorship, especially in the UK.
Except for farts! I know (because Jesus told me) that every human who ever lived has, at some stage in his or her life, laughed at the inappropriate punctuation of accidental flatulence.
Indeed,as a young man, I lost the love of my life because after our first and only night of passionate love-making my delectable angel managed, on the verge of sleep, to let off an anal clarion call that ascended an entire octave. Thanks to my uncontrollable fits of laughter she departed my bed, never to return, and to this day I nurse a broken heart (although that has never stopped me laughing at a good fart joke).
Farting is the international language of comedy. Don't believe me? Watch this
Ol'Greg, again:
That's as silly as saying romance is all about power, or tragedy is all about power.
Yes, comedy is subjective, and yes it can be about power. Equally, it could just be absurdism, or word-play for the fun of it, or any of a number of things.
(BTW, I didn't find Deveny funny, but neither do I find the self-righteous opprobrium heaped on her appropriate.)
Thanks Walton.
I read it.
I liked it.
I used to lecture on it.
That's funny. I thought the entire Bible was a long form of low comedy.
Ah, comedy. While I agree that what is funny is subjective, there are aspects of comedy that are fairly objective:
1)The number three is sacrosanct--ever notice that it's always 3 guys walking into a bar, not 5, not 2? Three is important because humans are linear thinkers. The first two guys set a pattern, while the third guy diverges from it in an unexpected way--preferably one that yields unexpected insight.
2)We are more likely to laugh at things that make us uncomfortable. Sex? Funny. Death and disease? Funny. Religion? Very funny? Bodily functions? Funny. Accountants...not so much. Note that this is one reason why humor is so subjective. Sometimes going right to the edge can be hilarious...until you go over it. Sarah Silverman has an astounding ability to teeter on this brink.
3)So why do so many jokes take place in bars? Well, the bar is still in some ways a crossroads. You get all sorts of people who might cross paths there, thus increasing the possibilities for misunderstanding--which can be funny.
4)I've known a lot more people who were funny than people who could tell jokes. I think telling jokes is a learned skill. You pretty much had to have a close relative who told jokes.
5)The Bindi quote is pretty classic going over the line. I suspect that the intent was to play on the incongruity of the parents pimping their star children in the limelight. Then, too, girls that age are insufferable. It also plays on parent's fears (whenever a parent tells me their daughter's name, I love to tell them, "Hey, that's supposed to be a big name for strippers in a few years.) Unfortunately, we don't live in a world that is safe for 11-year old girls--or 11-year old boys for that matter. And the supermarket tabloids keep us informed that the 11-year old, insufferably cute child stars of yesteryear are now slagged out crackwhores.
6)Can humor at the expense of the vulnerable be funny? Dicey, but maybe. Possible example: Stephen Hawking having phone sex with his computer-generated speech?
John Morales, I'm sure part of the opprobrium stems from the recent moral panic about comedy in Oz in general.
Non-Oz readers might remember that "Jackson Jive" thing where all those guys (Indian and Sri Lankan Australians mostly, I think) got dressed up in blackface.
And last year the satirical sketch show The Chaser got pulled off air for a couple weeks because of a sketch that was basically "don't donate money to send terminally ill kids to Disneyland cos they're just gonna die anyway".
Deveny had already outraged people last week by saying that she hated ANZAC Day (the war memorial day for Australia and New Zealand).
Smoggy would do well to stay the other side of the Tasman for a while. Suggesting, even in jest, that somebody should be urethrally raped with a rusty stingray barb wouldn't go down too well at the moment. :)
To those who find it boring, I promise this will be my last "OMG teh electionz!!!" post. (Seeing as the election is tomorrow...)
I'm currently arguing with a libertarian Tory acquaintance on Facebook who keeps posting status updates attacking the Lib Dems, most recently on immigration. I pointed out that the Lib Dem policy on immigration is much closer, in theory, to libertarian ideals than the authoritarian Conservative "points-based" scheme. He just responded by blaming the welfare state, and asserting that we can't have free immigration till we trim down welfare.
I just think that's such a pile of clueless bullshit. There is zero evidence that immigrants are "coming over here to claim benefits"; that's just a scaremongering right-wing Daily Mail myth. In reality, the vast majority of migrants come here to work and contribute to the economy. The only ones who are a net cost to the state are asylum-seekers, and that's because government prohibits them from working and imprisons them (in awful conditions) in "detention centres" - something which is authoritarian insanity and should be stopped, but which the Conservatives plan to continue.
Sure, we should trim down government waste. We should get rid of the areas of spending which benefit large corporations and the wealthy at the expense of the ordinary taxpayer - farm subsidies, for instance, and the private correctional industry. But trimming down basic social welfare benefits and hurting the poorest and most marginalised people in our society, in order to keep taxes low for the privileged wealthy, just seems like a deliberate policy of "fuck the poor".
Hence why I'm getting really pissed off with a lot of "libertarians" who seem to be willing to ignore the godawful authoritarian Conservative policies on crime, immigration and human rights as long as the Conservatives promise to keep taxes low. It's the uglier, more selfish side of orthodox libertarianism. And that's why I'm going to have to vote Lib Dem, whatever my friends and acquaintances think about it. My conscience won't permit me to do anything else.
Sorry for the off-topic rant.
yo walton #58
mrs jones can jimmy come out and play?
you kids know he has leprosy
can we come in and watch him rot?
mrs jones can jimmy come out and play baseball?
you kids know he has no arms and legs
thats okay we need him for third base
you mean like that?
Walton, go ahead and vote Lib Dem if you want. The Tories don't stand for the things that seem most important to you.
You should vote for the party that you think will be best for the country. If you don't you're betraying yourself and your country.
It shouldn't matter that you've been campaigning for the Tories or that your friends are Tories (or that most Pharyngulites are raving lefties). Vote for who you think is best. When people ask you who you voted for you can a) tell them the truth, b) lie, or c) tell them to fuck off and mind their own business.
Re: DnD 4.0:
I'm waiting for July or so, when Dark Sun comes out for the 4.0 system finally (Dark Sun is awesome.) I need to, however, find a player group in the area who is interested in playing a Dark Sun campaign.
John, the Gosselin kids were on tv as fetuses. There is no "old enough to have a tv show". Children just aren't emotionally developed enough to handle being bullied. And "bullying" is exactly what to call it when they're used as the butt of jokes. What do you mean by media criticism? Criticism of their shows or performance or the way they're being presented or their parents for thrusting into the arena that way, fine. Picking on the kids themselves, when they had no ability for informed consent to any of their own exposure in the media, not ok.
Carlie:
In your opinion. I was a child, and I wasn't to be bullied, though people tried. All it did is to make me angry.
Anyway, I hardly see that offhand remark as bullying. You're employing unwarranted hyperbole.
What I wrote, literally: "criticism in the media".
That is, public criticism via a mass communication medium (twitter, in this case).
I disagree. Like I said earlier, being a child should not be a get-out-of-jail-free card, and if Bindi can get the acclamation concomitant with being a child "media personality", she can equally well get the criticism that's the obverse.
I note that, by your contention, Bindi the Jungle Girl was not ok, inasmuch as she had "no ability for informed consent to any of their own exposure in the media".
(In fact, by your contention, it's "not OK" to have child actors, period!)
Addendum to my horribly unfunny post on humor in #88 and re: broboxley's "Jimmy" jokes.
My point #2 in action--there is an entire class of jokes about absolutely abhorrent topics--Helen Keller jokes, the "Jimmy" jokes, the "Matt" jokes (e.g. What do you call a guy with no arms or legs lying on the ground? Matt.), Ethiopian famine jokes. The whole point of these jokes is that if they tickle your funnybone in the slightest, you start to feel uncomfortable, which feeds back on the humor, etc.
For some reason, I seem to hear a lot of these jokes (OK, I tell a lot of them, too.). I can't tell you how many times I have people come up to me and say, "You're the only person I can tell this joke to." Now, given how many people are telling me these jokes, I suspect that there a lot of closet sick-joke lovers out there. I'm just out.
It's true that comedy is subjective, and given just about anything, there's someone who finds it funny.
It's also true that if you find Dane Cook funny, you're a moron.
It is possible to make really hilarious jokes at the expense of gay folks, people of color, fat kids, immigrants in prison camps, Holocaust victims, whoever.
But it's so difficult that most comedians and comedy writers will never have the skill to succeed at it.
One of the difficulties is that because "jokes" are usually used only to hurt these people, appealing to no more creative sentiment than "lol I hate those people too," and such bullying is so incredibly popular, we've all heard the common jokes a hundred times by the time we finish primary school.
An adult who laughs at "I hope X gets laid" is a moron, no matter who X is. That a young girl is the target is even more routine and boring, but the basic form of the joke could hardly have been less interesting no matter the target.
Bullying is intentionally cruel. Making a bad joke that isn't intended to hurt anyone isn't bullying. It's just tacky.
I'd be worried about hurting the kids feelings in a way that wouldn't affect adults who know it's just a silly joke, which is why I wouldn't make such a joke about a kidlet. Others will think "Tough shit". Frankly, I don't honestly believe inappropriate jokes will actually have a negative impact on this kid's life.
I remember seeing her mom and dad on TV when I was a little kid. They were wandering through some brush towards a river. Her mom was so enormously pregnant with her though that she repeatedly tumbled over.
I do not respect her family's choice to have her do a television show in the same genre as her father's less than a year after he'd died. I don't think kids, particularly those who have very recently experienced the trauma of loosing a parent, should be thrust in the spotlight. The entire concept of the child star gives me the creeps. But that's just me.
Walton,
Libertarianism is fine as an ideal. It is certainly laudable to want a government that governs least. The problem is that ideals don't exist in our human world. I am reminded of what Edward O. Wilson saying about Communism that Marx was exactly right, but that he should have been writing for ants rather than people.
The thing is that ideals, because they are not part of the real world, clash. Freedom and opportunity sometimes compete with justice. Honesty sometimes competes with compassion. It is at this point that you have to prioritize. Is it more important to let some bold capitalist soar like an eagle or is it more important not to allow the meek die like rats.
Unfortunately, here in America, things are more clear cut. One party has declared war on reality, and that means that until they come to their senses, I'll have to vote for the other.
Walton, I wish you joy of your arguments with libertarians :) and I'm very glad that you now Agree With Nick.
Anyone using Chrome?
Do you know of a HTML formatting extension similar to the text formatting toolbar in Firefox?
Firefox has just been pissing me off and I'm thinking of switching to chrome full time but not having quick access to the tags in the formatting toolbar will seriously increase my typos and blockquote fails etc.. here.
And none of you want that.
@MATTIR
Well, you don't have to inspect to see the ones in my toilet. It looks like dirt that won't go away.
@Rev
I'm using Chrome. I'm trying out an extension called Shortcut Manager that lets me assign shortcut keys to actions. I've created some actions for different types of quotes. Not as nice as having a text formating toolbar, but better than nothing.
Speaking of which, I should go ahead and test more to make sure I got the html right.
I don't think the difference is as clear-cut as you suggest. A lot of humour is cruel to someone in some way; that's part of how humour works. And if someone makes an offensive joke that is designed to get a cheap laugh and isn't "intended" to hurt anyone as such, but the person telling the joke is well aware that it will probably hurt people but goes ahead and makes it anyway, how is that substantially different from bullying?
Pharyngulate this poll!
http://www.freep.com/article/20100505/NEWS05/5050311/1322/National-Day-…-
Can't watch the clip. Can't handle more(spoiler alert!) death after Lost, last night.
(Yes, I know it's gotten all religiousy, but it's great drama and it's how I like my religion....as fiction.)
Carlie,
QFT.
John Morales,
That's great for you, but not every child is like that. Some of us were much more sensitive, and easily hurt.
@ursulamajor:
I got sidetracked with Lost. On Saturday I have to watch the last... four weeks of episodes >< The last one I saw was where Desmond was dragged back to the island.
Kevin, thanks for the heads up on the poll. Done.
Get caught up on Lost ASAP. Last night was wrenching.
2 years, reading my wife's German version, with my not so good German language skills, almost at the end of the book, and then this ....
You're meant to put the spoiler start tag in first!!!!!!
Sob.
KOPD Thanks. Yeah I saw that but I'm a creature of habit and I like my little clicky blockquote, bold, italics, etc.. buttons.
damn it
I will. My weekend got shot by sister's friends coming down for a trip through DC and the fact I basically slept all day Sunday. This weekend I don't have anything, though.
All that stuff about homeschooling upthread reminds me of a recent visit to the zoo.
It was overrun by Amish people.
They fucking scare me. Not just because they're anti-intellectual freaks.
I was tempted to make some comment about evolution to piss them off.
I'm very sorry. :-(
In seriousness, Cosmic Teapot: I was thoughtless, and I apologise. I hope I haven't ruined the whole book for you.
Rev BDC
Yeah, I understand that. I'm just pretty used to coding bold, italic, etc. by hand so that doesn't bother me. Even with fancy WYSIWYG editors like Dreamweaver, I still do a fair amount of my XHTML by hand. But "blockquote" is just too damned long and easy to screw up. And "blockquote style='font-family:Comic Sans MS'", well, no way. Which is why I almost never bothered with it before now.
Next I'll add shortcuts for span tags. :-)
Oh noes! Poor Teapot.
I hope I was vague enough on Lost to have not spoiled anything.
Hey Walton,
If you're giving out spoilers can you let me know what the options will be for the essay section on my Reproductive Biology exam next week?? It would make this revision a WHOLE lot easier! ;o)
Sorry, OT but dipping into Teh Thread is the only thing keeping me sane at the moment *wibble*
I wonder if it's the map that makes this laptop's fan run at top speed all the time now.
What we can learn from feeding cheesecake and bacon to rats.
I'm not surprised at all. There are scientists in Mongolia who speak good English and attend the few international conferences they can afford.
WTF!
I dwell, thou dwellest, he/she/it/squid dwelleth, we dwell, ye* dwell, they dwell. All this is present tense. The past tense is dwelled throughout, except for thou dwelledst.
-th got replaced by -s over several centuries; the -s is of Norse origin. It corresponds to German (and Russian, and Latin...) -t.
-st survives in German intact.
* I : me :: thou : thee :: he : him :: she : her :: we : us :: ye : you :: they : them.
Well, yeah. Lecture halls tend to be pretty crowded in the first few lessons, when the professor explains the exam modalities and maybe the exam dates. People stay if they find that the professor explains better than the books they can get (...and, of course, if the library has 3 copies of the textbook for a compulsory course, you can't get the book unless you buy it; for specialized topics, a textbook may simply not exist, so you'd have to dive into the primary literature), if they find they have nothing better to do, if they're better auditory than visual learners, if they learn better from sort of moving images with commentary (PowerPoint) than from still ones, if they enjoy the opportunity to walk up to the professor after the lesson and ask questions live, if the professor is famous and they want the live experience, and the like; everyone else gradually leaves and only shows up for the exam again. Lectures are an offer. More and more professors upload their PowerPoint files (as such or as pdf) for students to download, and this isn't limited to those who teach, say, compulsory introductory courses in molecular biology and actually have an interest in keeping the lecture hall from getting too overcrowded.
To put it in somewhat sarcastic terms: in Austria, one of the differences between school and university (the latter term is never used to encompass the former in German, except at rare occasions in very abstract contexts!) is that universities treat you as an adult, not as a kid. You're an adult, so you know best how to learn.
I tended to attend every lesson of every course I was interested in for such reasons. This includes several courses that I never took the exams of, and a few that I found very interesting and learned a lot in but of which I nonetheless almost failed the exam.
Other, more practical courses do have compulsory attendance, as I mentioned, and they tend to be about things that you really have to experience in meatspace. In return, there is either no separate written exam after these "examination-imminent" courses, or the exam only counts for part of the grade.
Argh, and it's finals, can't get into it too much today.
I'll cross-post with the current Bindi thread - I don't think that particular comment was all that bad, honestly. (So John, my comments weren't all about that particular instance, but more of a general statement) But as a general rule, I do believe that children should be off-limits. If they're in the media spotlight, it's because their parents have put them there. We have 16-21 as ages of informed consent to everything for a reason; because we understand that children simply don't have the perspective to understand the consequences of their decisions and to cope with the potential fallout thereof. Kids are a very vulnerable group, and making fun of vulnerable groups is not ok. It's not edgy, it's picking on the already marginalized and powerless. It's bullying.
And as for her getting fired, tough. There's no right for comedians to be able to say whatever the hell they want and keep their job with whoever is currently sponsoring them. If the sponsor doesn't want that to be their public face, they have every right to say "no thanks". The comedian isn't a victim here. One of her sponsors doesn't like the kinds of jokes she makes, so they don't want to employ her any more. She can go find another sponsor who does like her type of humor.
Yeah me too
and that's why I like my clickys
exactly
Yes 51% (193 votes)
No 47% (177 votes)
Not sure 2% (6 votes)
Total Votes: 376
You want to piss off people you're scared of???
You know, I always write this by hand (except when it occurs so often in a comment that I write it once and then copy & paste it), and have only ever got it wrong once or twice in, like, 3 years. :^)
The simple blcokqutoe tag, on the other hand...
Sadly not. I'm revising for exams too - currently product liability in tort law, and the Consumer Protection Act 1987. I shouldn't think either of these would help much with reproductive biology, though. :-)
Yeah, I know the feeling... at the end of the month I have nine consecutive exams over two weeks, which account for my entire degree. Hence why I've been using The Thread to rant periodically for the last month.
Uh, last month?
What a horrible choice of music.
Fixed...:-)
QFT.
(and anyone who was with me at the GAC will know that I am otherwise a fan of her LOL)
@Katherine
Actually the Amish don't freak me out nearly as much as the Quiverful people or the fundamentalist Mormon types, but in the current population situation, anyone with more than 3 or 4 kids is way creepy. I'll have to think about why the Amish don't weird me out more, but it's always seemed to me like they have slightly more common sense. A few years back I read an anthology of Amish writings called The Plain Life which was very thought provoking and not particularly weird. I guess I've always thought that the sanity quotient among the Amish was slightly higher than that of other fringe religious groups.
Reverend,
I heard there is a chance the oil will curl around onto the coastlines of the Carolinas.
Do you have a big enough freezer for all that shrimp?
Just to put the whole Deveny/Twitter incident into context for the non-Aussie readers, this took place during The Logies (Australia's low-rent version of The Emmys). While some of the awards are voted by their industry peers, many are voted on by the mouth-breathers who read TV Week and think the height of culture is The Footy Show.
This a night where, traditionally, a bunch of fatuous celebs sit around between awards pretending they are happy that the actor at the next table won instead of them, drinking themselves into a coma--and frequently the nearest bed--and generally making idiots of themselves on camera and off. A year doesn't pass where one or more drunken fools doesn't cause a scandal of some sort.
That being said, I think CD's tweets were in poor taste and unfunny (just like The Logies broadcast, really) , but I don't believe she should have been fired over them.
What the feck is that stupid, uninformative, map? It looks like a simulation of MAD. N.America, Europe, Japan, N.Zealand, and much of Ozland have already been destroyed, with strikes in S.America, Africa, China, and almost everywhere except Siberia, Antarctica, and Greenland/Arctic.
If it's intending to convey information, it's a dismal failure. There's no fsmdamn legend or link explaining why all these places keep being nuked. And it seems to be contacting some site (rc.revolvermaps.com) every so often: Is it an infected flash? It's fecking annoying and obnoxious.
That site indicates it's supposed to be some sort of a map of visitors to something (Pharyngula, I assume), but doesn't explain what the nuclear explosions are all about.
If you click on it, all you get is a large revolving globe version of what I assume (it doesn't clearly say) is the same map. Still no explanation of what the feck it's trying to communicate. Absolutely stupid. Fsmdamn cretinist-type stupid: Randomly-drawn dots and explosions with no content.
Belatedly, a graphic representation of the US budget that shows the expenses for the military and for science.
Because they mind their own business and simply let everyone else go to hell quietly?
It's a map that shows where people are visiting the site from.
Well, I turned it off - yay Firefox NoScript.
Son of a bitch. That blows.
Yes I have a big chest freezer.
No worries, it was more a reading exercise than anything else. I've always wanted to read it but never had the time when I lived in England. And the rest of the books my wife owns are either political works, or slushy romances, so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone.
I don't watch Lost. :)
Good luck.
Loves me some tako!
PZ explained it last subthread: the locations of visitors from the last 10 minutes are nuked from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
@ Video
Good job swarm! Show the "Alpha"-Predator Who's the man!
(Go Fish, Go!)
Happy Monday!
Just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in...
MATTIR (@3):
Even in advance of meeting them, I have no doubt your spawn are wonderful. There's no question in my mind that intelligent, rational people can do a good job of homeschooling their kids; my beef with (that kind of) homeschooling is that it hurts the rest of us, by preferentially removing the best assets — good students and engaged families — the public schools have to work with. It gets into a debate about balancing private goods and public ones.
But I've had that whole long debate here several times already, and don't really have anything new to add to my position, so... peace?
BarbieWanKenobi (@117):
Cue people humorously offering to help you study (is revision a British term for what Americans would call review?) for the practical section of that exam in 3... 2... 1....
blf (@129) and David M (@136):
I was about to ask if anyone else thought the map widget looked like something out of War Games, but y'all beat me to it. I think it's cool, though. I guess Ichthyic must be asleep at the moment, 'cuz NZ isn't strobing.
Ok, found it (thanks!):
Now, why can't the idiots who supply this flash(yuck!) animation bother to explain what the feck it is?
p.s. While I'm ranting, I was going to insert another rant at the SciBorg's IT staff, but noticed they've finally fixed the e-mail links in the Contacts page. (Those links used to be <a herf="…, but are now the proper <a href="….) Whether or not the e-mail actually works now I don't know—the other and more serious problem was sending e-mail resulted in a bounce to the effect that (as I recall) “you don't have permission to post to some Google group”.
Reminding members of the Baltimore Pharyngula Fans Group that we'll be getting together again on tomorrow, Thursday, May 6 @ 7 PM. Details on group page.
@Bill Dauphin: Re: BarbieWanKenobi:
Dangit! I missed a perfect opportunity!
@BarbieWanKenobi (117):
I can help you study for your reproductive biology exam, if you know what I mean *winkwinknudgenudge*
Did PZ cancel the map widget, or did the filterbots on my work network figure out I was looking at something fun?
I believe all of those fish should be fired from their positions at Australian newspapers. That was terribly offensive and it certainly was not a fair fight.
In my case revision involves staring blankly at my lecture notes wondering how I'm going to pass this module when all I can *actually* remember of the last 12 weeks are the terms 'Mullerian ducts' (only remembered because it makes me think of yoghurt) 'Wolffian ducts' (I imagine them being grey and furry) and the terror of being lectured at about contraception by an elderly female professor who has stick on hair and a framed picture of Margaret Thatcher in her office. *shudders*
Is this the same as review?
As a mother of one I did attempt to humorously suggest to the module leader that I had no need of the written exam as I had already passed the practical. He did not laugh :o(
Bill it's the work bots, I'm sorry to say.
RE: Clip:
"If fish could talk, the ocean would be fuckin' loud!" - Mitch Hedberg
sfw pic but not safe for the brain
http://www.disinfo.com/2010/05/glenn-palin/
@broboxley:
It's blocked at my work (perhaps for the best)
Any pro-choicers want to come and crash a poll about women's right to choose in the developing world?
Do you agree with the gov't's position on maternal health?
No=pro-choice
Yes= anti-choice
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/family-and-relationships/maternal-h…
National Day of Prayer poll needs help
http://www.gazette.com/opinion/day-98164-prayer-religion.html
@broboxley,
Thanks. Now I feel ucky, like I need to take a bath. I need to wash my brain.
I'm really sad after watching that video.
#153
Cheer up! To be fair, instead of being so sad for the octopus, be stoked for tha thuge number of happy fish!
@Bill Dauphin
I agree - peace. Just so long as no one makes blanket statements about kids being kept at home and not allowed to socialize or about homeschoolers being YEC cranks. (After all, not all atheists are Josef Stalin, right?)
And having gotten into a speak-up-and-have-everyone-pile-on-you pissing match this morning with a youth group, I'm not sure my particular contribution would be welcomed by a public school system anyway. That's what I get for defending my staunch religious Catholic acquaintance asking if his (gasp) daughter might go on a bike ride with their precious boys.
Sometimes its really hard to resist the flood of evidence for misanthropy as a philosophical stance. That's where listening to the choir here comes in - restoring my faith that sane people exist in most of the places where the map shows little blinky lights.
MATTIR:
Your comment regarding the bike ride brought back a weird memory from my youth. Where I was in Arizona, there weren't that many kids (there were 16 in my 4th grade class (at a public school)) so we weren't all that exclusive.
I remember one girl (name escapes me (keep laughing, it'll happen to you)) who regularly played with our gang (about a dozen kids, half boys, half girls). Then, on her twelfth birthday, her mother decided she was no longer allowed to play with boys. Ever. She snuck out once and came to school for a week with a black eye.
Of course, Mom had no problem with her brother continuing to play with the gang (we played army, cops & robbers, cowboys and Indians, and archaeologist (we found a Hohokam dump with thousands of pot sherds while doing that)). Even with the non-believer girls in the group. When her mom found out that one of the girls was a Mormon, suddenly the boy was no longer allowed to play. And a week later, the girl wasn't either. Their mom didn't want to become a grandmother too soon.
Oddly, both girls were married before graduating high school (I found this out years later when we were scattering my sister's ashes at Grand Canyon). One to a man twice her age. Who lived in Pipe Spring just inside Arizona from Utah.
That was a memory I'd forgotten. Or repressed.
I have to get out of the comedian thread before my head explodes.
I am reminded of what Edward O. Wilson saying about Communism that Marx was exactly right, but that he should have been writing for ants rather than people. - a_ray_in_dilbert_space
That's as daft as most of the things Wilson says when he pontificates in areas where he knows fuck-all. I'm neither a Marxist nor an expert on Marx, but his (rather vague) vision of a Communist society was one where everyone has far more individual freedom and initiative than under capitalism.
Ol'Greg @ 56:
Echidna didn't say they endorsed what mom did, which is what I found odd. Yes, get all upset over a careless one-liner, but mom gets a pass.
People who won't stay out of the limelight are going to take hits, that's how it goes. Mom wasn't the obvious target in the one-liner, it was a subtle hit on her nontheless. It's on the same lines as all the jokes about JonBenét Ramsey. A lot of people were upset by those too. If you're going to sexualize your kid for fun and profit, people are going to say things and a good many of them aren't going to be nice.
Daft? I'd wager, Nick, that E.O. Wilson knows at least as much about Marxist theory, and a hell of a lot more about ants, than you do.
Personally I've forgotten most of what I used to know about political theory, but let's see: ownership of the means of production by workers? From each according to her abilities to each according to her needs? Classless society? Labor for the good of the collective? I'm pretty sure these are the basics of a Marxist view of society, and they all apply very well to ants. Do you suppose that worker ants are mindless robots doing the bidding of an explitative Queen? If so, you need to read W.D. Hamilton (or Wilson!) on haplodiploidy and kin selection in the evolution of eusociality.
exploitative
David:
I read that last night. It was very interesting. I've had four pet rats, and one thing you can count on with rats is they never have the same taste in food. ;D If you offer their favourites though, they'll ignore everything else. Bruce's favourite food is eggs, cooked any way. Loves eggs, doesn't care much for sweets. (A previous rat was a chocolate freak, loved Jaffa Cakes in particular.)
saber toothed sausage
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10088502.stm
Apparently there's a related poll above, but there's a poll here that might benefit from the Horde(tm)'s attentions.
The backstory is as follows: Stephen Harper's Conservative Party is running the country; Canada is currently the president of the G8. G8 meeting to be held shortly, with the focus of "mother child health." Entertainingly this originally was to exclude any contraception; with some pressure from women's groups, this has changed, however it currently explicitly bans funding to organisations which provide abortion services.
We Canadian women got mad, and here's the Conservative response: a Senator actually said women's groups need to stop protesting and "Shut the fuck up."
Now, I'm sorry, but our courts struck down limitations on abortion as being unconstitutional. How is it right, then, to control women's bodies outside of Canada? What makes me, as a Canadian, so fucking special?
Grrr.
knockgoats #158
I have problems with Marxism. It may sound strange coming from an economist but I disagree on Marx's reliance on historical materialism. This idea proposes that technological advances in modes of production inevitably lead to changes in the social relations of production. This economic base of society supports, is reflected by and influences the ideological superstructure which encompasses culture, politics and all other aspects of humanity's social consciousness. It thus looks for the causes of developments and changes in human history in material, technological, and more broadly, economic factors, as well as the clashes of economic interests among social classes and nations. Law, politics, the arts, literature, morality, religion are understood by Marx to make up the superstructure which reflects the economic base of society.
I think this is a gross oversimplification of the nature of society. The influence of ideas, culture and other aspects of what Marx called the superstructure are just as important as the economic base to the course of society, if not more so. Indeed, historical materialism calls into question why Marx would espouse his ideas so vehemently if he thought that they would have no influence.
Engels didn't claim the economic base of society is the only determining element in society. He wrote:
However, this also creates another problem for Marxism. If the superstructure influences the base then there is no need for Marx's constant assertions that the history of society is one of economic class conflict. This then becomes a classic chicken or egg argument as to whether the base or the superstructure comes first. Peter Singer proposes that the way to solve this problem is to understand that Marx saw the economic base as ultimately real. Marx felt that humanity's defining characteristic was its means of production and thus the only way for man to free himself from oppression was for him to take control of the means of production. According to Marx, this is the goal of history and the elements of the superstructure act as tools of history.² Even if Singer's interpretation of Marx's intuitions on the "goal of history" is faithful to Marx's original intent, that still would not make this view point necessarily true.
¹Peter Singer, Marx: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980. p. 50.
²Op cit. p. 52.
David,
Oops. I should've known that.
Headdesk, crash, headfloor, you know, the works.
<sigh>
It's not everyone who can shut down the Endless Thread™ for almost an hour with a tl;dr comment. I feel so proud of myself. :-)
On a related note, my daughter recently came across a new acronym on one blog: "tp;dr". It stands for "too pretentious; didn't read."
I am so using that the next time you-know-who comes on complaining about mainstream media.
Just wanted to say a few wordsrant a bit about what's happening in Greece.
What you read often in the mainstream media is that the greeks have been unreasonable, have lived beyond their means, that their elites were corrupt, fraudulent and incompetent.
What's strange is that the people who write this about Greece don't realise that Greece is not special. Greece is representative of all "western democracies" who have been led during the last three decades by a particularly corrupt and dangerous version of capitalism, finance-led capitalism, that generated an illusion of prosperity built on a rapidly growing consumption from debt for the phenomenal enrichement of the top 1% of the population.
So now the Greek people are reacting violently to the austerity measures that are being imposed on them by the IMF and the EU which will mean losing at least 20% disposable income. Obviously, for someone making 800 Euros per month the impact of a 20% reduction is not going to be the same as for someone making 10,000 Euros per month. Moreover, why should the greek be imposed such austerity measures when the same corrupt system prevailed in the rest of Europe and the OECD?
The other thing that's not being said enough is that by bailing out the greek government, the IMF and the EU are actually bailing out once more the "too big to fail" private international banking corporations and especially the creditors of those banks who were those who financed and profited from Greek public debt.
This is obviously not going to work, we are now entering into the phase of this crisis which is going to test social cohesion worldwide.
awww, the map is gone. I thought it was pretty.
Mind you, it did nasty things to my computer memory, but then I think my computer is possessed anyway.
Wow. So much happened today but we're all still arguing over some comic making a crappy joke?
That's good I guess. There's not much to be upset about today :D:D
Are they? Why? What are girls that age like?
(I really don't know.)
So criticizing the comic for saying something shitty about the child = bad because the parent put the child in that position and deserves the blame (blame for the comic's criticism, the comic is the real victim here.
but
criticizing the child in the hopes that it may subtly convey contempt for the parent (who is probably only going to blame the child for not being good enough and push harder) = ok because the parent put the child in that position
Furthermore making fun of a murder victim whose parents were truly twisted is supposed to get at the parents... how?
Yikes.
So we should be making fun of molestation victims because their parents trusted the church I guess? I wouldn't have gone there but you made the jump to compare a kid that was killed. Did those jokes irritate people? Yeah, and that's fine. Just like misogynistic and sexist jokes and queer jokes and whatnot bother me. Why? I just don't think it's funny, and I don't have to.
If I have to put up with people make them then my rights also entail bitching about it.
She's not entitled to an audience, and if enough people or just enough of her employers didn't like it then she should get fired. Because no one owes her anything.
If the kid should be able to take it because her mom put her in that position) then a middle aged comic damned sure should be able to take the fact that I (and apparently some people who actually matter) don't find the joke funny and don't feel one bit sorry for her getting sacked.
Jeez!
Walton!
Remember how you said the Conservatives hadn't restricted abortion?
Check out division 170 on 24 April 1990. That was the point when 28 weeks could have been kept, but it was reduced to 24.
My count is 16 Conservatives for 28 weeks, and maybe 210 for 24. So many I couldn't count accurately, but plus or minus 20.
Government by them is a danger.
Guess who?
This should give it away:
ACK! Ackackackackack!
strange gods @#173:
That was in 1990. The demographic makeup of the Conservative parliamentary party is quite different today; most of the old reactionaries have retired or are retiring.
But as you know, regardless of that, I have a whole range of reasons to be pissed off with the Conservatives at the moment. I'm fed up with Cameron pandering to the authoritarian Daily Mail brigade on criminal justice and immigration, for a start. They are not strong enough on civil liberties. And their immigration policy is awful (a "points-based system" that will severely restrict immigration for workers from outside the EU). Not to mention that they plan to continue Labour's iniquitous policy of detaining refugees. And there is this ridiculous proposal to repeal the Human Rights Act, though hopefully they won't actually try that.
And I'm increasingly in disagreement with Conservative tax policy, too, now that I look at it in more depth. The Conservatives plan to abolish inheritance tax; that's all very well, but it's a move which will only benefit the upper and middle classes. Instead, I think we should reduce the basic rate of income tax for low-income-earners. As you've reminded me in the past, poorer people tend to spend more of their disposable income than richer people, and derive more benefit in material terms from having more disposable income; so it would surely stimulate the economy more to cut taxes for the poor than to cut taxes for the rich. Not to mention the moral benefit of helping the working poor. Hence, I'm in favour of tax cuts overall, but I think they should be focused on reducing taxes for the poor rather than the wealthy. My preference on this is definitely closer to the Lib Dem policy than to the Conservative one.
I'm still probably going to vote Conservative, though, despite what I said above. There are good reasons to vote Tory: first of all, it's the surest way to get Labour out of office. Secondly, I'm against proportional representation (for the simple reason that PR would allow the BNP to get seats in Parliament, which would be disastrous for the country; I imagine you, as an active and outspoken opponent of the racist far-right, will agree with me on this). The Lib Dems want to introduce PR, whereas the Conservatives are against it. Thirdly, of course, there's my personal loyalty to the party, and the fact that I think I can help influence its policies for the better by being an active and engaged grassroots member of the party.
Sorry to everyone for posting an extra election-chat post when I promised I wouldn't; but the election is tomorrow morning. :-)
Alright. Until the next election...
Ol'Greg @ 172, you're making one hell of a lot of assumptions about what I said as well as what I think. I don't appreciate words being put into my mouth.
Bottom line, I don't think the joke was funny; I also don't think it was a big deal and certainly wasn't something which will damage a child. If Bindi is being damaged, it's her own parent who is doing the damage. That was my point, along with the fact that if you insist on the limelight, you'll get attention, not all of it nice. And comedians take their chances in regard to their jobs, it's up to them to figure out where to draw the line. *shrug* I simply do not think the "joke" was a big deal. And fyi, I came out of an intensely abusive childhood, dealing with much more than one type of abuse and I still don't think the joke was anything upsetting. Just my opinion.
I certainly seem to have drawn your particular ire; I'm much too tired today to deal with it, so rant at at me all you want, I'm done with the subject.
@Walton:
I wish you and your fellow citizens good results from your election tomorrow. I hope you get the government that will serve you best, during the next few years.
*pops in*
Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.
*departs*
This claim does not compute.
I see 36 Conservative MPs retiring. In 2008 there are 134 voting to reduce abortion rights, and only 27 to keep the status quo.
134 – 36 = a lot dude
Here's a sappy election propaganda video, complete with cheesy background music, that I found on my front page when I visited YouTube today. :-)
We seem to be going the same way as the US with regard to the proliferation of pointless election advertising. Still, Cameron makes some reasonable points in this clip, though much of it is just rhetoric.
Tasteless jokes are how people deal with the un-deal-withable.
In my community, we trusted the church. So with the scandals comes:
Q: Why did Father Hickey (a real person, first of the lot in our community) go to prison?
A: Arson.
.... told by kids felt up by the selfsame priest.
Similarly:
Q: What's the most dangerous job in Newfoundland?
A: Altarboy.
In medical school, the jokes are especially tasteless.
Q: What do old people smell like?
A: Depends.
You laugh because it relieves some of the awfulness, not because it's particularly funny.
I find it pretty repugnant that they sell thongs for kids. That children are becoming sexualised in an adult manner (as opposed to the kiddie curiosity). I can see where the icky joke comes from.
I seriously doubt that the Liberal Democrats in coalition are going to get proportional representation going on.
How many people will the end of 90-day terror suspect jailing help? A few hundred?
How many people will the Liberal Democrats' prison plan help? 60,000?
negentropyeater #170
From the end of World War II to about 1970 the average Western nuclear family could live reasonably comfortably on one person's wages. For the next about 20 years it became more and more common for both adults in the nuclear family to work, just to maintain the same life style. Starting about 1990 families went into debt, refinancing their homes, using credit cards, getting 60 month car loans instead of shorter loans, etc. Pretty soon the debt bubble is going to burst and it won't be pretty.
What happened is the arithmetic mean of income was rising dramatically but the median and mode incomes were declining. Or in simpler terms, the rich kept getting richer but the rest of us were losing purchasing power. From 1970 to 2005 US yearly inflation (using both CPI and PCE*) has risen an estimated 7% but median income has risen only 3.5% during that period. Since the top 10 percentile was getting income increases during this period of over 15% then the bottom three quartiles were actually losing purchasing power. This trend has affected the lower and middle classes throughout the Western world. During the past 40 years most people are like the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass: "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."
*Look up "consumer price index" and "personal consumption expenditures" on google or wikipedia for explanations.
This is actually a day to have a thread about the UK election, PZ. Polls open in 5.7 hours.
To clarify, we don't have a 90-day detention period - it was voted down in the Commons in 2005, due to Labour backbenchers rebelling and voting with the other parties. Rather, the maximum detention period today is 28 days.
But it's still far too long. And even one person detained without trial is too many. Would you say Guantánamo was acceptable if there had been only a small number of inmates there?
Well, the 60,000 estimate comes from the Daily Mail screaming "OMG Clegg is going to let teh eeeebil convicts out on the streets! WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!11!!!!", so I'm not sure how accurate it really is. (The Mail plainly didn't actually understand the policy at all.)
But I don't think we can make that kind of utilitarian numbers-calculation when it comes to issues of civil liberties and individual freedom.
Walton,
I take it you mean 'I don't think we should', rather than "I don't think we can" — because, clearly, we can.
Why would it be of interest to Professor Myers? I doubt he has strong feelings about the outcome of our election.
(Though I imagine he wouldn't be too keen on UKIP, given that they retained Viscount Monckton as a science advisor, are the only party to support homeopathy, and were identified by Ben Goldacre as the party with the worst science policy. But I doubt any Pharyngulites were planning to vote UKIP in any place; I certainly wouldn't.)
Well, these are both issues of civil liberties. Abortion (134–36) is also a matter of civil liberties. And are the Liberal Democrats opposed to closing your Guantánamo?
Their website:
I don't know whether he does, but he has a lot of UK readers. (Anyway, who will be Obama's ally matters to us somewhat.)
Caine, not so much. I just didn't agree with what I perceived you to be saying.
But now there's a whole thread for arguing about it so wheee!
I just don't see how the parent being wrong negates the comic being wrong, even if the comic was just a little wrong.
I think it was a shitty thing to say, for me it fell flat of what lofty ambitions people seem to think it was meant to achieve, and I don't feel bad for the comic because the very idea that protects her comment (that public figures are not above consequence or criticism) also applies to her.
Meh... that's not really that much ire. But feel free to get indignant about it.
I'm confused. Is this another poll we are supposed to Pharyngulate?
<snortle>
Having heard some of the comments I'd have to fully support the Age in dismissing Deveny.
In what society is it acceptable to suggest that an 11 year old girl should get laid? Comedy meant or not.
Many other comments were distasteful if not as unacceptable. My guess is she was drunk at the time FWIW.
Supposedly you don't need a religious background to have morals, many people on this thread appear to debunk that theory.
If for no other reason The Age dropped Deveny because she wasn't funny. Fair reason to drop a comedienne if you ask me.
Good idea, (((Billy))).
Some of us may not have morals but at least we're not sanctimonious assholes.
Ol'Greg:
Thanks, but no. ;)
Well, I'm moral-less. :)
So those of us that question the morals of others on such matters are automatically called sanctimonious. I guess it's better than all of us being reduced to the lowest common denominator.
Cobolt:
Tsk. I'd debate you, however I have a baby in the oven which needs basting. It's not easy being evil, ya know.
Yes.
Why is it easier to load a lorry with dead babies than bowling balls?
You really are set on proving you're a sanctimonious asshole.
Somebody agreeing or disagreeing with you on whether a joke was "acceptable" (your term) has nothing to do with their morality. It just means they do or don't agree with you. Personally I thought the joke was tasteless and unfunny but I didn't think it warranted Deveny's dismissal. I don't consider the joke to be immoral Now explain to me whether or not I'm immoral.
Because you can't load bowling balls in with a pitchfork?
Only the Liberal Democrats would end imprisonment of child immigrants.
*looks around for a dead fish to swat that pun with. fails to find one, so give John a tankard of grog instead*
Coz the babies won't roll off.
It was very hard to watch that video.
I couldn't help thinking about what my wife (a christian) tells me, about how beautifully god made the world so that everything fits together.
No. You thought you could get away with a snarky non-sequitur:
...but someone called you on it.
Re: Pitchforks: you win for gross.
But (((Billy))) wins the internets IMHO.
What the video tells me is that the universe doesn't care. It's a fish eat cephalopod world out there and that's the way it is.
Cobolt:
You didn't question the morals of anyone here, you made a blanket statement:
Not too good with that whole honesty thing, are ya?
Cobolt wrote:
You're a moron.
See, I thought Cobolt was trying to say that people here have morals without religion.
Did I misunderstand? Cobolt, are you saying people here are lacking morality?
According to this you/we are either immoral or sanctimonious.
Surely the immorality is making an unprovoked, public comment on an 11 year old girls sex life, or lack thereof. And those who take no issue with her comments, as some have here, are surely marked with the same morality brush.
Disagreeing on the sacking of Deveny does not make you immoral, but suggesting the joke was not immoral, in my mind, does.
Thank you all. I'll be here all night.
No, I won't. I have to pick up (((Girl))) at Subway.
And for those who are morel-less, go here.
Cobolt, please explain how commenting on the sex life of anyone can be considered immoral. Seriously, at this point you're so incoherent that you're in the category of 'not even wrong'.
It's getting late. I've got a paper to polish tomorrow. I've already exceeded my limit on number of economics lectures I'm allowed to give on a thread. And if I hang around here any more someone might ask me about the unwritten Chinese-American economic alliance or whether IMF SDRs (International Monetary Fund Special Drawing Rights) could emerge as a rival to the US dollar as an international reserve currency.
So I bid you all a good night. Or good morning to those in Perth.
From Wikipedia "Morality (from the Latin moralities "manner, character, proper behavior")"
Since when has making public comment on an 11 year old girls sex life, when unprovoked by either words or action of the girl herself, been proper behavior?
Cobolt wrote:
Define 'proper' - objectively.
The bible includes descriptions of rape - does that make the bible immoral?
Cobolt:
Ooh! <clutches pearls, near-swoons>
Cobolt made a public comment referring to an 11 year old girl's sex life, quite unprovoked by either words or action of the girl herself!!1!
--
Psst, Cobolt: there's a whole thread about that very topic here: Poll: Should comedians be rude?
Why not go and be righteous about it there? :)
Argumentum ad etymology?
John:
The fainting couch is over here, we'll have to share. As for Cobolt, the nerve of that immoral motherfucker - take him out to be flogged!
Then tie him to the ground, sprinkle chicken feed on him, and turn loose the Pullet Patrol™.
Feynmaniac:
Personally, I'm going with Argumentum Ex equus pyga.
Do we still have to be talking about Bindi Irwin and whether she should ever get laid? This is another case of EBS-NESI (everything's been said, not everyone's said it).
I got into a close-to-shouting match with my ridiculous Catholic acquaintance in the ice cream aisle of the grocery store. He was busily explaining to me that co-educational scouting, which even the Boy Scouts of America approves of (they have a co-ed program for kids over 14), is too distracting for boys to enable adults to shape them into the best kinds of men. He said something incoherent about needing to show boys the image of a knight, while gesturing as if the knight was next to him. I gazed at the ice cream and did not kill him, which led my son to declare that I should get the Nobel Prize. (Oh, and naturally this was the same guy who started the whole stupid commotion by asking if he could bring his daughters on the bike trip). I finally just said that we had different values, that what made America a great nation was that we each had the right to live according to our values, and that he could go ahead of me in line since he had fewer groceries.
The idea that there is more than one way to live one's life seems never to occur to many theists. Actually, the boys get this concept, but not the adults, so perhaps there is a glimmer of hope...
Too bad the map is gone. Even though it kept freezing Firefox when I tried to use the find function, I did take comfort in all the little blinky lights. Now I have to imagine the blinky lights - is that too close to having an imaginary friend?
MAT:
We aren't talking about that anymore. We're talking about sanctimonious snots and how hard it is to be evil and all that. ;)
@Caine -
Oh I know all about sanctimonious snots - they were the ones haranguing me about teaching teenage boys to be knights when what I really wanted was to grab my freaking ice cream and shredded wheat and go home. If only I'd thought of telling him that I didn't want my son to be a manly knight - I'd rather he be an atheist homosexual...
Too bad I'm too tired to be particularly evil. Maybe I'll go think some evil thoughts, just to keep the habit going. If we had to keep talking about Bindi Irwin, I was going to shift from the "tasteless but not worth firing" stance to the "Yes, I affirmatively hope Bindi..." stance, just out of fatigue with the moral outrage quotient. Would that be evil?
Mattir:
Hmmm. No. It would be highly annoying though, so you'd get good points. ;D I hope you don't mind that I decapitalized your name, I hate typing in all caps.
I'm bone tired myself. I think I'll head to be with a book. G'night.
@Caine
I have to figure out how to decapitalize the name - it bugs me how it looks. Off to be evil, but at least I'm not busy seeking consensus and common ground with idiots.
<tone> I don't know, Cobolt, you probably shouldn't have gone for the "need a religious background" thing. It's kind of a cheap shot.
People probably want to know of harm done. (A lot of kids would be devastated by this kind of attention. I don't know about her.)</tone>
I'm sorry, Australians.
It is what you think it is. Besides, Joey looks smashing in leather pants.
Cobolt, how can I be so evil?
It ain't easy.
For what?
You seem in fine form lately...:-)
None of the things I think are funny are particularly moral.
@185:
ARGH. Tis Himself is reminding me of a particularly evil trick American politicians across the board like t o pull when they're in "Pat Merikan Back" mode (This is across the aisle).
Basically, it's to claim "Purchasing Power Parity" is increasing. It is, of course; It wouldn't do to make an obviously false claim when you don't need to. It sounds impressive. It's a statistic derived from Per Capita GDP and the cost of a list of basic necessities. In short, it's a statistic designed to hide the fact that America is not the big winner economically; The necessities of life are cheaper in America then they are in places like Europe, because we pay our lower classes significantly less. Therefore, if you just calculate the per capita GDP (Which is lower, for the US) against much lower benchmarks, we look better then we really are. Ron Paul loves this one (I'll fucking bet; Anything to hide that the rich win Libertarianism), but Obama and others have done it too. It makes me want to punch kittens whenever I hear it.
strange gods: You have a point. And as you know, I agree with most of the Lib Dem agenda on civil liberties, crime and immigration, as well as some of their tax policy - in particular, their proposal for raising the "tax-free allowance" so as to reduce the tax burden on the working poor.
But like I said, I have my reasons for voting Conservative: first and foremost, wanting to get rid of Labour, which has to be a major priority for anyone who cares about individual freedom. There are also problems with Lib Dem tax policy - for instance, the increase in capital gains tax which will, apparently, be harmful to entrepreneurship by discouraging "angel investors" from investing in startup companies.
I'd like to see a Tory-Lib Dem coalition. I don't know whether it will happen. But the safest I can do today is vote Conservative. Though I'm planning to vote later in the day, rather than now, as I want time to think about it and make sure I'm making the right decisio.
*looks at clock*
12 hours and this election business will be over, thank dog....
Well, it'll be an interesting few years watching Walton react to the Tories' no-doubt authoritarian legislative agenda.
the evolution of PPP over time can be a very misleading indicator :
which society is better off?
1. PPP increased by 2.5% on average:
the bottom 75% have seen a decrease in PPP of 10%, the top 25% have seen an increase of 40%.
2. PPP increased by 0% on average:
it stayed equal for all
Greece is typical of case 1., so are the USA, the UK and Spain which have seen the biggest increases in private debt and household savings reduce to close to nothing.
Now we are having this crisis and inequalities are rising even more, and now everywhere. Plus the international financial community is pushing for austerity measures which are going to hit the poor even harder.
But what do they expect happens? Do they think people in the street are so numbed out and incapable of reacting?
I sincerely hope what's happening in Greece is a wake up call for all our governments who have so far been completely caught by the balls by the large shareholders and creditors of the big private corporations (the rich).
I just can't imagine how someone can vote conservative or labour in the UK when it's guaranteed that their policies will only benefit the rich and continue to hit the poor even harder.
Honestly at this moment in time all the other issues that face our over-developped democracies might not even matter for so long: if our governments can't guarantee that inequalities won't rise any further we won't have any democracies left.
If it does turn out to be an authoritarian legislative agenda, I expect strange gods will take great pleasure in saying "I told you so". Repeatedly. :-)
They haven't won yet, ambulocetacean!
Don't forget that if the result is inconclusive or someone - no names, no pack-drill - makes a complete balls of it we can have another election, before the end of the year if needed. We are not stuck with a fixed cycle as in presidential systems.
Walton,
That's complete bullshit conservative talking point. As I said in my previous comment, you're supporting a party that will do all it can to rise inequalities even further and is caught by the balls by the rich who threaten to not invest any more in the UK if their taxes are increased.
For how long our we going to accept this blackmail? What will those rich angel investors do with their money when most western democracies collapse?
Like I said, I do like the Lib Dem policy of cutting income tax for the working poor (by raising the tax-free allowance to £10,000). And I'm not in favour of the Conservative policy of abolishing inheritance tax, which will only help the middle and upper classes and will not help the poor.
I also support continuing the welfare system and would oppose cuts to benefits and front-line social services. The Conservatives have, thankfully, pledged that they will not abolish any of the key social benefits such as Winter Fuel Allowance.
So I hope you understand that I do care about helping the poor, and I think we should have a tax system that falls less heavily on low income-earners. But I also have to look at the big picture and, in particular, the need to protect our civil liberties by getting Labour out.
First, I see no evidence whatsoever that civil liberties will be better protected under a conservative or a labour government. Do you really think any of them is going to worry about civil liberties when the kind of things that are happening in Greece start in the UK?
Walton, I think you don't understand that we are in a state of urgency. If our governments do not find a way to find the money they need where it is, ie in the coffers of the rich, civil liberties will be much more threatened by the kind of social unrest which will result than by any theoretical policies of a labour or conservative government.
There's only one party right now to whom I can give the benefit of the doubt that it will do something substantial about taxing the rich. The rest is just all smoke and mirrors.
Maureen, We can only hope!
Walton #242, what do you mean "if"? :)
Um... so if nobody wins an outright majority will the Lib Dems form a coalition with one side or the other (presumably Labour)? Or will one side form a minority government and try to get Lib Dem support bill by bill?
Cross-posting from the Deveny thread, which seems to be on the way to dying a natural death...
Did anyone see that British agony uncle Danny Dyer advised a reader to cut up his ex-girlfriend's face so that nobody else would want her?
Oh, I see that Martin Kettle did a piece about Lib-Lab coalition prospects.
John McCain is just pathetic.
He completely sold his soul to try win the presidency (and failed), had the balls to say "I never considered myself a maverick" and then had to turn to the monster he created in 2008 to help him retain his Senate seat.
Now he's complaining that the guy who attempted to set a bomb in NY was read his Miranda rights: "Obviously that would be a serious mistake...at least until we find out as much information we have....Don't give this guy his Miranda rights until we find out what it's all about." This position is so crazy even Glenn Beck has come out against it. When you're right wing garbage is too crazy for Beck it's time to pack it.
I think you are scaremongering. Britain is nowhere near in the same state as Greece, and irrational hostility towards the rich, while a real problem, is not that strong. We are not in danger of serious social unrest. The economy will recover, provided sensible tax policies are adopted that encourage job creation. There is no need for the kind of illiberal remodelling of our economic system that you seem to be advocating. (Nor, indeed, do the Lib Dems, or any other mainstream party, actually advocate such a remodelling. What you're advocating sounds closer to the policies of the Socialist Workers Party.)
We can quibble over tax policy - though the differences between the parties are really very minor - but the really important thing is personal liberty, something on which Labour has an abysmal record. (Of course, since you're on record as supporting a range of illiberal measures such as "hate speech" laws and bans on religious symbols, I don't entertain any belief that you're particularly concerned about civil liberties.) The best thing for individual liberties would be a Tory-Lib Dem coalition; so I'd rather have a hung parliament than an outright majority government of any party. Unfortunately, there is no way of voting to guarantee a hung parliament, so I'll just have to vote and see what happens.
Looks like my hand is being forced. Was hoping to sort out my shitty iTunes library problem before reformatting, but quasi-hardware failure means I'm going to need to reformat sooner than I would have liked.
Why oh why, Apple, did you have to make iTunes so fucking user unfriendly?
Good morning all, I have been democratic this morning- voted in Oxford East for the Lib Dems. The seat could well change hands this election so I'm in the fortunate position that my preferred vote is also tactically sound.
For those of you asking what happens to the UK in this election, I refer you to:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/britain-to-ma…
Morning Pharyngulites.
So, for the past week I've been feeling really ill to my stomach in the morning. I eat breakfast at eightish, and then feel miserable til about lunch. After lunch I feel a bit better, but not much.
Today I feel like someone ran me over with a Mack Truck. Stomach, back, neck... everything just hurts. I don't want to leave work since I'm already here, but I don't really feel like I'm going to be at all productive (no change there *haha*)
I used to think it was dehydration - but I've been drinking about a litre of water a day. So now I'm just really confused... and I don't want to go to the doctor cause there's only two - very uncomfortable - ways to determine stomach problems.
It probably will: Andrew Smith is likely to be ousted. Which will be a big gain for the Lib Dems, since Smith is the sitting Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
My preferred vote, on the other hand, is very much not tactically sound; the Tories are unlikely to win here. I should have used my postal vote and voted at home, but I was too indecisive and too pissed off with the Conservative manifesto policies.
I just don't know what to do. :-(
Kevin I hate to say it but it sounds like you really do need to go to a doctor. A week of stomach sickness and weakness/pain?
It may not be such a big deal and it would be very silly if you've made yourself suffer over something that could be remedied easily.
Kevin: See a doctor. It may be uncomfortable in the short term, but it will be worth it if they can figure out what the problem is.
And get well soon. :-)
@Ol'Greg:
But I don't wanna go to the doctor ;_;
Anybody else going to be watching "the Alternative Election" on channel 4? Mainly to watch Charlie Brooker be about as sarcastic as is humanly possible, David Mitchell to be posh yet hillarious and Jimmy Carr to make a few nob gags?
I'd really like to find out who might win without having a brain haemmorrhage from the over the top graphics and insipid commentary on the other channels.
I'm thinking about an internet presence in my field.So I dont have to give free advice anymore, or, to put it more nicely, so I can give medical advice to those who need it, for a small fee.
Hmmm, I will have to look into this....
I hate to be the first one to suggest this Kevin but... you could be pregnant?
@Truckle:
That would be a shock. Seeing as I'm a) not dating anyone, and b) well... a guy.
Stranger things have happened! I read this book once where there was this woman who got pregnant and like she had never had sex at all!!
So you never know...
The guy thing is a bit trickier, this book was full of all kinds of crazy shit but not even it went that far.
;)
Feynmaniac, thanks for the link.
Who is the ass trying to criticize Beck for following the Constitution?
Says completely blind Walton-Chamberlain. But the Bond Vigilantes dissagree, apparently.
Yeah, I know, the magic of Reaganomics. Walton, we are no where near where we were at the begining of the 80s when public + private debt was at around 180% of GDP. We are now at around 300 to 400% of GDP in all western democracies, UK included. Creating jobs by reducing taxes and encouraging investors to take on more debt is not going to work. Everywhere in the western world, private investors are in the process of deleveraging, not piling on more debt. So governments started to engage in counter-cyclical measures to increase public debt to compensate private deleveraging, which means transfering risks from the private to the sovereign. But the risks haven't dissapeared, they are still there, and when you see that a sovereign state like Greece is ready to default, you are only seeing the tip of the iceberg, because if we don't act now, immediately, all other states will follow.
The only thing that will prevent a UK sovereign default is for the state to increase its revenues. There is no way around it, stop dreaming. Cutting Govt spending won't work because that will just precipitate the collapse by putting millions in hardship from insufficient social stabilizers. Quantitative Easing to buy back public debt won't work either because that's what all central banks have been doing over the last 18 months and it didn't help to solve the problem but just postpone it by the same amount of time.
And it's not up to the poor and middle classes who have seen decreasing wealth over the last three decades to fund the absolutely massive amounts which are needed to get public finances back in order. The rich must pay, there is no other solution.
Illiberal remodelling my ass. Find the money where it is, in the coffers of the rich who reaped immense profits from the last three decades of irresponsible bonanza that resulted from the policies of those you admire, Reagan and Thatcher.
The only reason this is not happening is because of people like you who still believe in miracles and that the only way out is to grow the economy by getting the rich even richer. When will you wake up to reality?
When you get to economic ruin, which is very close to where we are now, personal liberties are threatened much more by sovereign bankruptcy than by all the smoke and mirror policies politicians might anounce to get elected.
Yes, I'm very concerned about civil liberties, and I think those are much more threatened by the kind of unequalitarian economic dogma you advocate and will ruin us all than by very specific and controlled legislations on hate speech or the ban of religious symbols in public schools.
@truckle:
Well I guess stranger things have happened.
Good news everyone! *Professor Farnsworth voice*
Aw, for picking on them, 'schach. I know they can't help it.
@Walton: you have the options of: vote Lib Dem, tactically, to oust Smith; vote Tory, if you want to, to register the fact that you support them, if you do; vote Labour, on Dadaist principles; vote Socialist Workers' Party because you are under hypnotic control by Maoists; vote Green for the sake of the voles; or don't vote.
Whatever the outcome, it will not be your fault, personally, so you shouldn't stress too much.
Something to reflect on: in every seat, no matter what the outcome, somebody will win and take the seat, and the other candidates will concede, and a new house will sit, a new government will form, and power will shift quickly or slowly between different blocks, and nobody will die in the process. The most important thing about a functioning democracy- far more important then the details of the voting system or the policy details of any party- is that power changes hands by an open process. People can enter government without violence and leave it again without being chased out by angry mobs. Sometimes we forget, in the heat of debate and the sputterings of the newspaper headlines, how lucky we are.
Good news, Stephen.
I had the good fortune to vote by mail in the eight different constituencies where I receive benefits cheques.
Stephen Wells:
Hear, hear
Hear, hear!
(waves report paper)
My vote was cast at 10:45 this morning, and went to the Liberal Democrats.
The BBC are reporting that a leading member of UKIP, Nigel Farage, has been injured in plane crash. The choice quote comes another UKIP candidate who said "Nigel was unconscious but he can talk".
I've taken tomorrow off, and if PZ has no objection, I'll parasitise the Endless Thread to live-blog the UK election tonight (though I'll probably give up and go to bed if it becomes clear early on the Tories are going to get a clear majority). The polls suggest they won't, but I have a horrible feeling they will: people are, quite naturally, often too ashamed to admit to pollsters they intend to vote Tory!
@ Kevin (258)
You have to go to the Dr, how will you be well enough to help me with my Reproductive Biology revision otherwise!
@ Truckle (259)
Oooohhhhh, thanks for the reminder. Also reminds me I need to head up to Morrisons for a bottle of white and some popcorn to keep me going through the coverage.
A Litre a day really isn't that much, but I'd still go to the doctor.
@BarbieWanKenobi:
Tempting... Eh... I guess I'll set up an appointment. It'll either be gone by the time I get the appointment or it'll be something silly.
@Rev BDC:
That's a Litre extra. I have a 500 mL bottle I fill up when I get to work and after lunch and drink it throughout the day - it's 4 8 oz glasses of water.
strange gods before me
I'm writing to the Daily Misanthrope - are you an Immigrent?
Also - I have a banana. Isn't it remarkable how it seems... designed to be perfect for human consumption? *snickersnicker*
@Knockgoats: looking forward to your liveblogging, will chime in if I can.
Of course, next year, as endless thread 678345 becomes a liveblog of the North Korean Vole Racing Championships On Ice, we may regret the precedent, but what the hell.
@ Matt Penfold
Haha yeh i read that and thought: wow that really is impressive!
He's still a cunt.
Well, not repeatedly. As soon as you regret your vote, I'll be unable to squeeze further pleasure out of that.
But we have a problem. You're already going to regret your vote now, no matter what you do. Since you didn't keep the option open of voting Tory at home, you're going to wonder if you should've done things differently.
What would give me pleasure today is finding that comment you made about the Conservatives not restricting abortion in the recent past. I'm pretty sure you actually included the timeframe of that 1990 vote, and were using this as an example of how the party is not really dangerous and hasn't been for a considerable time.
(It looks like Oxford East is a two-way race between Labour and Lib Dem. Am I right about that? If so, voting Lib Dem is the only chance to keep Labour out of office. And you'll get to be as satisfied as me, the happy Obama voter.)
It's probably too late (looks like I shouldn't have gone to bed), but just in case...
Is it? Clegg is said to have expressed a preference for a coalition with the Tories.
How many seats? How much damage could they do?
As long as they can't form a coalition government, they're harmless Parliament-wise.
Fallacy of sunk costs.
How does voting Lib Dem kick you out of the Conservative Party?
It doesn't, because nobody needs to know how you voted.
Besides, changing a party from the inside without pressure from the outside is very difficult and tends to take decades. Apply some pressure from the outside.
* * *
Kevin: doctor. Now.
* * *
Hmm. The map is gone, but the fan is still more active than usual. I think something is up with the ScienceBlogs ads.
* * *
McPain/Failin' – this pun just never stops being appropriate.
@Stephen Wells:
Hey! I'll have you know that the NKVRC is one of the most exciting events on television! I mean they're voles... on ice... racing around like little furry bullets who don't really know where they're going.
Lookit him :3 So cute - Awww
@David:
Lookin' for a specialist. Which also reminds me to find a generalist. I think someone sent me some information about that a little bit ago.
ahhh
Still, doctor, now.
yo cobalt #216 are you seriously suggesting that an 12yo boy looking at the telly and reading that twitter is immoral when he thought, wow, cool.
Not only – they'll get multiple opportunities of making themselves look as incompetent and counterproductive as they are, and they won't miss a single one of them.
Now we're talking. This is the first I've heard of such a marvelous event, but I like it.
Will they be serving pie?
@My 283:
Even cuter still! Harvest Mouse! Cuuute
Sorry... channeling my inner girl *cough*
...kidnapped by the US and French governments (Aristide).
...kidnapped by the military in a coup later accepted/endorsed by the US government (Zelaya).
...overthrown by the US and British governments (presidents of numerous countries around the world over the past several decades).
Let's avoid the gendered language here. Admittedly I'm not much of an expert on the female genitalia, but I'm given to understand that it doesn't tend to bear much resemblance to Nigel Farage. :-/
The closest match I can think of is a steaming pile of horse shit. However I think that comparison would be unkind to horses.
@Matt:
I don't think horses will mind, they're usually just like "oatbaaag... I get my oatbaaag now."
@ Kevin (288):
Not NEARLY as cute as this little fella.
FFS...has science come to a grinding halt?
Kevin,
Awww... that is cute. :-)
Not my Nigel!
My Nigel looks rather more like a paint huffer.
@289: the bad behaviour of British, US and other governments internationally does not make it a bad thing that British elections go peacefully.
I'm voting for the major party that _didn't_ vote for the Iraq war, incidentally.
@BarbieWanKenobi:
Oh my, that is hysterical. It's cute... in a disgusting way.
@Walton:
And you UK people get to have them in your country, the cutest things we have are... well... I guess house mice are kinda cute
Daft? I'd wager, Nick, that E.O. Wilson knows at least as much about Marxist theory, and a hell of a lot more about ants, than you do. - Sven diMilo
His complete ignorance of the former is manifest. Of course he knows more about ants, but then, I don't pontificate about them beyond the modest limits of my knowledge. However, I do know the very basic facts about them you so condescendingly point out, and they do nothing whatever to undermine my point.
ownership of the means of production by workers? From each according to her abilities to each according to her needs? Classless society? Labor for the good of the collective? I'm pretty sure these are the basics of a Marxist view of society,
You're wrong. The basis of the Marxist view of society is historical materialism. What you are describing are some of the features of a communist society as he envisaged it (except the last, BTW). Insect societies have no history, hence historical materialism cannot apply to them.
and they all apply very well to ants.
No, they don't. It's as stupid to call insect societies as "communist" as it is to describe them as "monarchies". Ants don't own anything, either individually or collectively, they don't look after the old and sick, they assign infants to their role (worker or queen) from birth.
SC, OM at #289:
Well, democracy only works in other countries if it doesn't threaten our (American and/or other Western power) interests. Otherwise it is convenient to ignore it. (Same goes for domestic politics, but we don't want the voters to know that... shhhhh!)
I thought about this, from Kevin's comment 301 of the previous subthread, some more:
Is that a matter of principle? If not, this distinction between "physical" and "sexual attraction" would mean that I've... <scratching head>... probably never been sexually attracted to anyone. There have been people I'd have like to gaze at a little longer, perhaps stretch out my hands and touch, and there are photos that drastically increased my heartbeat, but I've never got the urge to insert tab A in slot B from looking at someone (photo or meatspace). I wonder if I have it innately at all, or if it's learned*. I've come to associate it more with... some degree of love, as... a kind of enhanced hugging or something. It does, after all, tend to involve a person and not just a body shape or part thereof.
Now I'm going to wonder for the next weeks or months whether it was a good idea to publish all that, let alone under my meatspace name. But I'm curious enough that I really want to understand the diversity in sexual, romantic, etc. attractions. Extrapolating from myself obviously hasn't worked!
* It's time again to mention those 1 or 2 cases of desperate Christian fundamentalist couples in Germany who showed up at fertility clinics where it turned out they hadn't ever tried to have babies – they didn't know how, and they hadn't accidentally stumbled upon the proper procedure either.
True it is an insult to cunts everywhere to call him one, and I apologise. I don't use that pejorative lightly, however it does have gender implications so i wont use it again. The man is pretty despicable, not only for his views on race but his parties appalling stance on science.
Hmm a better attempt to describe Nigel Farage?
A wet sack of hate? Hmm no, a sack is useful, even a wet one
A throbbing pustule of bile? Nope, bile is actually useful again...
A man who looks like someone throttling a frog? Yes... yes I think that covers it.
Ha. Ant workers totally reap the profit of their own labor.
Oh wow. They may have found the ping for the black box from the Air France crash last year. Article (AP)
Oh yes. :-)
X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D
@ Kevin
How about these little guys?
@David:
I'm a very bizarre person (if you all haven't learned that by now, I'm surprised.) Keeping in mind that a year ago I would be completely against even mentioning a physical attraction to certain men due to my religious upbringing, it's quite possible I do have the same feelings for men as I do women - I just haven't yet admitted it to myself.
I just haven't ever really thought (aside from the dream-world) of myself being with a guy in any kind of relationship. I can admit "oh yeah, he's very cute" and give a little sigh or a growl at the sight of a gorgeous body, but I don't see myself settling down with another guy in any way. I only see myself with a girl in that situation.
Course that requires a girl who'll put up with me, haha good luck XD
What? My references weren't just to "bad behavior" in general, but to specific indications of the utter contempt these governments show for representative democracy abroad when their interests are at stake.* I think this is important to acknowledge when democracy is being cheered so. (Your comment caught my eye because in a talk a couple of years ago, Randall Robinson used almost the exact same words you did to describe what people in Haiti want - to go from election to election without other governments fucking with their political system and kidnapping their president.)
*(I should have added "...coerced into obeying unpopular IMF dictates" and "...made to fight opposition forces funded and trained by the US.")
@Truckle:
The Naked Mole Rat is my father's favorite animal.
Personally my favorite animals are the Red Panda and the Platypus! The former because it's so gosh-darn cute, and the latter because it looks like the kinda thing you make when you have leftover LEGO pieces.
Oh, jeez. You mean I have to change my nick? It took me two fucking years to come up with it! (Yeah. I'm a little slow like that.)
@Kevin - That is amazing about the black box ping. (Too bad all the submarines are busy trying to cap the gusher in Louisiana.)
@David M - We know your meatspace name - the authorities are on their way. Seriously, the distinction between having a brief or not-so-brief "that's really attractive" experience and having a "want to have sex with" thought is an important one that many religions seem to overlook. We were talking last night about my ice-cream-aisle fight with my RCC neighbor, who kept insisting that boys weren't ready to be in groups with girls until something like their early 20s and yammering about how one needed to hold up the image of a knight to them (gesturing, as if said knight might be in the freezer). After some jokes at home about the our family role model being the Knights Who Say Ni, my son said that the problem with Catholics is that they talk as if the "that's really attractive" experience is wrong, which means there's less of a clear line between random mental images and actually compounding the wrongness with behavior. Even being raised Catholic, I'd never thought of it before, but I think he's right, at least for a certain kind of impulsive person (which his friend is, especially in groups of kids).
Really sad. Now I have to go call the authorities to make sure they're on their way to David's house.
Oh, and the British election stuff is almost as tedious as the Bindi Irwin topic. I grant that it has more actual relevance, however, so I feel compelled to read the posts. Finding ought-to guilts in a blog is ridiculous, but it's true...
Kevin,
After a week of gastric distress, I strongly recommend a trip to the doctor. It may simply be the flu, but a parasitic or bacterial infection are also possibilities.
After 2 years in the Peace Corps, I was, like all volunteers, a connoisseur of diarrhea. I could diagnose the pathogens behind the screaming yellow shits, the explosive runs, bloody stools and on and on.
Strangely, this skill wound up being useful on our honeymoon, when on a trip up the Amazon, my lovely bride inadvertently brushed her teeth with water from the tap, which was, you guessed it, straight from the river. I diagnosed amoebas and luckily, you can buy flagyl over the counter in Brazil.
Now go to the doctor so I don't start having to ask you about your stools, 'kay?
You're still fairly new here and haven't provided that much TMI yet :-)
See, I don't even dream of such things.
(Though maybe here it's me again who's the odd one. I seem to have my dreams under a surprising amount of control, even when – as usual – I don't notice I'm dreaming. When something really doesn't occur to me, I don't dream of it, and when it's too unrealistic [by rather warped criteria], I don't either.)
In those respects you seem to be a lot more normal than I, judging from what little you've mentioned.
'Tis Himself@165,
I agree completely. Other aspects of Marxism I disagree with include the labour theory of value (which G.A. Cohen explicitly abandoned in his attempt to reframe Marxism as a testable theory of historical change), and all the nonsense about The Dialectic (Praise Its Holy Name). Marx said he found Hegel on his head and set him upright, but an idealist theory turned upside down is still an idealist theory.
@SC: I reiterate: it is a good thing and should be appreciated that in the UK we get peaceful democratic transfers of power. It is a bad thing that this doesn't happen in all countries, and it's a very bad thing that UK governments are often not on the right side when it comes to democracies in other countries. Do we disagree on anything here?
@a_ray_in_dilbert_space:
Yes yes, I've got the number for a gastroenterologist. I'm gonna call during my lunch break. I'll have to wait a month before I can get a generalist, but that shouldn't be such a big deal - haven't had a checkup in a while.
@David:
I dream a lot about very random topics, but generally they either are dreams about fantasy sort of stuff (fighting dragons or demons or traveling - where I get a lot of ideas for stories) or they're dreams about me in a relationship. While those are 50-50 gender wise, they're also 50-50 MY gender-wise. Sometimes I have dreams where I'm a girl, in a relationship with a guy.
Very bizarre dreams, but I guess it just attests to the fact I really don't consider myself the typical male.
Re: putting up with me:
The girl who'll be with me will have to be able to suffer: sarcasm, Monty Python quotes at all hours of the day, the most diametrically opposed family in the world (my mom's side is completely opposite my dad's side), extreme geekiness, somewhat girlishness, and spontaneity.
Aren't virtually all economic models idealistic? Certainly capitalism is idealistic (All Hail The Invisible Hand!). Or is there a pragmatic model somewhere?
(All this should illustrate my near-complete ignorance of economics.)
Only on the outside. Its skeleton is completely unique. :-)
The gospels conflate them explicitly with each other and with adultery.
<facepalm>
nigelTheBold:
I sincerely hope you are in the process of getting hold of American Psycho. That amount of deranged brilliance does not like to be unwatched for too long.
I mean seriously, you haven't seen it yet? Where have you been all this time: Alaska or something??
;)
Knockgoats says, "I'm neither a Marxist nor an expert on Marx, but his (rather vague) vision of a Communist society was one where everyone has far more individual freedom and initiative than under capitalism."
True, and most libertarians also envision a society of individual freedom and initiative. Neither has any clue about how real human societies work...or don't, as the case may be. My experience is that individual freedom scares the shit out of most individuals, and initiative is as rare as a Los Angeleno walking a dog with a poop bag.
Found the bullshit. Said Walton:
Except for 24 April 1990, when Thatcher's government did in fact restrict abortion.
Let's not forget Nadine Dorries, Tory backbencher, and her religiously motivated attempts to restrict abortion.
WTF?
Cool.
Uh-oh. I predict the next episode of Mad Women of Pharyngula will begin in about 3 hours, maybe 2.
That alone is no more idealistic than natural selection. It just tends not to stop at that.
Well..... maaayyyybe.
I'm not sure why I haven't seen it yet. I can explain why I haven't seen it over the last couple of days -- I've been busting my ass both at work and at home (fixing some bugs in inherited code at work, and refinishing a 110-year-old wood floor at home).
It's on the agenda, though. Maybe I should bump it up to the top of the Netflix queue.
Quit badgering me, Man!
@David:
Duck-bill + egg-laying + poison barbs + beaver tail + electrolocation + otter feet = WTF was nature smoking.
I still can't understand how something like that could evolve. I know I'll be presented with that case if my parents ever realize I believe in it "Oh yeah, what about the platypus? How could that evolve?"
strange gods @#321: Yes, OK, I got something wrong. I honestly did not know about that 1990 vote. Sometimes (often, in fact) I make mistakes.
But that isn't in itself a sufficient reason to switch parties. As we've established, I agree with the Lib Dem manifesto on quite a few more points than the Tory one anyway. But party loyalty matters, too, in our kind of political system.
To re-use the analogy I used in a previous subThread: it's a little like if I were married to a woman (let's call her "Conservatina"), but our marriage was going badly, and I gradually realised I was falling in love with another man instead. Today is the day I have to decide whether I want to reaffirm my marriage vows to Conservatina in the hope of saving our failing relationship, or whether I want to give in to temptation and have a secret passionate tryst with that hot muscular guy in the showers at the gym. Yeah, it isn't a perfect analogy (and possibly a little too vivid), but you get the general idea. :-)
@David:
I have to wait a month to get up the sick hours for being able to visit. I only get 4 hours every two weeks. I'll probably need a while for the gastroenterologist - more than a few hours, so I'm not sure how many sick hours I'll have remaining afterwards, so I want to be sure I'll have an entire day waiting to use.
It'll only be for a general checkup, though. It can wait. It's not like what I'm having problems with at the moment.
Argh, I just realised my post at #326 is very easy to quote-mine. For the record, it was a humorous metaphor: Conservatina doesn't exist, I'm not married, and there is no hot muscular guy at the gym. :-)
While that's being appreciated, it should also be appreciated that the countries in which peaceful democratic transfers of power are occurring work against peaceful democratic transfers of power elsewhere when it serves their interests (or so they think - long run they're probably wrong).
I was talking about the countries in which it happens (or begins to), only to be destroyed by these "democratic" governments or agencies acting at their behest. Do you think it's bad to appreciate this?
Yes. Again, do you think it's bad to appreciate this?
I'm not sure. You seem to have misread my initial comment.
At the risk of starting up the Monsanto rigamarole again, apparently Monsanto has successfully, if unintentionally, bred herbicide resistant weeds.
Do you have a chance in hell of finding a marriage counselor hour in Oxford East at this late hour?
Too bad Intrade doesn't cover individual constituencies. I wouldn't know where to look for more fine-grained betting.
huh
@Walton:
I'm sure there's a hot muscular guy at the gym, you're probably just not looking hard enough. *haha*
@ Kevin (316):
Do you play guiter? 'Cos if you play guitar then with the rest of that résumé........... ;o)
*Looks round to ensure the guitar playing Ken Kenobi is out of screen view range*
@BarbieWanKenobi:
Alas, no musical skills - unless Rock Band counts *snicker*
I do want to learn how to play the guitar, but I've got to get a guitar, find lessons or a guitar teacher, and keep at it.
My brother is a lot more musically inclined, I think he stole my music skills.
How so? Evolution is a specific process applied to a well-defined information substrate, with definite predictable results. (Predictable with fairly well understood variance, at least.)
The Invisible Hand is a vaguely-defined system of feedback within an incomplete (and perhaps even incorrect) model of human behavior. It was proposed as some hand-waving to explain how capitalism should work.
It does seem to work to a limited extent, in that self-organized bottom-up logistics seems to work at a minimum level, whereas the top-down control of communism tends to result in chaos more often than not. Both cases, though, favor those who control the supply chain, rather than either the producer or the consumer.
I just don't see evolution (which is ultimately about information theory) to be nearly as idealistic as the invisible hand component of capitalism (which is about game theory).
Sorry. Again, that's my rather sparse education in economics showing through. I'm probably wrong about all that. I'm mostly posting this to get some feedback, so I can correct my understanding.
Hey! I got a Furret on my Pokewalker. He just kinda... jumped in there. Weird. *moment of geek over*
But the fact that this is also highly misleading ...
... ought to weigh heavily. For months now you've been saying the modern Tory party is not a danger to abortion rights.
You really were making it sound like pretty much all the old anti-choicers were leaving.
It turns out this retirement can only, at the very best, reduce the current number of anti-choice Tories from 134 to 98, a drop of only a quarter. And that's going on the fantastic assumption that zero incoming Tory MPs are anti-choice.
Your claim that the Tories are not now dangerous to women's rights was based on dubious interpretation of flimsy data.
David M (@301):
Funny, the reactions you describe — the desire to gaze and touch, the "drastically" increased heartrate (and the other physical manifestation that flow from that, such as flushed skin and a sensation of warmth) — are certainly things I would take as signs of sexual attraction. I would've said the "urge to insert tab A in slot B" (or at least to think/fantasize about doing so) can be inferred from those other signs; it's not like the specific desire for intercourse is a subroutine that runs in your brain whenever visual data map to an indwelling template for hot. Hotness just makes you hot (at least to some degree, literally); deciding what to do about that (or, as I said, what to think/fantasize about doing about that) is a cognitive process that is, at least to some degree, socially conditioned and learned.
Or that's my layman's intuitive sense of it, I should say: I am not a psychologist, nor a cognitive neuroscientist, nor a sex researcher... nor do I play any of those things on TV.
I take Kevin's comment (i.e., the lines you quoted) as meaning he sometimes feels those indicators you describe about males, but does not take the next cognitive step to desiring actual sexual interaction ("Tab A into Slot B" becomes a slightly less apt metaphor, of course, when we're talking about only men, who are more or less slotless ;^} ).
I'd been thinking about Kevin's comment as well: I can find men handsome, and I can at least attempt to identify men as "sexy," in the sense of predicting whether they'd be sexually stimulating to people who're sexually stimulated by men. I can even find male bodies beautiful, in the same purely aesthetic sense in which I find sculptures and well-designed objects beautiful. But the sight (photographic or IRL) of a man — even a beautiful naked man — never generates in me those physiological markers you describe, nor any of the thoughts or imaginings that so naturally flow from them... unless, of course, it's in the context of what the man may be doing with a woman. Because sex itself, IMHO, is sexy. (And I'll spare y'all yet another link to the Ron White bit about straight guys and men in porn.)
Re sexuality: Just thinking aloud, really... But if someone is in the process of discovering their sexuality or an aspect of their sexuality that has been unsuspected or suppressed, there's no obligation to go straight from zero to the hard-core sexual equivalent of the Olympic decathlon.
I don't see anything wrong with taking things slowly, either in a particular relationship or in the development or discovery of one's own sexuality.
I imagine it can be quite frightening for folks who have been conditioned to think of homosexuality as icky and wrong to discover that they can be attracted to the same sex. If the concept of a gay/bi future seems just far too alien, could it help to acclimatise and demystify things by spending some time hanging out in places where gay folks gather? Just to get a feel for things, not necessarily to pick up or be picked up.
Anyhow, I'm probably just being naive, redundant and unintentionally condescending, as usual. Blanket apology in advance; more specific apologies to follow as required. :)
Fucking LEGOs! How do they work?
Sorry. I just felt a powerful urge to say that.
I also need to say "Bindigate!"
@Kevin,
Re: platypus
The other side of that is,
WTF was God smoking?
strange gods, sometimes it feels like there is a giant conspiracy to guilt-trip me into not voting Tory. It's not just you: various unconnected events in real life have also had that effect.
I'm going to vote in less than an hour. I have to make a goddamn decision! When I got up this morning, I told myself I had decided to vote Conservative. But now I can't make a decision, and I know I will feel guilty whatever I do. :-(
@Walton,
Don't feel guilty. You are making the best decision you can, with the knowledge and experience you possess. Don't fret it. Just watch what those you entrust with power do with that power, and fix it next time if they betray you.
Walton,
I knew you weren't married, and as to the muscular guy, well...
But what's interesting is that you chose this analogy, that you would compare your relationship with the conservative party to some sort of marriage. And that voting for another party you consider more in line with your ideas would be like breaking this relationship.
How many times have you voted in a UK general election?
It
Never. I was too young for the last one in 2005. I've voted in several local council elections and one European election - always Conservative.
That's precisely why it feels like a betrayal. A few years back I would have given anything to be able to vote for my party in a general election and effect real change. Now I actually have the chance to do that, and it feels like I'm throwing it away and betraying the party. :-(
Uh, god(s) was smoking mother nature?
My favourite animal is the small brown tarantula of the American Southwest. The males are easy to find during a three-week perios in the spring, their bite is less annoying than a sweat bee, and they freaked out city people when I walked into the Grand Canyon NP visitor center with one sitting on my shoulder.
Walton: Think about which party is likely to support a short-term, to-hell-with-the-future get-mine-now policy, and which party is likely to support a policy which will, twenty years from now, not have made things worse. I'm not sure which party that would be in England (I'm currently trying to suss the politics of Jacobean England which led to the Separatist movement, so I'm a little out of date).
Vote long term. And you have no reason to feel guilty.
Walton:
As a strictly rhetorical critique, I think the gender-switch aspect of this analogy is a bit of a red herring: Your point — that intercourse (whether literally political intercourse or metaphorically sexual intercourse) with a new entity feels like cheating unless you first formally break your previous ties — is adequately made even if you rhetorically leave Conservatina for another woman. The extra element of "switching teams" is unnecessary to your point, and any unnecessary "plot twists" in a metaphor are just distractions... especially when they're, as you admit, possibly a little bit too vividdamn near porn!
Sorry to be pedantic about this: I've been helping my daughter review some of her term papers, and I guess I'm stuck in teacher mode. ;^)
@ambulocetacean:
I'm having a hard enough time thinking of heterosexual sex as 'not icky.' If there's one thing that the past 14 years of religion has done for me, it's completely shot my self-confidence in the area of 'performance.' I've always thought of sex-before-marriage as something that you just don't do because it's wrong.
Hum... maybe if I get to go to Las Vegas again this year, I'll work on that.
Well, I'm arguing because it's politics and it's today and you're willing to argue.
I don't want my words to be a facet of your regret. In the end, you're the only one who can make the decision of who to regret voting for.
Possibly my belief that politics is similar to romance goes some way towards explaining my dire lack of success in romance. :-)
That video at the top of the thread.... Octopus... Leatherjackets...
OMG, that's it! That's why Ray Comfort is trying to give leather jackets to prominent atheists! Don't fall for it, PZ! It's a trap!
Walton,
Toss a coin. Then you can blame it on me :-)
Looks like there's another humour drama brewing over Four Lions, a new film about British Muslim terrorists by Chris Morris- the guy behind Brass Eye.
Well, no, not really. Gay sex is better.
Would I make that up?
A reheated digression on male sexuality follows, chipping into the discussion between David M. and Kevin.
You might find these sentiments developing and maturing as you continue to accept that there's nothing wrong with them (I am sure you already do, but from #307 I gathered that you are still in some kind of transitional phase emotionally).
In this cultural climate, I think it's sometimes possible for a guy to be strongly sexually attracted to a single guy or small set of guys, and yet not feel (or perhaps, rather, not consider) the same default attraction to men in general - at least, not right away. I suppose these relatively out-of-the-blue impulses are considered to be the awakening stage, or something. I can't rely on my memory to be accurate, but I think my attraction to the opposite sex started out much the same way: sudden pulses of desire, ignited by certain markers, that gave way to a more universal appreciation of the human body (of course, letting this overheat to become an objectification of the human body, as I fear is possible, is probably a bad thing). What I find especially relevant is that I would find myself fantasising about girls that I might simultaneously consider 'ugly'. As I've gotten older, this 'ugly' objection mostly receded and peeled away, like so much molting skin. I wonder if it is fundamentally a similar deal when considering the attraction to men, with the analogous (?) 'it's a guy' objection having a much larger kinetic barrier.
I would argue, anecdotally and without any knowledge of the relevant research, that they are points on a sliding scale. Of course, nothing obliges that sliding scale to be tipped towards increased sexuality. Ashamed to say I should be reading more of Cerberus' highly enlightening posts on the issue of asexuality.
I'd rather have a hung parliament than an outright majority government of any party. Unfortunately, there is no way of voting to guarantee a hung parliament, so I'll just have to vote and see what happens. - Walton
Amusingly, the bast way to maximise the probability of this outcome is(in many constituencies) to vote Labour. With the current state of the polls, it is much more likely that the Tories will get an overall majority than that Labour will; but at any plausible level of Tory support, transferring votes from Lib Dem to Labour reduces this probability. This is the daftness of FPTP in operation.
@Kevin. I lurve hetero ick :)
And the world says: "Well, duh".
There were triple-resistant plants 10 years ago in Alberta (Roundup, Liberty, and Pursuit); I can't believe this is just now becoming a story.
@MrFire:
I'm sure it's growth into sexuality. I'm doing the kind of mental growth that I'd shunned when I was in a religious family. I may be 26, but I don't think I have the mental sexuality of a 26 year old.
@ambulocetacean:
Oh yes, me too. As soon as I can get some hetero ick, I'll be happy. Like I said - Vegas.
From the BBC Election 2010 page:
"The Labour candidate for Bootle on Merseyside has had the tip of his finger bitten off by a dog while out campaigning. Joe Benton, 77, was taken to hospital after the animal bit him as he pushed an election leaflet through a letter box. Mr Benton has been unable to vote for himself as a result and will not be able to attend tonight's count."
Confirms my view that dogs are natural (old-school) Tories.
I discovered from this morning's Grauniad that you can take a dog into the polling station with you. My wife and I always go to vote together in the evening, and often take the dog along for a walk, but we've always left her tied up outside.
Sorry, dude. I thought you had mentioned some time ago that you live in Alaska, and the post was me mainly trying to find an excuse to show off that I remembered that.
*tail between legs*
Walton,
But why? Did you ever make a vow of fidelity to the party? Or did the party do so much for you in the past that you feel you owe them this kind of loyalty?
And if it's change you want, and you consider Lib Dems are closer to your ideas and you are voting in Oxford East and SGBM's link @ 281 is correct, it shouldn't be that difficult to make the decision to vote for Lib Dem.
Bootle?
Recent news reporting that the Conservatives are relatively absent from the ground game in Oxford East. Here, that indicates concession to focus on other districts, and I expect it means the same in the UK.
It would be a lovely thing for Andrew Smith to be tossed out on his ass.
Kevin (@360):
If you're referring to professional hetero ick (and if you're not, I confess I'm confused), keep in mind that Vegas is one of the places in Nevada where that's not legal! Don't want to have to Pharyngulate up some bail money for you! ;^)
Dogs are definitely Tories. Specifically, working-class Tories of a slightly old-fashioned type. They know their place is to take orders and they want to keep that hierarchy in place.
Stupid council/post office made my overseas voter and postal voter applications vanish. Not happy.
Walton, if you and Conservatina don't have much in common any more, I think that it's time for you both to start seeing other people.
Aaaand (to flog a pun to death), I wonder if john is also morale-less. *running away very fast*
I'm in a bit of a twilight zone moment here.
First, I'm on a Howard Stern forum (i know, i know)
That in its own is bad
However, I'm now arguing with a Kent Hovind fan-boy on various bits of Hovind stupidity. Currently how Oil and Coal are formed.
A Hovind fan on a Howard Stern board?
Kevin re your symptoms
I just took a Basic First Aid recertification. According to page 4-4 in the course manual, you are displaying many of the symptoms of angina and heart attack. (I did pass the course.)
Closer to the real world; last week the Significant Other was having most of those symptoms and is now resting comfortably after the appendectomy.
You probably shouldn't wait much longer to seek real medical help.
Carlie @358: I'm a little slow. History major, remember.
Walton: On the off-chance a liberal Tory law student who hangs out on sceptic-minded blogs doesn't already read Jack of Kent, you might find this interesting: http://jackofkent.blogspot.com/2010/05/why-this-ex-tory-boy-is-voting-l…
SC OM: Bootle.
Bootle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootle !
Kevin,
If you're still reading this, bring up the possibility of a parasitic infection when you visit your gastroenterologist. Many years ago, I suffered from one for three weeks without knowing it. I became so dehydrated I could no longer walk at the end of my illness, having passed nothing but water for two weeks. One emergency room visit, and another one to a clinic, got me nothing - they just thought I had the flu.
By the end of three weeks I was actually scared I was going to die, and a friend recommended a specialist. He immediately knew I had a common parasite, Giardia, and prescribed pills that knocked it out in two days. He said many doctors have never seen even the common parasites, and incorrectly believe they only happen in the third world.
This may not be what's ailing you, but it's worth bringing up.
iambilly - I wasn't talking about you, but the media. It's funny when they try to combine being years behind the times with breaking!scary!reporting! to get reader interest.
Excellent memory! I was impressed. And I do appreciate your eagerness for me to see American Psycho. I do the same thing with Bubba Hotep.
Actually, though, I don't live in Alaska at the moment. I currently live in Cleveland, OH, unfortunately. I'd never really lived outside of Alaska, excluding a couple of years in Oregon when I was younger, and a few months in basic training/AIT at Ft. Sill. Trading AK for OH was not a brilliant move.
I can't wait to move back home. If only my damned job weren't so interesting.
And I was just joshin' you about the badgering thing.
MrFire:
The movie is seriously lightweight in comparison to the book. Christian Bale is, as always, wonderful. Still, nothing like the book. That was one disturbing read. The business card scene is priceless though.
@Bill Dauphin:
Oh hellll no. I have no interest in professional ick ever. Though I did get propositioned in a casino... and she was HOT - tall, nice butt, African-American, gorgeous eyes - but anyway.
I was talking about chatting up some lonely lookin' girl in a bar, being my normal friendly self, and trying to 'seal the deal' so to speak.
@kiyaroru:
The thing is, it's gone now. My stomach is a little bubbly from a bottle of Mountain Dew, but nothing besides. The pain in my back and neck was probably from sleeping poorly (I have a bad bed.) I'm still calling the doc, that's not going to change. I just would hate to go through all this trouble and discomfort to find out 'you're not drinking enough water' or something stupid like that.
@Josh, OSG:
Yeah, I'm calling a specialist here in DC - there's all kinds of specialists all around the city, so it's not like it's hard to find one. I mean, it's probably nothing (like I said about) but I guess it's better than thinking it's nothing and finding out it's really something worse.
Carlie: I see that now. On the bright side, my misunderstanding your meaning let me get in a self-referential dig, so all is good.
I remember back in the 80s, when I worked night shift at a 7-11 (only got robbed twice that summer), one of the weekly rags had a big front page article about Communist Encroachment. Sound the alarm! Panic! Seems Communist Cuba had crept to within 60 miles of the Florida Keys and, even worse, Communist Russia now had a foothold only three miles from America!!!
I tried to explain to the store's owner that there was nothing to be alarmed about it was just geography. Then, just as he was calming down, I did tell him that, as the North American plate moved West, we were actually encroaching on Siberia at the rate of a 1/2 to 1/2 inch per year. His response? Damn Roosians should be scared!
vote Socialist Workers' Party because you are under hypnotic control by Maoists - Stephen Wells
SWP are Trots, not Maoists. No-one hates each other more than Trots and Maoists - except, perhaps, different subspecies of Trots.
@iambilly:
Haha, that's hilarious.
We're SLOWLY going to go take over Russia. A half inch per year, well that's only (REALLY estimated math - about 5K miles... which is about 25K feet which is about... 300K inches... sooo) about 600,000 years. *nods*
Or just one Trot. Many of them seem capable of starting a fight when they are the only person in the room.
not to speak for the rest of the MWP, but I'm not quite ready for cradle robbing (again). Kevin (and Walton, for that matter) can come back when they're well into their 20's :-p
@Jadehawk:
I'm 26.
Kevin:
OK, understood. However...
...I don't see why you have to go to Vegas for this. Last time I looked, there were bars and lonely girls pretty much wherever you are. Do I recall correctly that you're in the DC area? With all the colleges in town, and all the young people working as interns or staffers in and around government (not to mention all the museums, national parks/monuments, etc.), the town's got to be crawling with single young women a long way from home. Surely you don't really need to go all the way to to Vegas to get luckyicky?
;^)
Also, I'm pretty sure they aren't actually standing (in their own right) in this election. They joined that TUSC dealy with the ex-Militant crowd and some union leaders.
@Bill:
Well, I don't have to go to Vegas, no. It's the last place I was at that I had an opportunity (and blew it) to get some 'ick.' Really hot girl in a bar. I chatted her up, and when I was about to seal it, got flustered and said my goodbyes. Kicked myself for the whole next day.
Kel @ 252 - this may be too late to help you (damn the Endless Thread for moving so fast!) but if you backup your .itl files, and then point to the old .itl files instead of the new ones iTunes will create when you re-install it, you won't have to rebuild your library.
I spent 2.5 hours on the phone with an Apple Support supervisor to get my iTunes problems straightened out. It was worth it, though... I don't seem to have lost anything and iTunes is behaving itself very nicely now, even when I stress it.
RBDC says, "First, I'm on a Howard Stern forum (i know, i know)"
OK, I'm having fun with this. Was it perhaps your common love of lesbians? Does Howard like bacon, too?
Oh, and on the hydrocarbon thing, expect things to get worse as we start moving towards biofuels. The press releases always trumpet "making oil out of algae." The YEC's will love it!
the North Korean Vole Racing Championships On Ice - Stephen Wells
A very boring event - Kim Il-sung always wins!
Jadehawk (@384):
Re cradle robbing, see Kevin @385. And we have more evidence than we really wanted that Walton is old enough to vote... and IMHO, anyone who's old enough to vote is old enough to hike the Appalachian Trail... or should I say, to lift your luggage, if you have luggage you want lifted.
My sister is 2 years younger than me, and single. When she was in her mid 30s, she told me about a promising single man she'd met through her bowling league... but sadly, she wouldn't go out with him because he was "too young": He was in his mid 20s! Frankly, I thought she was crazy. It's all theoretical to me, of course, since I got married (relatively) young to someone quite close to my own age, but IMHO any two people past the age of consent are the right age for each other if they both want to be. Certainly any age difference ≤10 years strikes me as a poor reason to arbitrarily deny oneself lasting happiness, or even brief joy.
@Rev. BDC:
Have you been on Ray Comfort's blog recently? I've partly stopped posting because he's growing more and more irrational and 'yelly.'
@Bill Dauphin:
Preach it sister! *haha*
My grandmother was, and still is, a cradle robber. Her first husband was 5 years younger than she is. My grandfather was about 10 years younger than she is. Now she's married to a man 15 years younger than her, she thinks it hilarious that she could have easily babysat him.
Of course, it's okay because my family looks really young, and she's an 85 year old who could easily pass for early-to-mid 60s.
Bootle? - SC,OM
Yes indeed. Possibly the silliest constituency name in the country, but by no means the silliest place name - but I've a feeling we've had this on Pharyngula before.
@Knockgoats:
Once, when my sister was in a bus that was driving to a church retreat, they passed by a road sign for "Cowshit Road."
We purposefully pronounce the s and h on separate syllables just for laughs, cause we know what it really means.
I think Mole Valley is funnier than Bootle. It's like being the member for Teletubbyland or something.
When we were kids we used to laugh hysterically at Wawa and Chattanooga.
Man, that video is so upsetting. But it makes me really hungry. I'm sad and I'm starving.
Wait till Sarah Palin sees it. She'll see "Chinaman" in the opening title and then start blaming foreigners again... "its not climate change wrecking the environment, its not the oil companies, its Chinamen... I watched them from my house, killing octupuses."
I love Sarah. She makes psychosis sexy.
@MudPuddles:
Sarah Palin is crazy. Sadly, I think my entire rest of family is enamored by her.
Aren't virtually all economic models idealistic? - nigelTheBold
Idealist /= idealistic. "Idealist" as an adjective is opposed to physicalist or materialist: the idea that mind rather than matter is fundamental. Marx thought that history procedes like an argument (or rather, like an idealised (sorry) version of an argument): thesis, antithesis, synthesis. So: feudalism is the thesis, the growth of commerce and the efforts to abolish feudal privilege are the antithesis, capitalism is the synthesis; then capitalism is the (new) thesis, the growth of the proletariat and the resistance capitalist exploitation produces in that proletariat are the antithesis, socialism is the synthesis. Marx thought this was compatible with materialism. Engels took this nonsense furthest, in, e.g. The Dialectics of Nature where, IIRC, he claimed that it is supported by the fact that -1 x -1 = 1.
Capitalism! Yyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeaah.
– Austin Powers
Though, actually, that's only part of the interlocking clusterfuck. Just read it. I should also link to success-oriented planning, but that still doesn't exhaust it.
The barbs (not sure about the poison) are actually normal for mammals. We've lost them. :-)
Same for egg-laying (except it's normal for an even larger group... much larger). In fact, they hatch rather early and complete their development more like marsupials.
The bill follows pretty straight from the way of feeding. Oh, and, from the fact that the caruncle isn't lost. That's a horny spur used to open the eggshell from within; apparently, its presence is necessary for a beak to evolve.
The feet are pretty unspectacular for swimming mammals.
The electroreceptive organs... yeah, those are weird. :-)
Oh crap.
That's what I mean, and why I'm so surprised Kevin distinguishes "physical attraction" from "sexual attraction".
And he?
I mean, it's well established that I'm a special case, but anyone noticeably older than I would be... like... adult, and that would make staying together for more than 24 h seriously difficult. (At the same time, anyone 5 years younger or more would remind me of my sisters, and I... don't want that either. Yes, that includes many supermodels.)
But of course you're right that all manner of preferences and lack thereof exists. I've watched a relationship break apart because, among other reasons, she was (IIRC) 17 years younger than he; then the same guy went back to the previous girlfriend, IIRC 13 years younger, and they're now happily married and have a child.
And, of course, if you happen to be in Pennsylvania, you can drive from Virginville to Intercourse. I'm thrilled to learn, from Google Maps, that there's such a place as the Intercourse Pretzel Factory. Sadly, it probably makes actual pretzels; the euphemistic possibilities are just so delightful to contemplate!
And that she looks (and to some degree acts) like an evil teacher doesn't turn you off? :->
I wish Tina Fey was the vice president instead of Joe Biden.
@David:
Well, maybe the whole evil teacher thing kinda has a little bit of a fem-dom effect...
Sorry... I drifted off into fantasy land, what were we talking about again?
Yes, but only to see what new brand of dumbfuckery is being trotted out by his regular commenters.
There's only so much of reading Terry's posts I can handle.
That man is about as deluded and stupid as a person can get.
oh well, in that case... *evil grin* (dunno why I thought you were around 21)
anyway, I was only half-kidding, but the problem is not so much any age difference; rather, in my experience, guys right out of high-school are too busy enjoying their newfound freedoms and discovering themselves to have enough attention left over for anyone else :-p
Speaking of platypuses, they could save us all from super-bugs!
Kg @299:
I see: hyperliteralism, is it? Well, you certainly got me--and Wilson--on that score. It's absolutely true that ants have not evolved their societal structure via historical materialism and proletariate revolution. Good point.
*eyeroll*
What's "daft" here is that you feel the need to take what was probably an offhand, light-hearted quip pointing out some parallels between aspects of ant societies and the ideals of Communism, label it as "pontification" and then criticize it for not corresponding literally and in every detail to the writings of Marx.
IMO.
sgbm @303:
I guess that was supposed to be sarcastic? Because, in fact, they do, in the only currency that matters.
@Rev BDC:
Whenever I see Terry's username, I just pass right by cause I know nothing he says will be of any consequence. Recently, though, Ray seems like he's losing a little bit of his touch on reality - I mean... what little touch he had.
@Jadehawk:
I kind of am a little bit immature, so since all you can get to know of me is words on a screen, you can't quite realize how old I am. Of course, seeing me doesn't help because the only reason I look remotely older than a teenager is because I have facial hair.
@ambulocetacean:
Cheer for the Platypuses... Platypi... Platypus... Platypodes. Whichever it is really.
@Knockgoats --
Thanks for the schoolin'. I guess I never realized the distinction between "idealist" and "idealistic." Funny, that. I consider myself fairly conversant with the English language. That could just be a little Dunning/Kruger at work, of course.
I have now exercised my democratic right. Decision made.
(I'll be second-guessing myself for weeks, but it can't be helped.)
Sven and Rorschach will be pleased to know, therefore, that I will not be filling the thread with any more UK election-rants. :-)
@Walton:
The system thanks you. Here's a cookie. *gives him a cookie*
Actually, funny enough, the first time I went to vote, I actually got a cookie. One of the Representatives for my area was there with his wife, talking and joking around with the public (he was really personable.) His wife had a basket of snacks. She gave me a cookie :3
I don't remember if I voted for him or not. I probably did because he was a very down-to-Earth guy.
Go on, Sven. You're getting ready to say something stupid. Might as well get it out.
It may have been a stupid and empty comment that was meant to be nothing but a stupid and empty joke. Like if I were to say "libertarianism is great... for lizards! harrr." No big deal. But then it's no big deal to point out that the comment is empty, and daft. Presumably if it was a joke then Wilson's feelings won't be hurt anyway. ;-)
Kevin @ 414,
That would be illegal in the UK! As Walton is the lawyer in these parts perhaps he'll explain the offence of "treating" but we can afford to let him get his breath back first.
Especially since every single damned mole is named for the Dear Leader Himself.
And they're off!
It's Kim Il-sung taking an early lead with Kim Il-sung following close behind. Kim Il-sung and Kim Il-sung are running neck-and-neck for third with Kim Il-sung making a pass on the outside around Kim Il-sung and Kim Il-sung and he's now coming up on Kim Il-sung for second but Kim Il-sung is taking a larger lead now! They've now gone almost three meters and Kim Il-sung is in the lead followed three lengths behind by Kim Il-sung, with Kim Il-sung Kim Il-sung Kim Il-sung Kim Il-sung Kim Il-sung Kim Il-sung Kim Il-sung Kim Il-sung Kim Il-sung Kim Il-sung Kim Il-sung Kim Il-sung
sung to the tune of SPAM! by Monty Python.
Damn I'm glad I don't live in North Korea. Or [looks around] New Jersey.
I always liked Nempnett Thrubwell
Hah - checking the spelling I was reminded of Stackridge
Saw them many times when I worked at The Old Granary
Sorry, vole not mole.
@maureen.brian:
Well, it was his wife that offered. He was busy talking elsewhere. His wife just looked bored, and like she wanted to be nice.
It wasn't the cookie that made me vote for him, it was the fact he was there among the voters, talking and asking questions about what they wanted him to do.
Jim Greenwood was his name. He was a moderate. Very good guy, really.
Anyone seen this http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8660940.stm ?
How are the YECs going to take this I wonder?
Kevin @414,
That's not usually legal in the US either. It's not particularly ethical to be bribing voters either.
I don't know about all states but here in Michigan there is a 100 foot limit from the entrance to the polling location for campaigning. And handing out anything but literature or cheap things like buttons (which the voter cannot wear in the voting location) is prohibited.
Once inside the polling location all campaign materials, including shirts promoting a candidate, are supposed to be hidden from view. I personally think that may be going a bit far, I have seen people borrow a jacket because they were wearing an Obama or McCain t-shirt and were told they had to conceal it. Hmm, maybe we should have some paper smocks available for the next election.
However, and there was a debate about this, once a voter is in a booth they are allowed to produce supplemental materials to help them remember who they decided to vote for. Cheat-sheets are allowed. There were groups that wanted to ban them on the ground that they were campaign materials and thus not to be visible in the polling area. You were supposed to memorize the names of all the people you wanted to vote for ahead of time. Luckily that was thrown out as being too silly even for Michigan politics.
SteveV,
I've had a fondness for Blubberhouses Hall, Blubberhouses Yorkshire.
I always imagined it was built by a whaling magnate, but Wikipedia disagrees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blubberhouses
I was able to get a tour of it once when it was up for sale and I happened to be visiting my sister.
Maureen: It took a couple of minutes for me to find it on Westlaw (since election law isn't part of my course), but here it is...
Representation of the People Act 1983, section 114:
@Flex:
Wasn't in the polling location. They were outside, don't think there's a 100-foot limit, but they don't want perspective candidates inside. It's at an elementary school, so there's no room for people to be standing around talking to a Representative.
If what he did was illegal, it was 8 years ago and hasn't been mentioned.
Just a few miles from where I live is Goonhusband. I've met a few...
@SteveV:
The YECs are still claiming that Neanderthal were "fully human", so I doubt this will cause much more cognitive dissonance than they already have.
Why am I not working on my grant?
@Kevin,
Oh, I'm not complaining. Illegal or not, that sort of thing goes on all the time. It's when someone makes an issue of it, or feels uncomfortable about the possibility of election fraud, at that point he would be in trouble.
The thing is that he is a fool to expose himself in that way.
However, not knowing the details of the situation, he may not be all that exposed. If he was running unopposed, he would be unlikely to be more than strongly warned not to do it again by the election commission.
It is also possible, and this I see all the time, that your memory is faulty and he wasn't actually running in that race. It's very common for politicians to meet the public on election day, and even hand out goodies, when they are not in the race. I've done it myself for school-board elections. I still have to avoid campaigning within the limit, but it's a great way to meet the community without having to knock on every door. And you also know that the people you will meet are active voters, unlike 70% of the population.
If that was what was going on, then his actions were perfectly fine.
Thanks, Walton. We now need someone who knows the history. I think it dates back to one of the periodic attempts in the eighteenth century to clean up the system but have no idea where to start looking.
All pedants are welcome!
@Flex:
Eh, I think my memory is faulty. It may have been 2004, and it may have been Senator Greenleaf instead of Representative Greenwood. All I know is the wife of a congressperson gave me cookies, and their last name started with Green.
Anyway, work's done. So I shall see you tomorrow.
Yorkshire has some fantastic place names- Kettlesing Bottom, Penistone, Crackpot there's even a small village called Booze.
I might be a tad biased as I live there but my personal favourite is
Idle, West Yorkshire. Most of the local residents are incredibly proud of being members of the Working Men's Club. They haven't updated their website for a while though, Michael Jackson is still listed as a current honorary member.
Because of my family I regularly hear about the differences approaches to medicine between Canada and the US (specifically Florida). Canada in general has much stricter ethical guidelines, especially with regards to how much pharmaceutical companies can legally bribe influence doctors.
Hi, BarbieWanKenobi!
(Waves from Hebden Bridge.)
Watch out for the Calder Valley result. No promises, of course, but it has the potential to be, er, interesting.
And don't forget Crooty (in (I believe) Nottinghamshire along the Idle River) which helped to royally screw up America by being home to some of the Separatists (who became the Pilgrims) who seam to be role models for those Dominionist asshats who insist that the United States should be a theocracy. That area also gifted us with the form of Baptists who currently infest the American South. And I wonder how Beker's trip would go over with a theocracy? Anyway, fun name for a town which was (at one time) full of asshats.
Crap. Run on sentence and mispelled the homonym. I will now subject myself to two lashes of Rogets, to be followed by one shot. Of Pinch.
☞☃☜
HTML is very cool.
Flex, Kevin, Walton, et al.:
Re "Treating," I don't know what election laws in various parts of the U.S. say (elections here are, for the most part, administered by state law, so it varies from place to place), but if the British law Walton quoted is in guide, the key factor is the intent to influence a vote. I think it would be fairly hard to make the case that handing out snacks of trivial monetary value to voters leaving the polls was intended to influence votes.
I've done a fair amount of poll-standing, both on my own behalf (in last year's municipal election, where I was on the ballot for Town Council) and on behalf of other candidates. The setback limit here for electioneering is 75 feet, and the border of the excluded zone is always clearly marked at each polling place. Volunteers, who often stand at the same location for many hours (and November in CT is not always benign, weather wise), are typically provided with water, coffee, and snacks by the committee or campaign they're volunteering for; I can't recall specifically having done so, but I wouldn't have thought twice about sharing a donut hole or similar with someone who stopped to chat with me, just because it's impolite to eat in front of someone without offering to share. OTOH, we never give out buttons or any other sort of doohickeys at the polls. We usually don't even give out literature, because it's a pain for the voter to have to hide it or put it away on their way to the voting booth.
I suspect the real target of Treating laws is the practice of rounding up street people and offering them meals and/or drinks in exchange for voting. Hardly the same thing as giving someone a cookie along with their I Voted! sticker.
In any case, at my local polling place the cookie market is already cornered: Our polling places are at schools, and at the one in my neighborhood, the PTO has a bake-sale fundraiser set up right at the exit of the polling room. It's within the 75-foot perimeter, but they're not electioneering: They're entirely nonpartisan, and they're selling stuff rather than giving it away.
Polls are just about to close in the UK. Currently in Scotland, on BBC1 we're getting various nonentities babbling at us. Ah - they've closed exit poll suggests the Tories will be just short of an overall majority - 307 seats, short by 19 seats. Lib Dems don't seem to have done as well as expected - projection of 59 seats. Labour projected to get 255, others 29. However, my hunch is that the Tories will do somewhat better than this :-(
Voting has now finished in the UK.
Current prediction via exit polls on ITV is Conservatives 307, Labour 255 and Lib Dems only 59 seats, which is a significant reduction from their present number and quite a shock. This would mean a hung parliament.
Hi maureen.brian *waves back*
I'm in Bradford East which is expected to go to Labour without much trouble. I'll keep an eye on your result for the drama then! Anybody watching the Channel 4 Alternative Election Night?
Lots of caveats from all about the exit polls - they don't include postal votes which are up to 25% of the total. I'd guess that might favour the Tories, but Vince Cable, the Lib Dem economics person, claims a lot went in when they were at their peak in the polls.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the idiot's version of the labor theory of value "If someone is willing to work for it, it has value"?
There's a race to declare the first result - often Sunderland South. They are aiming to declare at 10.43. Harriet Harman, the Deputy PM, has already started talking about electoral reform.
I'm heading to the Oxford Union to watch the results, and will likely check back in on Pharyngula in the early hours of the morning.
I'd like either a majority Conservative government or a Tory-Lib Dem coalition (or a confidence and supply arrangement). A Labour-Lib Dem coalition would be awful, and a Labour majority government (thankfully unlikely) would be disastrous beyond measure.
It really is time to get rid of the bunch of incompetent authoritarians in Whitehall who have steadily eroded individual liberties over the last decade. I'm not going to wax lyrical about some kind of great beautiful future; whatever the outcome, it will still be a future run by politicians, many of whom don't give a toss about freedom or are actively hostile to it. But I can hope and expect that it will be a future brighter than what we've experienced under Gordon Brown.
No mention yet on BBC of the projected share of the vote.
Walton, love, you don't remember the Poll Tax riots, do you?
Peter Mandelson calling for electoral reform too!
No. I'm too young. But you can hardly blame David Cameron for those.
(On a related note, it's sad the way Labour campaign literature lately has been going on about Section 28, as though it were emblematic of Conservative values. News flash: it was decades ago. The Conservatives today have several gay shadow cabinet ministers, and are as LGBT-affirming as any party on the planet.)
The Conservatives today have several gay shadow cabinet ministers, and are as LGBT-affirming as any party on the planet.) - Walton
Total crap, Walton. The PSOE in Spain has implemented gay marriage. The Tories are full of Christobigots.
Emphasis added:
<chortle>
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
Man, are you evil :-D
A reduction?
Clegg pwnz0rs Cameron and Brown in debates, polls go up, there's talk of coalition governments, and then they actually get fewer votes than before???
"Quite a shock" is British understatement.
Oho!
Most people seem pretty shocked by the predicted low number for the Lib Dems.
Reports that many people have been turned away from polling stations when they closed at 10.
@David Marjanović
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donut_holes#Doughnut_holes
Has anyone heard any predictions of the percentage of votes cast for each party rather than numbers of seats?
Walton, I was teasing. Though we disagree sometimes I have quite a bit of respect for you.
I agree that gay front benchers and a lot of what Cameron & Co have been saying are moves in the right direction.
There is, though, something which could undermine your thesis. David Cameron has never taken on and made the case against the neanderthals and loonies in his own party.
He has chosen to ignore them like the good PR bloke he really is - possibly because he hoped they would go away, possibly because he is not enough of a political thinker.
Compare Kinnock vs. Militant - bloody but necessary.
Some of those who voted not that long ago against the repeal of Section 28 will probably be back, as will Nadine Dorries. The nightmare scenario of Cameron being beaten into submission by his own back benchers is still there.
Especially at such a worrying time economically the fight about principle within the Tory party should have happened before he rode to victory on a white charger. Afterwards will be a disaster.
What percentage of the population typically turns out for Brit elections, and is this one expected to be significantly different?
Matt
Ann Widdecombe just joined the team on ITV so I think I may have to change channels!
Estimated 5 minutes to the first result.
In other news, the Dow dropped 1000 points at one point this afternoon in part (maybe a large part) due to a typo.
Apparently a trader putting an order in to sell 1,000,000 shares of P&G put the order in for 1,000,000,000 shares. Or something along those lines.
Yay!
They have at last given some figures about votes (or at least, swing). The exit poll suggests 5.5% to the Tories across the UK, but 7% in England, and a small swing from Tory to Labour in Scotland and Wales.
First result: Houghton and Sunderland South - safe Labour seat. Turnout 55%, up 2%, swing 8.4% Labour to Tory - if the Tories got that, they would get a clear majority - LibDems slightly down.
First result shows swing of 7% from Labour to Conservatives with very little change in Lib Dem votes.
Matt,
Last time was 61%of those registered. Expected to be a bit higher this time.
David M (@451):
Yeah, I wish I were the evil genius you credit me with being, but... see Katrina's link.
I'm sorry to butt in with something completely off-topic, but does anyone know of any way to ease nausea? I got a nasty virus this morning (during fucking dead week) and I want the horrible nausea and dizziness to go away! Keep in mind that I'm in a dorm room...
I would say smoke a joint and being that you are in a dorm room i bet someone nearby has some.
For some reason they've adjusted their exit poll figures, moving 2 seats from Tories to LibDems.
The commentators are rightly outraged about people being unable to vote.
Thanks, but I'd rather avoid drugs. I'm really sensitive to basically all medications, and can't even tolerate caffeine.
Haley @ 465 - ginger is said to be good for nausea - flat ginger ale (if you can get real *ginger* ale) or ginger tea is supposed to help.
David:
[On donut hole]
You do know that a doughnut hole is something you can eat...right?
I second the ginger thing. Crystalized ginger works.
Haley, some ginger tea if you have it or basil tea. If those are a no go try some 7UP, drunk slowly.
Awwww. ;-(
I figured something of this sort must have been going on, but what sounds funny sounds funny!
Evil. Even in the USA people who stand in line can still vote! (IIRC.)
Thanks guys. My hallmate is going to pick up some ginger ale for me, and ginger tea if she can find it.
ACK! ACKACKACKACKACKACKACK!
Fascinating. It's hardly a week since LibDem's talk of PR was denounced as being selfserving and not in the interest of the British Voter.
I got up early, opened my front door, walked across the road to the church/polling station directly opposite, held my nose (again), voted Labour, came back and had a long shower. Never been easier for me to cast my vote, or harder to decide where to put my X.
My constituency is on the parties' "target list" as the one that, if it goes Lab to Tory, will mean a national Tory majority. (#99, or something)
I think the exit polls, which I understand, assume an even swing nationwide, underestimates the Tory/anti-Labour vote in "marginals". I expect to wake up to a Tory UK.
Very disappointed we won't get electoral reform now, which will mean it will be even harder for me, and may others, to find someone to vote for next time.
Second result, Washington and Sunderland West - safe Labour. Tories displacing LibDem in second place, turnout 54%, 11.6% swing from Labour to Tory. I think it's now very likely the Tories will get an overall majority.
As long as republican operatives in trench coats don't scare them away first.
Second seat shows 11.6% swing from Labour to Conservatives. Again, Lib Dem vote shows little change.
Rutee, Shrieking Harpy of Dooooom #443
That's a decent first approximation.
Marx's labor theory of value asserts the value of an object is solely a result of the labor expended to produce it. According to this theory, the more labor or labor time that goes into an object, the more it is worth. Marx defined value as "consumed labor time", and stated that "all goods, considered economically, are only the product of labor and cost nothing except labor".
There are two fundamentally different answers to the question of where economic value originates. According to intrinsic theories of value, value is inherent in objects; remains constant despite changing demand, the passage of time, and other factors; and can be "objectively determined" by calculations based upon a fundamental principle. The labor theory of value is clearly an intrinsic-value theory.
The other approach is the market-exchange theory. According to this theory, value is not inherent in objects, but is a product of many different consumer judgments. According to market-exchange theories, value depends upon people's desires: the more they esteem an object and are willing to trade for it, the more it is worth. This theory is the basis of free-market capitalism, which Marx bitterly opposed.
At first glance, both theories seem to make sense. It is generally true that the more labor invested in an object, the more it is worth; but it's also true that the more people want something regardless of how much or how little labor went into it the more it is worth.
The assertion that labor is the sole determinant of value is hard to accept based on experience. The assertion that only labor gives an object value ignores the fact that many natural objects in which no labor has been invested -- such as scenic views, pure water, gems and minerals, and wild fruits -- have economic value. Also the labor theory cannot by its nature account for the fact that many people value some natural objects, such as diamonds, very much more than other natural objects, such as leaves.
The labor theory of value also fails to take into account changing consumer desires and the contextual nature of value. In a non-automotive culture, horse-shoes are valuable commodities, but in a society without horses they are virtually worthless. Similarly in a society with much leisure time, games and recreational facilities become important, but in a subsistence economy in which people must work nearly continuously just to stay alive, such things may actually have negative value.
Labor theory also ignores the importance of time and position. A heavy overcoat has less value in August than it does in February, except the time value is reversed in the southern hemisphere.
There are other problems with the labor theory of value but I've poked enough holes in it already.
Okay, lecture over. On your heads.
On a completely unrelated topic, I think the Holy Spirit might be heavily into nu-rave...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQdIiEUFtqk
I hope you enjoy this as much as I did :)
Sunderland Central - this was the first the Tories might have taken, but they are very well short - swing of 4.8% - first bit of hope I've had!
They are just showing the Nazi leader, Griffin, turning up for the count at (appropriately) Barking.
Apparently voters in a Hackney polling station have staged a sit-in to protest being turned away, is this confirmed?
'Tis,
I largely agree, but diamonds don't make the case well - it takes a lot of labour to dig diamonds out of the ground!
There was some uncertainty on ITV as to whether people could vote after 10pm. The suggestion is that they may be able to if they were already there. I don't know if that means 'in the queue' or 'in the building'. The rules do not seem to be being applied evenly around the country however, with some polling stations still allowing votes and some turning people away. I wonder if results will be declared invalid if rules have been broken?
Marx's labor theory of value asserts the value of an object is solely a result of the labor expended to produce it. According to this theory, the more labor or labor time that goes into an object, the more it is worth. Marx defined value as "consumed labor time", and stated that "all goods, considered economically, are only the product of labor and cost nothing except labor".
I did some more reading on it, and you're leaving out the use value the thing has to the buyer, and the exchange labor (IE the middleman's cut).
Use Value, appears to me, to take into account what you're talking about. Further, it seems to me that discounting labor costs seems like flawed thinking; Doesn't labor end up the first thing slashed given the opportunity? Wasn't that the whole point of downsizing and outsourcing: Keep the price of products down?
Voters in Sheffield appear to not be allowing the Ballot Box to be taken to the counting centre in a similar protest too.
What is it with my blockquotes being eaten lately?
Peter Hennessey, a political historian, is talking about the constitutional position - Brown can stay in office, if the Tories don't get an overall majority, unless and until he loses a vote of confidence. He also say the Queen is like Heineken lager (she can reach parts of the constitution others cannot reach).
Haley - I strongly recommend you try the science of homeopathy. What you need to do is find something which actually causes nausea, and take a dose of that - I think its called because of the "principle of similar things", or something. But you don't just take it directly, you need to place it in water to dilute it. When in the water, strike it repeatedly, then shake it in every direction (called "concussion"), then place it in even more water to dilute further.
I suggest you take a little bit of whatever it is that nauseates you most. For me, whenever I feel queasy - say, with a hangover or from seeing Glenn Beck's face on a news stand - I try to find a Republican, creationist, or boy band. I find that it is generally easier to place them in the water after causing the concussion, rather than before, which helps reduce time and still seems to work. Once the concussion step is over, I place the fucker item in a large quantity of water. The higher the dilution, the more potent the effect, so I tend to go for drowning dilution in a lake or in the Atlantic Ocean, rather than my bathtub. I always feel better afterwards. Try it!
The Electoral Commission is, in effect, apologising for the shambles at the polling stations. No clear word about what they are going to do about it.
The Electoral Commission has issued a statement saying there will be an enquiry into the problems. There have been problems in Chester, which is a marginal seat - so legal challenges look possible.
Oops... I hit publish instead of preview... methinks that was probably in bad taste... apologies...
Rutee,
I'm not discounting value added by labor. A fair bit of skilled labor goes into cutting a raw diamond into a jewel which increases its value. My point is that value is added by other things besides labor.
Knockgoats,
You're right, diamonds are a poor example. Perhaps placer gold nuggets or amber might be better.
I love voting in my tiny town. ND doesn't require registration, I just stroll down to the little fire dept, go in, grab a doughnut & coffee and vote. No lines, no hassles.
Eeeeeeeuuurrrgh.
Travelers woes.
The Brit next door just yelled at me for talking to loudly but this is the only time I can make a much needed phone call to the States.
Damn it, she'll just have to live with it. My mic for skype is dodgy and I can't pull one from my rear.
There is no science of homeopathy. Just the woo of homeopathy. Thoroughly debunked as the Placebo Effect™. Save your dollars and sense...
Nerd, read the rest of my post - tongue firmly planted in my cheek.