UK results may not be valid. When asked "How happy are you?" most people would say "Mustn't grumble" or "Could be worse". These responses are obligatory in the UK, regardless of one's state of well-being. Saying "I'm not happy" is an act of aggression. "I'm not a happy bunny" is sometimes the prelude to actual violence. Why the placid rabbit has become a symbol of barely controlled fury is a mystery.
There seems a correlation between cold and happy, as in the coldest nations are the happiest, but I'd have thought the opposite. The carribean islands seems closer to paradise than the Aleutian Islands, but maybe there is something to this hell thing in being really hot.
I didn't think Clark was a Massachusettsian name either. You learn something new...
Btw, why would I be waiting outside for my Hot 'n Ready when it's...hot and ready? I just run in there, threaten to pour my Dunken on them in Finnish, and I'm out the door.
There seems a correlation between cold and happy, as in the coldest nations are the happiest, but I'd have thought the opposite. The carribean islands seems closer to paradise than the Aleutian Islands, but maybe there is something to this hell thing in being really hot.
It's pretty cold in Russia. They're not overjoyed. Something needs to be done about Africa and India. The UN should make a committee.
Reply to jamalrob
:grin: I didn't want to whine, but I've been struggling with mosquitos for the last few years. They're an aggressive Japanese kind. I've been trying to reduce their breeding areas, but research shows that my efforts won't work.
There's an invasive Japanese spider in Georgia that eats them, so I'm hoping it will spread up toward where I am.
So I'm kind of ambivalent about summer. Winter is easier.
I didn't want to whine, but I've been struggling with mosquitos for the last few years. They're an aggressive Japanese kind. I've been trying to reduce their breeding areas, but research shows that my efforts won't work.
Those Asian mosquitoes always get the worst reputations.
Reply to frank The Asian tiger mosquitoes I've had dealings with didn't travel far from their pond, so if you found that and annihilated them, you'd be free of them for a while. I was motivated by local reports of dengue fever. South of France, this was.
Reply to jamalrob Yep, it's tiger mosquitoes. We have West Nile virus here. I don't know how to kill them without also killing the honey bees. How did you kill them?
Reply to frank I got my garden boy to sort it out so I'm not sure. I think he put some objects in the water to prevent breeding and kill the eggs or larvae.
When I say garden boy, I mean my business partner and housemate.
Reply to frank Yes I did call him garden boy sometimes. He didn't seem to mind. He called me rat boy, because it was my job to catch the rats and remove the dead ones.
Ah yes, it was mosquito dunks. To be honest I was kind of bullshitting, or talking theoretically. I don't think our attempt at eradicating the tiger mosquitoes worked at all. What I learned is that they don't travel far and if you can find where they're coming from you can, they said, fix the problem. I remember finding this information and going to my garden boy, explaining it to him, and saying, "make it so".
Reply to jamalrob
I read about some research that showed that even insecticide doesn't work for more than a few days. The little assholes are here to stay.
Reply to jamalrob :grin: They actually don't breed in swamps. In Asia they breed in rain water that collects in the little cups formed by broken bamboo. Sounds lovely.
In America they breed in plastic drain pipes or anything that can hold rain water for the ten days it takes them to mature.
I ate shredded wheat--for the fiber, certainly not for the flavor.
I normally start the day rich in fiber myself, today with organic banana and blueberries, coconut yogurt, and crunchy granola – for the fiber, vitamins and stuff, and the flav'a.
First thing in the morning I drink about half a liter of strong green tea, which forces me to have breakfast because otherwise the too strong tea leads to nausea on an empty stomach.
It might, but this is a more recent thing. I didn't drink coffee for 5 years and still didn't eat b'fast. Are those huge blue things really blueberries? I don't think I've ever seen them before, certainly not that large.
Reply to Tom StormReply to praxis It's not who sells them, it's the hybrid variety grown and who bids highest at the planetary blueberry auction house. Of the various berries, the three most nutritionally dense are blackberries, blueberries, and cranberries.
There's an invasive Japanese spider in Georgia that eats them, so I'm hoping it will spread up toward where I am.
Don't talk about Georgia. You know nothing about my ancestral lands and what sorts of spiders we may or may not have.
I control my mosquitos with trout. They eat the nymphs before forming into adults. Each morning I open the door, the trout run out, do their thing, then come back in for a treat and an ear scratch with a belly full of nymph.
We don't use spiders like you suggest. Spiders bite the fuck out of you when you scratch their ears and they leave fluid filled pustules on your fingers.
normally start the day rich in fiber myself, today with organic banana and blueberries, coconut yogurt, and crunchy granola – for the fiber, vitamins and stuff, and the flav'a.
After you finish, you should eat the same thing for dessert by substituting the yogurt with rocky road ice cream.
When I was a little kid I would find these dry odorless white tubular objects, about the size of a Tootsie Roll. I did not eat them because they were clearly some sort of dirt-thing, but I did wonder what they were. Where did they come from? I was surprised to hear that the Tootsie Roll dirt-thing was actually dried up dog shit. Odd.
If mentioning Tootsie Roll made you salivate, here's a picture of Tootsie Roll Industries HQ in. Chicago. Been in business since 1896. Go buy a bagful if you want to keep them in business.
Reply to Bitter Crank As I was leaving my house to embark upon my arduous pilgrimage to the Tootsie Roll factory, my trout arrived with a nymph he captured.
I am taking her with me on my now magical journey. I suspect we'll turn heads when we arrive at the midnight shift.
Shitting bricks happens when you're so overwhelmed in thought, that you can't relax your asshole, to take a shit. As per the definition on urban dictionary.
Reply to CaldwellReply to Wosret Wosret didn't address your question, focused as he was on the transitive function of the verb, 'shitting'. "Shitting bricks' can also reference "dire circumstances so uncomfortable that it would be like excreting large, hard, sharp-edged objects". Those with chronic constipation will understand this (we suppose -- that not being one of our problems).
The adjectival function of shitting makes little sense here. We have never heard of bricks defecating.
The cubic quality of the black object suggests weathered coal. It could, we suppose, be fecal matter deposited and then shaped by some animal with OCD. Kangaroo? Crocodile? Dung beetles shape fecal matter (not their own), but their preferred shape is a ball which can be rolled to some convenient location, for egg-laying and consumption.
The cubic quality of the black object suggests weathered coal. It could, we suppose, be fecal matter deposited and then shaped by some animal with OCD. Kangaroo? Crocodile? Dung beetles shape fecal matter (not their own), but their preferred shape is a ball which can be rolled to some convenient location, for egg-laying and consumption.
My guess is it's a photo of wombat shit. Wombats are famous for their roughly cubic excrement.
Wombats, a larger, ground-dwelling relative of the Koala, are very territorial, have very poor vision, but an excellent sense of smell. As a result they mark their territory with their scats, shitting regularly (around 90 times) over the course of the night as they patrol their borders.
To maximise the odoriferous effect, they shit on the highest nearby object, usually a rock.
To avoid the scats rolling off the rock, they have developed an extraordinary elasticity in the last part of their colon, such that their shits are cuboid. Any proud rock in wombat territory will be crowned with a stack of cubic wombat shit.
It's short for "Dustinnekkauppinnen." Nobody who is not familiar with this, could guess that "Huck" is a short form for "Huckleberry", either. And he was a Finn, too.
god must be atheistMarch 21, 2022 at 09:38#6704440 likes
Seven posts in a row... I think we can agree that I've had my say.
Hire a sharpshooter. Or else (if cheaper) a Darts Champion.
Part of the problem is that I love insects. They're amazing. I mean, just look at the engineering of a fly. All that technology in a tiny package. How could you smash it?
The whole plot has to tilt toward the gruesome before it starts to make sense to annihilate the little wonders.
"There's a conflict in every human heart between good and evil."
Stranger than the shape is how the wombat pooed it perfectly balanced on top of a rock, as though placing it proudly on display. What evolutionary advantage could poo pride possibly have?
It's short for "Dustinnekkauppinnen." Nobody who is not familiar with this, could guess that "Huck" is a short form for "Huckleberry", either. And he was a Finn, too.
You're Hungarian, isn't that right? Do you see any similarities between the Finnish and Hungarian languages?
Part of the problem is that I love insects. They're amazing. I mean, just look at the engineering of a fly. All that technology in a tiny package. How could you smash it?
I understand how you might feel about destroying something so efficient, but I still find it far less difficult personally to smash a fly than a dog.
I understand how you might feel about destroying something so efficient, but I still find it far less difficult personally to smash a fly than a dog.
It's not just efficiency, although that's part of it. They're beautiful.
Dogs have obvious emotions that we can understand. Killing a dog is murder. Killing a fly can't be murder because it's hard to identify with them (for me, anyway).
Dogs have obvious emotions that we can understand. Killing a dog is murder. Killing a fly can't be murder because it's hard to identify with them (for me, anyway).
Killing a dog isn't murder actually. It's frowned upon, but not murder.
I tripped over Fred and fell onto him, sort of smashing him. He sleeps in the dark hallway on the way to the bathroom. He didn't seem to really care. He just wondered why I would do that.
I know they are from the same language group. That has always fascinated me. I was asking whether god must be atheist could recognize similarities.
They're in the same language family, so it's possible they have as much and as little similarity as, say, Russian and English, which, like Finnish And Hungarian, are on different subdivisions of the same family.
My uninformed guess is that Finnish and Hungarian have some cognates that are as clear as those between Russian and English, like these:
sister/sestra
brother/brat
two, three/dva, tri
nose/nos
My uninformed guess is that Finnish and Hungarian have some cognates that are as clear as those between Russian and English, like these:
I think you're probably right, but I was looking for a little more. I took German as a freshman in college and immediately felt at home in the language in a way that I never felt in French. I was wondering if there was that sense of recognition between Finnish and Hungarian. My guess is that there isn't.
Reply to T Clark Yeah, English and German are on the same branch of Indo-European, whereas English and French are not. Finnish and Hungarian are on different branches of Uralic so they might be as different as English and French.
I couldn't get on with French either, and yet Spanish was pretty comfortable, despite being on the same branch as French. So I guess it's not all about family branches.
I couldn't get on with French either, and yet Spanish was pretty comfortable, despite being on the same branch as French. So I guess it's not all about family branches.
My brother and I went to Europe together in 2014. He had lived in France for three years and is fluent. As I wrote, I took one year of German in 1971 and ... am not fluent. I spent three months with disks relearning German. Even so, I was far from fluent. I also had my high school French. I have never had more fun. We had philosophical conversations in French with his Belgian friends. He would translate when I got lost. I would try to tell jokes in French and he would explain the odd looks I got when I did. I was our primary German translator. A lot came back, including that feeling of being at home. I love the feel of that "ich" sound in the back of my throat. We don't have it in English.
English and German are on the same branch of Indo-European, whereas English and French are not.
According to https://www.historyhit.com/why-are-so-many-english-words-latin-based/, 60% of English words are Latin based, making it closer to a Romance language than a Germanic one. But then I read somewhere else that 60% of English words were either Greek or Latin based. If Greek, then it would be Hellenic and not Roman. The article gives all sorts of reasons for that, but I had thought the main reason was the Norman invasion of 1066, but I always heard it had something to do with the sciences and that terminology.
With modern English, I think it's such a hybrid it's hard to place it specifically on one branch, but as you go back in time it becomes more and more Germanic.
I find French very easy to read and to decipher due to the common roots, but I can't understand it when its spoken by a native speaker.
Reply to jamalrobReply to T Clark Alas, I am not multi-lingual. But it does seem like there is more to the difficulty of other languages than the 'distance' between branches.
English simplified itself, dropping a lot of the Anglo-Saxon inflections. I've found the relationship between spelling and pronunciation in French especially frustrating while the sound/spelling relationship in Spanish is pretty straight-forward. I suppose English learners find a lot of problems with English spelling too.
Were the Finns to conquer England next week (good idea? Yes? No?), the next generation of children would be bilingual in Finn and English, without any difficulty. Language difficulty is mostly the province of post-language-plasticity among adults.
the core of the language remains Anglo-Saxon--and on average, 70% of the words used in English writing are Anglo-Saxon (this is despite the fact that 70% of English words are actually now Latin- and French-based; many of these words are technical and are therefore less commonly used).
In other words, the 60 or 70% figure for Latin/Greek is misleading because it includes lots of words that aren't used much, particularly in non-technical language. English is still basically Germanic.
Reply to Hanover Yes, Richard the Conqueror--a Frenchman from the part of France previously conquered by the Germanic Franks (who named the non-germanic place after themselves) and Germanic-language speaking Norse, hence Normandy, did impregnate English with a lot of French brats, but Anglo-Saxon grammar prevailed. The Latin content in English didn't come from the French, though French is a Latinate language. Mostly it came from the Latin-speaking intellectual and clerical industries. Starting in the 15th-16th century they coined a lot of new words. The vocabulary of Middle English just wasn't expansive enough to carry the increased intellectual freight. Shakespeare was a fertile neologism generator. For example...
Bandit, Henry VI, Part 2. 1594 Critic, Love’s Labour Lost. 1598. Dauntless, Henry VI, Part 3. 1616. Dwindle, Henry IV, Part 1. 1598. Elbow (as a verb), King Lear. 1608. Green-Eyed (to describe jealousy), The Merchant of Venice. 1600. Lackluster, As You Like It. 1616. Lonely, Coriolanus. 1616. Skim-milk, Henry IV, Part 1. 1598. Swagger, Midsummer Night’s Dream. 1600.
He created or gave new meaning to more than 300 words that begin with "un". Unaware, Venus & Adonis. 1593. Uncomfortable, Romeo & Juliet. 1599 Undress, Taming of the Shrew. 1616. Unearthly, A Winter’s Tale. 1616 Unreal, Macbeth. 1623
"Alienate" is an example of a neologism based on Latin roots. One of the Sir [blank] Moore people. There was a lot of that. later on, learnéd physicians started giving names to parts and diseases based on Ancient Greek. So, "pneumonia".
Reply to Baden Very well, picking up where we left off. If all dialects are on equal footing with regard to describing the world, with specific prescriptive rules having no particular legitimacy, why teach grammar as a means to instruct people how to communicate?
We need to get to the bottom of this.
unenlightenedMarch 21, 2022 at 22:21#6707620 likes
why teach grammar as a means to instruct people how to communicate?
Because it's the only aspect of communication that can be mechanised (along with spelling of course.).
Otherwise you would have to have good communicators in schools to model good practice.
Their world. If your world includes accountancy, you need more than three numbers and so on. And within each world are subworlds with different specific needs and expectations re communication style, of which an explicit knowledge can be useful (and often necessary); hence top-down standardized grammatical literacy can complement bottom-up diversified linguistic competency. This doesn't detract from the base-level given re the latter in any functioning human community.
Reply to Baden We start though with the assumption that within communities there is grammatical consistency which is our basis for claiming equality among dialects. To the extent my grammar varies from yours, it only identifies we're of different communities, not that I'm inferior. To the extent I fail in my community's linguistic expectations, that judgment is prejudice and the problem lies with them, not me so long as my words convey my thoughts.
For you to insist upon a subculture following your standardized language on the basis that your standard will help their language competency appears to be a pretextual effort to make them talk right and act right. Why not identify their standards and advance those and even adopt those as your own?
My point being that language is an obvious means to maintain the status quo, so let us openly teach our grammar as a tool for social advancement and leave the idea of equal rights for all dialects as a purely academic truth, true as it may in fact be.
Because it's the only aspect of communication that can be mechanised (along with spelling of course.).
Otherwise you would have to have good communicators in schools to model good practice.
But do you think strong oratory skills are at all related to mastery of grammar and vocabulary? I'd think for some yes, but then I think of the persuasive backwoods preacher as well.
Very well, picking up where we left off. If all dialects are on equal footing with regard to describing the world, with specific prescriptive rules having no particular legitimacy, why teach grammar as a means to instruct people how to communicate?
Chomsky, Pinker, et. al. claim that children do not learn grammar, they invent it new every time. If you talk to them in grammarless pidgin, they will create a creole with grammar. Grammar is hardwired.
Chomsky, Pinker, et. al. claim that children do not learn grammar, they invent it new every time. If you talk to them in grammarless pidgin, they will create a creole with grammar. Grammar is hardwired.
I've read otherwise, particularly with deaf children who aren't taught language but form their own hand signals. Their self created language is far inferior to actual teaching them a developed sign language.
You're Hungarian, isn't that right? Do you see any similarities between the Finnish and Hungarian languages?
The two languages separated at a time which nobody can point out. We don't know when the two nations separated, or where, or why. Hungarians came out of the east, apparently fleeing something fierce and fearful, in the first millennium, and they travelled west. Hungarians eventually settled the Carpathian Basin.
I don't know Finnish, which is as far removed from Hungarian and vice versa as ancient Greek is from Modern German. So I can't tell you if there are any similarities that may make one speaking one language understand the other. There are several words (about fifty to eighty, if I remember the history lesson well) that are basic words in the vocabulary of forest-dwelling natives: arm, blood, artery, tree, grass, honey, teat, etc. And apparently the grammar is similar, although in its details nothing shadows the other one. By that I mean that role in the sentence of words are expressed by suffixes, and by postpositional words; and there are no genders and there are no prepositions (in, by, for, etc.). However, the suffixes and postposition words are dissimilar.
Hungarian has been heavily influenced by Turkish, Slavic languages, and German. In the early 1800s a movement of language innovation took place, which was quite successful, but further removed the vocabulary base from Finnish. These days anglocised Latin words are entering the language by the droves; using Latin words along with memes from the ancient Greek and Roman mythologies dominated the culture also in some parts of the 1800s, but the war of revolution and independence of 1848 gave rise to patriotic nationalism, at a time when the masses of the whole world had been enamoured by the paradigm set by America and France: Liberty, independence, and equality of men. This steered to use the language in a purer way, that is, with using fewer foreign words.
I suspect Finnish was influenced by Russian, and by Germanic languages, such as Danish, Swedish, Ogdenian, and Preturian. (These last two are fictious languages which I just made up.)
The twentieth century saw a few Yiddish words come into the Hungarian language. Despite the long Russian occupation, and Russian language as a Russian as a Second Language being compulsory subject from grade five to post-graduate studies, very few Russian words entered the language. Most Hungarians, even those who grew up in that era of Russian domination don't speak Russian at all, let alone speak it well.
The vogue is now to use English words with Hungarian spelling, in purely Hungarian text. This throws me for a loop, because the pronunciation is screwed up. I don't understand my own brethren when they speak with English words that have been melded into the language. And because Hungarian is heavily phonetic language, and they write the English words with Hungarian spelling, I stare at the words in texts with the same bewilderment as Joseph stared at the baby.
god must be atheistMarch 22, 2022 at 00:37#6708140 likes
deaf children who aren't taught language but form their own hand signals. Their self created language is far inferior to actual teaching them a developed sign language.
I heard similar things about children blind from birth who were asked to describe the female beauty and to analyze Picasso's Guernica for artistic merit including symbolism and bad painting skills. And no amount of straps, severe beatings and denial of dinner before bedtime would have any effect on their account on art.
I've read otherwise, particularly with deaf children who aren't taught language but form their own hand signals. Their self created language is far inferior to actual teaching them a developed sign language.
I was trying to remember what Pinker wrote about sign language in "The Language Instinct." When I looked on the web, I came up with this about deaf children in Nicaragua who created their own sign language. Here's a link:
According to the article, the children developed a sophisticated language with strong grammatical rules, now called NSL, Nicaraguan Sign Language. The whole nature vs. nurture is apparently still going strong in the study of language.
god must be atheistMarch 22, 2022 at 01:16#6708320 likes
The following is not a joke, this I stand by, even if I can't unearth evidence of such events by some research I'll be asked to do. I read about the following in the seventies and eighties.
I heard similar stories about apes who had rudimentary language skills by sign language or by manipulating objects that were in a way used to express things in a symbolic language. Some authors mentioned (don't ask who, why or when, because I don't know) that when a human conversationalist with chimpanzees put "You go eat run" the chimpanzee protested and said, by replacing the last symbol, to form the sentence "I go eat banana" or something similar. Chimpanzees had the same language intuition inasmuch as using verbs and nouns as humans used them by functionality.
Another author asked a gorilla, "Are gorillas animals? Are gorillas humans?" The gorilla replied, "Gorilla is animal."
Then again, yet a third, completely different set of authors claim that the language of gorillas and chimpanzees were always replies, to a well structured human-made sentence they supposedly understood, but this third set of authors claimed that the sign language by gorillas and the symbol manipulation by chimpanzees was not a function of their language skills, but a response to a human initiation, and they were meaningless imitative gestures.
Reply to T Clark Interesting. I read the opposite in a book by Oliver Sacks a while ago. His examples didn't include groups of deaf children interacting but children trying to communicate with their parents.
It'd be Interesting if we could take a bunch of babies and isolate them and see what language they were speaking in a few years. My guess is that they'd be saying things like, "Wow! I'm really hungry" and stuff like that.
Reply to god must be atheist My dog use to scratch the door to go outside, i suppose because he thought that might open it. He quickly learned he could scratch it once, and I'd come open it. He then learned he could just wave his foot near the door and then I'd open it. My dog taught me sign language and how to open the door, proving even I can learn language.
My dog taught me sign language and how to open the door, proving even I can learn language.
My bedbugs taught me to scratch where it itches. I'm 68 years of age. My BBs are, on the average, a few weeks old. This taught me that you are never too old to rock n roll, which is actually a euphemism for onania* and squeezing bedbugs to death.
* Google speller and error checker was based on a Victorian dictionary's vocabulary, inasmuch as it denies that humanity and/or human nature continues below the belt. It red-squiggly-underlined "onania". It offers no alternative spelling for this perfectly useful and for its semantics well-accepted word.
god must be atheistMarch 22, 2022 at 01:57#6708530 likes
Reply to Sapien1 The claims of Chris Langan in this video are in perfect line with the legendary Christian mythology. He added nothing and took away nothing from the Christian message. He is not saying anything new, furthermore, he offers no evidence, no support for his claims. You have your own conscience to decide to believe him and his claims or not.
He compels no one to change their thinking who are not in line with his claim, for his claims can't be substantiated. Nothing he says can be proven, and therefore his claims can be validly and summarily rejected or else subjectively accepted.
god must be atheistMarch 22, 2022 at 01:59#6708550 likes
It'd be Interesting if we could take a bunch of babies and isolate them and see what language they were speaking in a few years. My guess is that they'd be saying things like, "Wow! I'm really hungry" and stuff like that.
god must be atheistMarch 22, 2022 at 02:03#6708600 likes
My dog use to scratch the door to go outside, i suppose because he thought that might open it. He quickly learned he could scratch it once, and I'd come open it. He then learned he could just wave his foot near the door and then I'd open it.
My dog used to scratch the door, too, but not for the same reason as yours, but because the door itched for him. If my dog wants to go out, he says, "Asshole, open the door already or else."
My dog use to scratch the door to go outside, i suppose because he thought that might open it. He quickly learned he could scratch it once, and I'd come open it. He then learned he could just wave his foot near the door and then I'd open it. My dog taught me sign language and how to open the door, proving even I can learn language.
I knew a cat who, as a kitten, was taught to wash her paws before eating. Little did the owner know that the then kitten would become an adult and have kittens. Two of her kittens ended up learning to wash their paws before eating. The mother cat showed them how to do it. (There was a bowl of water, they would dip their paws in the bowl of water, just like the mother cat did)
Reply to Bitter Crank Also, cats do really observe and copy humans. But you have to be with them 24/7 to make this happen. This cat owner stayed at home with the cats for a long time.
Inspired by Tom Storm, I'm just having black coffee this morning. I've made the discovery that abstaining from bacon, sausage, haggis, and eggs reduces my calorie intake, which is a necessity for me now that the premium on sveltitude is rising at every turn.
I wasn't getting into any normative stuff, just describing the way things work. Part of my last post was to recognize that the teaching of the standard dominant grammar is a tool for social advancement. And, yes, subculture dialects are equal linguistically in that they fulfil their social function pretty much just by continuing to exist in standardised forms in particular groups. So maybe we agree on that much and I don't know what else there is to it in terms of 'equality'. Obviously, there's a sense in which a subculture dialect isn't 'equal' to a dominant dialiect when it's out of its particular context because it doesn't fulfil the same communicative function or may present barriers to communication. And vice versa.
After many years of division and rancour, I sense agreement coming.
god must be atheistMarch 22, 2022 at 10:03#6710620 likes
Reply to T Clark
Careful. I did not make a claim about my IQ other than what was SAID about it. You can say anything about anything, you should consider that too.
My claim was a response to @Sapien1, who claimed Chris Langan's IQ was said to be something. If it's a slugfest, then I'm in it, I said to myself quietly.
Inspired by Tom Storm, I'm just having black coffee this morning. I've made the discovery that abstaining from bacon, sausage, haggis, and eggs reduces my calorie intake, which is a necessity for me now that the premium on sveltitude is rising at every turn.
Studies are on both sides of this issue. Some say eating breakfast helps weight loss, others the opposite. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/weight-loss/expert-answers/food-and-nutrition/faq-20058449#:~:text=Answer%20From%20Katherine%20Zeratsky%2C%20R.D.,also%20help%20with%20weight%20control.
If I were you, I'd pick the study to justify what I wanted to do.
Reply to Hanover I guess eating breakfast helps weight loss when it stops you getting so hungry that you stuff yourself with fried fingerlings at 11am.
god must be atheistMarch 22, 2022 at 10:32#6710750 likes
Yes, it's been long enough that Hanover can back down while saving face because no-one remembers the original argument. :smile:
I never noticed that @Hanover ever says anything contrary to someone else's claim or opinion in a tone or structure of an argument. I read in @Hanover's expressions about a very different world but not one that excludes what others say about the world... just different, and at the same time quietly coexisting. His opinions are not put forward as the "only truth" such as an argument about the existence of god by theists and by atheists.
God who knows all things between the Alpha and the Omega apparently thought that at the time Latin was pretty good, and then 1600 years later, modern Elizabethan English was even better. That goes to show that while the Jews were the chosen people, Hebrew apparently wasn't the chosen language.
But... Alpha and Omega are Greek... It's all very confusing.
O Canada! Our home and native land!
that slop, poutine, does not come can'd.
Stale Fries, bad cheese, and rancid gravy
O Canada, let us die of poutine poisoning.
god must be atheistMarch 22, 2022 at 22:42#6713960 likes
Reply to T Clark Sorry if I sounded defensive. I did not intend to. I just wanted to avoid later accusations "your IQ, GMBA, is not 290, because the theoretical maximum is 240" or something like that.
If someone has a normal curve values table, and can look up at what deviation occurs 1 out of seven billion, that's then reinterpret that value to the corresponding IQ, then one could know what the theoretical maximum is.
Anyway, @T Clark, I did not take offence at all whatsoever of your observation. I never thought of it as criticism let alone cutting criticism. I am only paranoid if I am in a bad mood or if I am angry, or if my ego shield is very weak.
Amazon delivered me my tartan sleeping hat with a big white ball atop. It's going to get into the 60s tonight, so I'll need it. Just putting it on makes me drowsy and makes all my words slur. Gonna be a restful night. Wish me luck!
Amazon delivered me my tartan sleeping hat with a big white ball atop. It's going to get into the 60s tonight, so I'll need it. Just putting it on makes me drowsy and makes all my words slur. Gonna be a restful night. Wish me luck!
With rare exceptions, I only play blitz, and that habit, besides general low intelligence and not seriously studying the game, has left me with a much lower rating than yours.
With rare exceptions, I only play blitz, and that habit, besides general low intelligence and not seriously studying the game, has left me with a much lower rating than yours.
Usually 3 to 5 days per move is the time control, but most move a few times a day. It's the online version of postal chess, if you're old enough to remember that.
Been reading some horror stories about dog attacks in the news lately. I don't even want to link they're that upsetting. Be fucking careful and don't take anything for granted. I tend to be very blasé around dogs but I may have to change my tune.
Maybe. Although my gf used to own both a Rottweiler and a Pittbull and the Pitbull's name was 'Devil', so maybe not. :lol: The Rottweiler bit me once after I pulled another dog's head out of it's mouth. And it was the more well behaved of the pair.
Anyhow, the Rottweiler eventually hung itself and the Pitbull drowned in a flood or something. Can't even remember. There was general doggie carnage going on for years.
Anyhow, the Rottweiler eventually hung itself and the Pitbull drowned in a flood or something. Can't even remember. There was general doggie carnage going on for years.
I usually buy my dogs dead to start with to avoid the later disappointment.
god must be atheistMarch 23, 2022 at 22:37#6720520 likes
I had a schnauzer that bit everyone but me. People would ask if he bit, and I'd say "he'll bite the shit out of you, " but they'd pet him anyway and get bitten.
Reminds me of a joke.
A kid is sitting outside a store with a dog. A man comes up and says, "Hey there son, does your dog bite?" The kid says no. The man pets the dog and gets bitten. The man says "You said your dog didn't bite!"
I tend to be very blasé around dogs but I may have to change my tune.
I've been paranoid about dogs for all my life. It's the fact you can't reason with them that makes me not trust them. I liken them to drunkards. Drunk drunkards, not sober ones. Once they make up their minds you are evil, and while the judgment is completely arbitrary, there is nothing you can say or do to appease them.
I can see the good point in dogs, too. They are man's best friends, truly. It is heart-warming when they run up to you when you get home, and they wrap their arms around your legs like your three-year-old human baby. And I have two dog stories that literally make my eyes water. My eyes also water when I hear Edie Brickell sing, "Philosophy... is a walk on a slippery rock, Religion... is a smile on a dog."
But the hounds of hell scare the shit out of me. And they can be a dobbermann, a bourgeoise, a poodle, or a frise bison. Before I get to know them, and before they get to know me, we are strangers and mortal enemies to each other.
Oh, and when they talk down to you and they protect the fucking rustbucket their owners drive. Shit.
Some people have IQs over 200. Theoretically the upper limit does not exist.
So theoretically the lower limit does not exist either. IQ is not an absolute measure of the smarts, it is a ranking measure... how many blokes are between you and the bloke in the middle, expressed in percentages. So if you have an IQ of 210, then some other person may have an IQ of -10, and still be a person.
god must be atheistMarch 23, 2022 at 22:51#6720710 likes
how many blokes are between you and the bloke in the middle, expressed in percentages. So if you have an IQ of 210, then some other person may have an IQ of -10, and still be a person.
There's.a negative bloke in the middle? Kind of like a human shaped hole in spacetime? :chin:
god must be atheistMarch 23, 2022 at 22:53#6720750 likes
There's.a negative bloke in the middle? Kind of like a human shaped hole in spacetime? :chin:
It's all about dark energy, as an atheist you wouldn't understand. I used to deal continental jazz cigarettes to the Russian mafia until I discovered Scholasticism in a bath full of vodka. You're a google boy, not a man, man.
Its all about dark energy, as an atheist you wouldn't underhand. I used to deal continental jazz cigarettes to the Russian mafia until I discovered Scholasticism in a bath full of vodka. You're a google boy, not a man, man.
A kid is sitting outside a store with a dog. A man comes up and says, "Hey there son, does your dog bite?" The kid says no. The man pets the dog and gets bitten. The man says "You said your dog didn't bite!"
"Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council who also previously served as the country's president and prime minister, wrote in a post on Russian social networking site VK.com that Russia has been "the target of the same mediocre and primitive game" since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"This means that Russia must be humiliated, limited, shaken, divided and destroyed," Medvedev wrote, saying if Americans succeed in that objective, "here is the result: the largest nuclear power with an unstable political regime, weak leadership, a collapsed economy and the maximum number of nuclear warheads aimed at targets in the US and Europe.""
Yea, that happened 40 years ago. What went wrong that we're doing it again? Anybody know?
I play fight with dogs. The last two we've had have both bitten me almost daily, but not hard. They learn after awhile to not bite hard enough to bruse you. It takes a little time for them to learn the right amount of preasure though, and until they learned that I would be covered in bruses. My wife thinks it's a bad habit to encourage and it will make them prone to biting others. I naturally disagree. Our last dog never bit anyone else but me and our current dog hasn't bit anyone else eigher (knock on wood).
So theoretically the lower limit does not exist either. IQ is not an absolute measure of the smarts, it is a ranking measure... how many blokes are between you and the bloke in the middle, expressed in percentages. So if you have an IQ of 210, then some other person may have an IQ of -10, and still be a person.
[joke]It's my understanding that as you travel closer and closer to the speed of light your IQ approaches infinity. [/joke]
"Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council who also previously served as the country's president and prime minister, wrote in a post on Russian social networking site VK.com that Russia has been "the target of the same mediocre and primitive game" since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"This means that Russia must be humiliated, limited, shaken, divided and destroyed," Medvedev wrote, saying if Americans succeed in that objective, "here is the result: the largest nuclear power with an unstable political regime, weak leadership, a collapsed economy and the maximum number of nuclear warheads aimed at targets in the US and Europe.""
I actually agree with this. The expansion of NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union was a slap in the face to Russia. I can see why they feel it undermined their security. We are reaping what we sowed.
Russia/USSR was always paranoid about keeping barriers between themselves and the rest of Europe. Geez, I wonder why. If we had just treated the newly freed former Soviet satellites as free, neutral countries instead of moving in and crowding Russia's borders, I think things would be better now. A stable Russia which felt secure would be a good thing for the world.
Reply to T Clark
So when Poland applied for NATO membership, it should have been turned down? Is that what you mean? Or Europe and the US shouldn't have sent economic advisors?
So when Poland applied for NATO membership, it should have been turned down? Is that what you mean?
I doubt Poland would have asked for membership without European and US encouragement. We should have made it clear that we wouldn't impinge on areas that Russia considered buffers. So, yes. If countries in eastern Europe wanted to join NATO, the should have been turned down. Maybe Russia would not have been provoked as much by letting them join the EU. The west was given a gift and we ruined it with our arrogance.
I doubt Poland would have asked for membership without European and US encouragement. We should have made it clear that we wouldn't impinge on areas that Russia considered buffers. So, yes. If countries in eastern Europe wanted to join NATO, the should have been turned down. Maybe Russia would not have been provoked as much by letting them join the EU. The west was given a gift and we ruined it with our arrogance.
So, you think this is an unbiased account? I'm an American and I care about my country, but I can see our arrogance and blindness in our relations with other countries. You may think the linked document is convincing evidence of your position, I don't find it so.
There's no need to continue this. I've had my say. You've had yours.
I doubt Poland would have asked for membership without European and US encouragement.
Is it possible that Poland, perhaps, had experiences in the not-very-distant-past of being invaded and occupied that led it to consider belonging to NATO as a protective measure???
Suppose pigs could fly and Ukraine has been admitted to the EU and NATO before 2014, would they be:
a) better off (safer)
b) no better off (no safer)
c) worse off (less safe)
Why would encouraging Poland (+ Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania too?) to join NATO be an act of arrogance?
For many Western observers, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the implosion of Russian power demonstrated the permanent superiority of the United States. The perception that Russia’s decline was so deep and irreversible that it would no longer be able to resist Western initiatives made it difficult to accept Moscow’s pushback against Western policies. This was a particular problem when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) pursued several rounds of enlargement in the 1990s and early 2000s under U.S. leadership. U.S. leaders ignored Russia’s objections and underestimated the lengths to which Russian counterparts were prepared to go to secure the homeland against perceived threats.
Second, American policymakers and experts have long paid too little attention to the drivers of Russia’s external behavior. Russian threat perceptions are part of an inheritance heavily shaped by geography and a history of troubled relations with other major European powers. They are compounded by the trauma of the loss of its empire, the lingering ideology of greatness, and a sense of entitlement based on its sacrifice in World War II. President Vladimir Putin stokes all of them for domestic political gain.
The continued tendency to dismiss Russia as a “has been” or declining power whose bark will always be worse than its bite can lead to the United States overextending itself, making unrealistic commitments, and risking a dangerous escalation with the one country that is still its nuclear peer competitor. The push to expand NATO without taking into account the possibility of Russia reemerging as a major military power was an example of such thinking, which is to be avoided in the future.
They don't use the word "arrogant", but the accusation is clear enough.
Referring to the availability of medicines in Russia, Roszdravnadzor, the federal health care supervisor, says it "sees no problems with their availability in the country." That's a relief, because the complete lack of my daily medicine throughout Moscow had me worried for a minute.
god must be atheistMarch 24, 2022 at 08:34#6722950 likes
Reply to Baden Careful what you wish for... I ain't no vegetarian. I'm more of a humanitarian.
god must be atheistMarch 24, 2022 at 08:40#6722970 likes
Reply to jamalrob I fear that in my own country, too. Canada. The land of plenty has started to see soaring food prices, shortages, and skyrocketing gas prices.
Next? they will cut back on poor people's luxuries, then on poor people's essentials. That's where I come in. I take a ton of medications. Whose interest will lie in keeping me alive?
Well, I'll die eventually, I hope. Eternal life is for the gods, whether they exist or not. So if it comes for me ten-fifteen years too early, so be it.
god must be atheistMarch 24, 2022 at 08:51#6723010 likes
It becomes a reason to ignore my point. How is that helpful?
I'd say it's for the greater good.
Soviet Union? Maybe a Federal Union or a United States of Eurasia. Communism failed mostly for poor management of economic resoures and mechanisms. The top management and executive body made many, many mistakes. One which is not talked about much is their treatment of national economics the same way as a household economy. That is: save money, spend only cash that you already made, restrict spending. They had periods periodically, for periods of a year or a few years when capital investment (new buildings, new machinery, etc.) were forbidden to buy.
In the vast west credit was the boss. You could spend money you did not own or earned. Stimulated the economy like crazy!
There were tons of other mistakes regarding the economy: discouraging innovation, nepotism, despotism, inability to enforce work ethic, theft by workers of equipment and materials that went unchecked,
The communist economic idea was an ideal idea. The European Union is practicing it now, with the Germans' leadership. The Europeans are socialists, capitalists, and have a quasi-centrally planned economy. A beauty. Too bad in any second it will be reduced to rabble.
god must be atheistMarch 24, 2022 at 11:05#6723660 likes
They don't use the word "arrogant", but the accusation is clear enough.
The competition between the two nations was created by both. Whether it be the space program, the military, the Olympic athletes, the arts, the sciences, we had this need to each prove our system's superiority. Russia lost. Bad.
The defeat resulted in the US collecting the spoils, consisting of the ability to expand influence unchecked by the now fallen empire. There was no obnoxious end zone dance, just living out the consequences of victory and defeat.
Had the US showed its vanquished enemy greater sensitivity and insisted the former Soviet states be left as they were without access to NATO, the EU, or a general western welcome, I have serious doubts that kind gesture would have been rewarded in this dog eat dog world. My speculation is that Poland et al would be finding itself in the shoes of Crimea, and the pundits would be asking why we didn't seize upon the opportunity to protect those folks when Russia was at its weakest.
All conjecture of what might have been, but right now, this second, Russia's in a war that isn't going to accomplish its goals. It's fucking up. Again. The fear is how this injured animal is going to react
The fear is how this injured animal is going to react
Backed into a corner with just his ego? The injured animal would rather escape by chewing it's own limb off and die alone than to give into those abusing them. If the abuser is present while still cornered? An injured animal has more power than one who is uninjured. I don't mean in the sense of broken limbs but in the mind. The mind of an injured animal is fierce and has the ability to maintain and channel that chaotic mess into fuel for powerful comebacks, even if they know they are going to die in the process.
To die while escaping your past actions, your current chaos and anyone else's need for accountability is a hell of a lot easier than negotiating with the abuser.
And the honor that befalls a man who has fought and died for his country? Hero
Maybe not our "hero" but in his truth, just like our own truth, he is the one who knows the 'right' way life should be. He would much rather die trying than to lay down and let the world walk over him.
Wouldn't you?
I think the EGO is actively engaged and like anyone else, we need to provide him an off ramp, a way to save face. I say this not because of who we are dealing with, I just know that an injured animal allowed to go free, will either live or die by that choice but it has to be THEIR choice.
Is it possible that Poland, perhaps, had experiences in the not-very-distant-past of being invaded and occupied that led it to consider belonging to NATO as a protective measure???
I understand why Poland would have wanted to join NATO, but I think the it was US and European policy that made it happen. I remember back under Clinton when it was all happening. I'm not that sophisticated in foreign policy, but I knew it was a mistake then.
I have serious doubts that kind gesture would have been rewarded in this dog eat dog world. My speculation is that Poland et al would be finding itself in the shoes of Crimea, and the pundits would be asking why we didn't seize upon the opportunity to protect those folks when Russia was at its weakest.
When you live next to a big, big dog, you have to learn how to get along like our neighbors and China's. Ukraine still lives next to one of the biggest. It's not our job to provide protection for eastern Europe at the risk to our own security. I think it's also bad for the former USSR republics and satellite states. It makes the big dog angry and afraid. Not a good idea.
The US "collecting the spoils" has been bad, dangerous policy.
I agree, even forgetting Russia still has lots and lots of nuclear weapons.
That would be an amazing first step. Truly.
The fact that he has said anything about them means they are a precious last resort, he knew before he said it that it is the very last bullet in the chamber and it is a suicide bullet, self engraved with his own name.
The way we should have responded was not to give more attention to the child throwing a tantrum, by not acknowledging the child verbally but not dismissing the threat they might pose to themselves and to others. It's kinda like being an adult.
I am afraid that the media enhanced Unicorn that Putin is riding has left the proverbial barn and he had help opening the gate, us.
Nuclear weapons sound sexxy, they grab attention and eyes drawn to the news, hearts are engaged in this world we all reside in, until one is used and that is when reality sets in.
I absolutely agree with you that we should not focus on the shinny warheads he has and try to get into his mind, compassionately, for he too is human and can find himself biting off more than he could chew.
We need to provide an offramp to him...
Humanity is a privilege and should be regarded, nurtured and handled with both hands.
[i]As I sit here, and oftentimes, I wish
I could be monarch of a desert land
I could devote and dedicate forever
To the truths we keep coming back and back to.
So desert it would have to be, so walled
By mountain ranges half in summer snow,
No one would covet it or think it worth
The pains of conquering to force change on.
Scattered oases where men dwelt, but mostly
Sand dunes held loosely in tamarisk
Blown over and over themselves in idleness.
Sand grains should sugar in the natal dew
The babe born to the desert, the sand storm
Retard mid-waste my cowering caravans-
'There are bees in this wall.' He struck the clapboards,
Fierce heads looked out; small bodies pivoted.
We rose to go. Sunset blazed on the windows.[/i]
Yes, I know I've used this quote before, and I'll use it again.
It's not our job to provide protection for eastern Europe at the risk to our own security.
WWII offers a counterexample of that. The assumption that appeasement will eventually satisfy an appetite is a bad one.
But more importantly, NATO has completely provided protection to eastern and western Europe in the countries that belong to it. Its absence from Ukraine is what has caused this war. An argument could be made from that that if the west more aggressively recruited eastern European countries into NATO and the EU at the time of Russia's recent collapse, Russia would have been effectively isolated and not provided any outlet for new empire building.
I'd argue that it's not NATO expansion that caused this war, but that it's incomplete NATO expansion that caused it.
Reply to T Clark Perhaps you could be more explicit about how the USSR/Russia gave us the chance for whirled peas and we thumbed our noses and laughed at it?
Russia appears now to be pursuing a revanchist policy towards reconstructing the USSR. That's not surprising. Losing large chunks of official Real Estate is generally considered undesirable. Remember how the US went out of its way to regain the states that seceded in 1860? Both the Confederacy and the Union courted the two major European powers at that time -- Britain and France -- with different aims, to be sure.
But more importantly, NATO has completely provided protection to eastern and western Europe in the countries that belong to it. Its absence from Ukraine is what has caused this war.
The presence of NATO in eastern Europe makes the potential for war a much bigger problem. If Russia invaded a NATO country, the US would be obligated to send troops. Then there would be Russian and US troops fighting each other. What could possibly go wrong? I don't see that the US has any national security concern that makes expanding NATO a good idea. Or that makes getting actively involved in Ukraine for that matter. We share some of the blame for where the country is now. We supported the overthrow of a democratically elected government.
Perhaps you could be more explicit about how the USSR/Russia gave us the chance for whirled peas and we thumbed our noses and laughed at it?
The USSR dismantled itself in an incredibly peaceful manner in an incredibly short time. We won the cold war!!! Yay!!! It would have been so easy for us to demilitarize eastern Europe. InstI'ead, we put NATO right on Russia's borders. Russia moved out it's troops and we moved ours in.
Russia appears now to be pursuing a revanchist policy towards reconstructing the USSR.
I'm sure there are lots of people in Russia who thinking getting rid of the USSR was a very bad thing. Putin is probably one of them. But there's nothing they can do about it. This war won't get them back what they had and I'm pretty sure that's not what's intended.
I'm surprised. You're the last person I would have expected military swagger from. Tell me once since World War 2 when the US sending in troops has been a good thing.
The presence of NATO in eastern Europe makes the potential for war a much bigger problem. If Russia invaded a NATO country, the US would be obligated to send troops.
Russia didn't attack a NATO country for very good reason. Being in NATO offers the protection of Russia not attacking it. Russia attacked Ukraine now because of fears it would eventually enter NATO and they'd forever lose the ability to do that later.
We supported the overthrow of a democratically elected government.
In 2014, the Ukrainian Parliament overwhelmingly supported trade agreements with the EU. Russia pressured the President to reject it. He did. Protests ensued over that and the general corruption and civil right violations pervasive in the country. The government cracked down on the protests and things got worse, resulting in over 100 deaths of protestors. That resulted in the formation of a new government and the fleeing of the president, and then to direct Russian military intervention. A new election was then held and the 2010 Ukrainian Constitution was restored.
The US vocally supported the uprising and the result, but blaming the US for the overthrow of a democratically elected regime based upon these facts is quite a stretch, although it does seem to get a lot of play on here lately. The Russians instructed the President to violate the will of Parliament and then sent boots on the ground when Ukraine couldn't advance the Russian interests.
Just tell me - what important national security interest does the US have in Ukraine? Or Finland? Or Moldova? Saying oh, oh, history will repeat itself in this instance is ridiculous. Your arguments are exactly the ones that got us into Vietnam.
The USSR dismantled itself in an incredibly peaceful manner in an incredibly short time.
"Dismantled itself" or collapsed? I wasn't aware that there was a deliberate disestablishment effort. A high-speed unraveling isn't the same as "dismantling itself". There was no civil war at the time of its disassembly/collapse, but there was a wild-west robbery of state assets which is the foundation of the oligarch's wealth.
Russia moved out it's troops and we moved ours in.
Seems like the Poles, Czechs, and Hungarians, for example, were not all that thrilled to be Russian vassal states, and weren't all that unhappy to see the door hit Russian asses on their way out.
You're the last person I would have expected military swagger from.
Gee whiz, my military swagger amounts to following the Ukraine war on the BBC and NPR and thinking the Ukrainians are getting fucked over by the Russians. As Kaja Kallas said, "I’m the Prime Minister of Estonia. Putin Can’t Think He’s Won This War." She said the Baltic States were on the receiving end of what the Ukrainians are now receiving, and it must not happen again.
Just tell me - what important national security interest does the US have in Ukraine? Or Finland? Or Moldova? Saying oh, oh, history will repeat itself in this instance is ridiculous. Your arguments are exactly the ones that got us into Vietnam.
Sure, and we certainly didn't need to storm Normandy to end the Japanese threat, so why were we there? We could have sat on our atom bombs safe and secure while the Red Army did their thing and we could have left Europe to Europe.
Not every war is WWII and not every war is Vietnam. There's a slippery slope in both directions.
In any event, in this case, we didn't invade anyone. We haven't fired a single bullet. All we've done is promote American interests in an area that Russia didn't want our interests promoted, so they directly thwarted the will of a sovereign power's Parliament and then engaged in a military takeover and now they want to further complete that takeover.
We're the bad actor for not appreciating how bad an actor we were dealing with I guess. That seems to be the argument.
Reply to T Clark Something that many critics of the United States forget (especially American critics) is that "states do not friends, egos, honor, and so on. What they have are INTERESTS. What are the interests of the American state, the American state's economy, culture, demographics and so on.
What's in it for the state's citizens? Well, how prosperous the economy is, how much independence citizens have, how free they are from interference by foreign states, how much they get to travel abroad and where--lots of stuff. Like American policy or not--and I dislike large batches of American policy--my individual interests are somewhat aligned with the interests of the state in which I live.
Several of our wars (Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, etc.) have not supported clear American Interests beyond the large military industrial establishment, which is a substantial piece of the economy (whether I like it or not). The amount of money spent on Afghanistan, for instance, just didn't seem justified. Iraq? Maybe there was some sort of national interest there -- it isn't clear to me what it was. Our support for Israel, as queasy as it makes some people, seems to based on a clear national interest. The Assads in Syria have engaged in indefensible predations on their own people for decades, so anything we did to weaken the Assads was probably a good thing. But even when dealing with slimy regimes like the Assads, we still have over-riding interests.
That Ukraine has attracted a lot of support seems reasonable. Its borders butt up against the EU and NATO, There are 10 million diaspora Ukrainians living in Europe and the US. Their landscape looks like ours -- lots of green, trees, lakes and rain, familiar looking buildings--quite unlike Iraq's flat beige concrete and sand landscape, mosques and veiled women covered up in black.
Seems like the Poles, Czechs, and Hungarians, for example, were not all that thrilled to be Russian vassal states, and weren't all that unhappy to see the door hit Russian asses on their way out.
I think the collapse of the USSR was a good thing. I think vital, free, prosperous countries in eastern Europe are good things. On the other hand, Poland, Moldova, Ukraine, Hungary, Czechia et. al. will have to learn to live near big dog Russia without being able to count on the US for military support.
The Assads in Syria have engaged in indefensible predations on their own people for decades, so anything we did to weaken the Assads was probably a good thing.
That Ukraine has attracted a lot of support seems reasonable. Its borders butt up against the EU and NATO, There are 10 million diaspora Ukrainians living in Europe and the US. Their landscape looks like ours -- lots of green, trees, lakes and rain, familiar looking buildings
Those are all nice things. Yes, Ukraine seems like a nice country. It's sad things are so messed up there now. How does that affect the US's national interest? How is what Russia is doing in Ukraine different from what the US did in Iraq? I find it hard to believe it could turn our worse, unless we get into a war with Russia. Let's not do that.
In any event, in this case, we didn't invade anyone. We haven't fired a single bullet. All we've done is promote American interests in an area that Russia didn't want our interests promoted, so they directly thwarted the will of a sovereign power's Parliament and then engaged in a military takeover and now they want to further complete that takeover.
Yes, yes. Russia is very, very bad. Bad, bad Russia!!! I don't see how anything we've done has "promoted American interests." What are American interests in Ukraine? As I see it, peace and stability. Allowing eastern European countries to enter NATO has undermined that goal.
unenlightenedMarch 24, 2022 at 22:08#6728430 likes
Ukranians are good people like Americans are good people. We know Americans are good because they speak English. Good people always support good people because the more good people there are, the less bad people. Ukranians used to be bad people but then they became good people by learning a bit of English. And that is a good thing, and the bad people must not be allowed to turn them bad again. So it is in America's interest to help them die before they become bad people again. This makes them heroes. Hurrah!
Ukranians are good people like Americans are good people. We know Americans are good because they speak English. Good people always support good people because the more good people there are, the less bad people. Ukranians used to be bad people but then they became good people by learning a bit of English. And that is a good thing, and the bad people must not be allowed to turn them bad again. So it is in America's interest to help them die before they become bad people again. This makes them heroes. Hurrah!
Kremlin: Ukrainians are turning into bad people by learning a bit of English. As they're no longer good people like us; let's go in and kill them.
Reply to unenlightened A crock. Crock: 1) A noun; earthenware vessel often used to store spoiled cabbage; storage for salted pork sealed with rancid grease; 2) Nonsensical talk; bunkum (or buncombe); North American: something considered to be complete nonsense. May be combined with other derogatory terms as in "crock of shit".
About 20‰ of Americans don't speak English per the last census. There are Latino communities where people never learn it.
Explains a lot! The trouble is you proper Americans have forgotten how to shout loud enough at these foreigners to let them understand.
Reply to Bitter Crank Every schoolboy knows that a crock is what leprechauns put their gold in to bury it at the end of the rainbow. If you cannot find the gold in my post, it's probably because you haven't been putting out a saucer of milk for the wee folk.
Allowing eastern European countries to enter NATO has undermined that goal.
A better plan is to castrate the Ukrainians, eliminating any threat they might pose, as there's no greater strength than weakness. Perhaps destroy all their resources, as no one will seek to conquer a land of ash.
Yes, yes. Russia is very, very bad. Bad, bad Russia!!
Make you case for why a reasonable person would prefer Russian rule over western European rule. From that we can then decide if your claim that Russia is not bad is accurate. Otherwise, you're not debating, but just trying to be condescending.
Seems like the Poles, Czechs, and Hungarians, for example, were not all that thrilled to be Russian vassal states, and weren't all that unhappy to see the door hit Russian asses on their way out.
One interesting element in the period of the Warsaw Pact was the development of a trading bloc through such instruments as the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. It was a kind of mirror of the process that lead to the EU. The Russians did not integrate with this cooperation amongst the 'satellites' at the time and did not try to replicate the trading bloc after the fall of the Union. This suggests that the source of the conflict predates the usual narrative of the Cold War.
They do. Sometimes they shorten it to "that's a crock". Who else uses the phrase "crock of shit"? I assume it isn't the French, because they's say "pot de merde". the Germans say Topf instead of crock, and alles Scheiße for crock o' shit.
We're the bad actor for not appreciating how bad an actor we were dealing with I guess. That seems to be the argument.
I think the argument is more like this: we might have prevented the Russian state from becoming such a bad actor if we had understood its deep sense of geographical vulnerability, its genuine perception of NATO as an existential threat, and its desire to gain international standing after the nineties; and if we had acted in accordance with this understanding instead of arrogantly expanding our own sphere of influence on its doorstep because it seemed easy at the time.
Note that the "we" of the argument doesn't include me and that it is not my argument, though it seems all right as far as it goes. I just shared it because it shows that the idea that the US was arrogant is neither unreasonable nor restricted to an anti-American position.
Is the Shoutbox becoming the place to discuss the invasion of Ukraine for people who don't want to get embroiled in the unpleasantness of the Ukraine Crisis thread?
Reply to jamalrob A fucking filthy firkin of pig shite. Normally the final 'e' would make the preceding vowel long, Do you say 'shite to rhyme with flight or flit'?
This is a very important matter. Respond immediately.
god must be atheistMarch 25, 2022 at 07:09#6730960 likes
I am sorry, but I have to dissent. "Delay" does not rhyme with "flight". Nor does "it". Although "it" would be closer to rhyming with "flight" if it(1) were spelled "ite".
(1) Please note: the antecedent of "it" here is "it".
god must be atheistMarch 25, 2022 at 07:28#6731090 likes
Brits are Britons. Ex-pats are Britoffs. Both Britons and Britoffs are Brits.
Two streets down the road from me there is a short little street in my 'hood, called "Picton Street". I am swelling with pride to be the first and so far only one in the 'hood to know and to disseminate the knowledge, that much like Brits are Britons, Picts are Pictons. Most people never heard of the Picts, much like they haven't heard of Bhutan.
I first encountered the word in the title of an old Pink Floyd song, "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict." At the first few occasions of seeing this title, I figured a Pict would be an artist's brush with a long, narrow handle. After all, pictures are painted with picts, aren't they, and the long handle is excellent to scratch your back or the brush is excellent to stroke each other. The third time I listened to this song, I was totally drunk on Cannabis, and it sounded like the song, such as it was, would never end.
god must be atheistMarch 25, 2022 at 07:34#6731110 likes
I ran out of things to say.
The first sign of Armageddon. "And verily I say unto you, that the tongue of the people shalt be tied, and the throngs shalt be unable to speak."
I first encountered the word in the title of an old Pink Floyd song, "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict."
Same here, and I similarly assumed from the title that a pict was some kind of implement. They didn't teach us about the Picts at school. We got the Wars of the Roses instead, and I don't recall the teachers telling us why we should care about a conflict between Lancashire and Yorkshire that happened 500 years ago. Of course, Pictish society was in the even more distant past, but fundamental to the history of what became Scotland.
god must be atheistMarch 25, 2022 at 08:03#6731230 likes
We got the Wars of the Roses instead, and I don't recall the teachers telling us why we should care about a conflict between Lancashire and Yorkshire that happened 500 years ago.
I think your teachers were terribly secularists. Much like some philosophers' only concern is why the universe exists, most scientific research is about how it is structured, not why it is structured the way it is. (I am biting my own words, because part of the Bing Bang theory does state that the formation of several particular particles in a particular ratio to each other is why we have matter. But that's a different "why".) Only the philosophically inclined wee folks would be questioning why the teacher was not answering an unanswerable question.
I posted this in the Ukraine discussion but it's now lost in the propaganda war that's going on there, so I'll post it here, just because I think it's good to see this reaction to the invasion from inside Russia.
Russian Celebrities, Public Figures Speak Out Against Ukraine War
(The Moscow Times is an independent Moscow-based English language newspaper that's often highly critical of the regime)
***
Now:
Likewise posting this here instead of the lengthy Ukraine Crisis discussion.
It's good to see increasing Russian voices speak out in this way. Dangerous to them, no doubt.
Russian activists sign open letter calling for end to war in Ukraine
Campaigners write manifesto in broadest anti-war statement by Russian human rights community
“Russian citizens are being involved in military operations on the territory of Ukraine, where they become accomplices in war crimes and die themselves,” a draft statement says. “Our first goal is to help them avoid this, relying on the constitution and Russian legislation, and to assist all those who are illegally forced to participate in hostilities.”
The activists’ second goal is to provide legal assistance to the families of Russian military personnel who “find themselves in an information vacuum”.
“There is no official updated information about the dead, about the transfer of bodies to families, about prisoners, about their release or exchange,” the letter says. “It is difficult or impossible for relatives to find out what has become of their sons and husbands, or to get the bodies of the dead.”
----
In the letter the activists write that the war in Ukraine was a consequence of a culture of impunity for human rights.
“The war that has broken out in the centre of Europe is a consequence and continuation of Russia’s long-term refusal to protect the rights and freedoms of its citizens and all those under its jurisdiction – once again recalled the unlearned lesson of the second world war: a state that grossly and massively violates human rights within its borders sooner or later becomes a threat to peace and international security,” the letter says.
“The lack of a proper reaction of the international community to these processes during the post-Soviet decades also contributed to the tragic development of events.”
god must be atheistMarch 25, 2022 at 10:06#6732030 likes
Especially the kind that corrects double negatives.
:grin: I thought I was quoting Pink Floyd verbatim! But your right, those who speak with double negatives do NOT need education, beyond a point. However, they need to live in a socitey where people who speak with no double negatives do get an education. Hand washes hand.
Yes, it's the exact quote. My inner English teacher always ruins that song for me.
god must be atheistMarch 25, 2022 at 10:29#6732220 likes
Reply to Cuthbert Are you also an English teacher on the outside? Now I am curious. Or are you an afficionado of Speaking English as a Correct Language?
god must be atheistMarch 25, 2022 at 10:37#6732260 likes
My inner English teacher always ruins that song for me.
You must restrict yourself from listening to Country and Western, Rock, and RAP songs. I, on the other hand, somehow manage to reconcile my anally retentive personality by giving slack to language anomalies when it comes to culture. Or even Culture.
This was coined in the seventies, I think, or as early as the sixties: "Writers who can't write interview people who can't speak, and publish books for those who can't read."
Are you also an English teacher on the outside? Now I am curious. Or are you an afficionado of Speaking English as a Correct Language?
No. I was brung up in a house where the statement "I love you like crumpets love butter" would likely be met with the response "The word 'like' cannot be used as a conjunction". 'Brung' and 'likely' would have been frowned upon also. These things stay with a person.
Can we have a live chat or something? The few I do find are very troubling. That or boring. On occasion both simultaneously though that is rare, at least.
god must be atheistMarch 25, 2022 at 13:24#6733290 likes
It's true. "Like" ought not to be used as a conjunction. Except in the example I don't think it serves as a conjunction. It serves as a comparative. "As green as the grass" is comparable to "green like grass". You must correct me if I erred. But if I erred, please tell me how "like" could be used other than a verb. And I am not sure of "other than" is correct, either; than is another comparative, and here we only use it, idiomatically, because "other" ends with -er which is the comparative case of monosyllabic adjectives.
Now I am totally confused. Please straighten me out, and please don't feel bad about it, and please don't spare my feelings. In the culture in which I grew up people obliged you when they corrected you ("you" being the General Hugh). I will not get offended.
("Shone like the sun" vs "shone as the sun". ??? the first one sounds correct to me. What gives? In the sentence I quoted from you at top the comparative is between two adverbial phrases, not between two adjectival phrases. They answer to "How" or to "how much", which indicate adverbs, not adjectives. So the "like" is not correct. You were right in the first place. "I love you the way crumpets love butter" indicates action, not feeling... I don't penetrate my butter, and crumpets don't spread over you. "I love you as crumpets love butter" sounds contrived. "I love you how crumpets love butter" requires an adverb before "how", otherwise the sentence sounds foreign ("precisely how", for instance). Please help me out. My intuition says the language evolved into accepting "like" as a conjunctive between adverbial phrases.)
Like you, I'm at the limit of my knowledge! I would have been taught that "I love you as crumpets love butter" was correct and "...like crumpets love butter" was a vile Americanism. I have learned enough to know that it does not matter.
Reply to Cuthbert It isn't a vile Americanism because Americans do not eat crumpets. Dry, flavorless, crumbs all over everything, requires tea which is inconvenient, and it isn't sufficiently loaded with excessive fats, sugars, and starches like a Dunkin-Donuts donut.
Right! We, in North America eat bison, and whale, and sap of the maple tree, but we don't eat any kind of muppets!
I noticed just now that I used "your" several posts up on this page, instead of "you're". I expect the capital punishment. If not forthcoming, I'll fall into my own dagger to preserve the family's honour.
To quote a line from a parodied folksong by the Womenfolk (1960s-70s)... "Let's all take our silver dagger and plunge it in our lily-white breasts". I think stabbing yourself with a dagger would be more effective than trying to fall on a dagger. One falls on one's sword, not one's penknife. In a different folksong she drew a penknife in her hand and wounded him full deep. Dangerous women!
You could fall on any sharp thing, of course -- a small tree gnawed off by a beaver, a pitchfork, a shovel...
Maybe something less ghostly.
god must be atheistMarch 25, 2022 at 21:46#6734820 likes
In praise of a dagger.
If you fall into your own sword, you don't fall from high enough to gain momentum enough for the sword point to achieve penetration. The sword is 1 metre long; you just hurt yourself, shriek an "eeek" and not die.
A dagger lets you fall almost all the way to the ground. By the time you feel the pain it's too late to do anything about it. The fall will complete, and you can't avoid the dagger entering your body.
f you fall into your own sword, you don't fall from high enough to gain momentum enough for the sword point to achieve penetration.
Nonsense!
Sufficient height and momentum would be important if the sword you borrowed for this project was dull. A well-sharpened pointed sword will penetrate abdominal tissue just fine without your needing a long fall.
But really, what's wrong with evacuating your skull with a shotgun? That seems to be one of the more popular methods in the modern world.
A well-sharpened pointed sword will penetrate abdominal tissue just fine without your needing a long fall.
you discount human unconditional response to pain. The sword is 3 feet long. Just about the height of your abdomen. You can't expect someone to fall into something that hurts like crazy. The fall into the dagger is good because you don't have time to react to pain. By the time the dagger penetrates your skin, there is no turning back. "The dice are thrown."
Why not the gun? 1. In Canada, they are not available. 2. I was trying to imitate the honour of a Roman patricius. Their preferred method of honour suicide was to fall into (or onto) their daggers or short swords. The Roman's main attack-weapons were the long stick with the point end that you throw, I forgot the name, and the short sword, about 20 inches in length. It resembled more a dagger than a sword. So everyone had a short sword around the house somewhere.
So everyone had a short sword around the house somewhere.
Handy for when you had disappointed Caligula. Better than crucifixion. The advice I read was that you sort of lean over the very sharp pointed sword, then collapse your knees. Once you do that, our old friend gravity will take over; the sword will pierce, death will ensue.
I think it all depends on how much patience you have with the gap between the sharp object piercing the skin and the unconsciousness and death produced by exsanguination. In these matters I am very impatience and once I begin, anything longer than a few milliseconds becomes annoying.
No gun? We'll meet somewhere on our long mutually undefended border and I'll throw a loaded one over the 49th Parallel (the geographical line, not the movie) for you. We have enough to spare. What would you like?
I think the argument is more like this: we might have prevented the Russian state from becoming such a bad actor if we had understood its deep sense of geographical vulnerability, its genuine perception of NATO as an existential threat, and its desire to gain international standing after the nineties; and if we had acted in accordance with this understanding instead of arrogantly expanding our own sphere of influence on its doorstep because it seemed easy at the time.
Reminds me of one of my many bad romances, based upon the notion that one of us is to be up above it and the other is permitted to be down in it. That is, the expectation is that one be forever rational, deliberative, understanding, and empathetic and the other be permitted to live out their emotions and baggage, laying fault upon the rational one for not having better administered the situation.
In order for a relationship to be functional, both have to be assigned the same standard to adhere to, meaning neither is expected to have the wisdom of Solomon and neither is expected to be purely reactionary and irrational. Requiring one person to divorce themselves emotionally won't work, as the word "divorce" rarely enters the conversation in a working relationship.
But enough about me.
I agree, we need to know where Russia is coming from if we want a particular response from our behavior, but it's a two way street. You have well described the Russian mindset, and so I'll describe the American one. My reason for providing the American mindset is because it has to be considered as well because no one is expected to be purely up above it, but both will always be down in it.
So let me tell you about the psyche of America and describe American ideology (and I'm not interested in posts who wish to tell me America doesn't live up to these ideals, but ideals they are).
America was founded in rebellion against tyranny upon the declaration that certain rights come not from government, but from God himself, and any government that does not honor those rights is invalid by operation of the laws of nature. These principles limiting government and protecting individuals were then enshrined in a document that was then treated as sacred and interpreted to this day as if it were handed down on Mount Sinai. As any child who took American history knows death is preferable over subjugation ("Give me liberty or give me death"). Some decades later it was reiterated to us that our land "was conceived in liberty, dedicated to the proposition that all men were created equal," spoken by the Great Emancipator himself, who is heralded as having unshackled the bonds of slaves, a higher cause there could not be.
My point here is simple. Americans and their concept of liberty runs very deep, far deeper than sometimes I think is understood here, and something that is often ridiculed, but it is what it is. Russians need to be very careful in suppressing liberty from a nation that comprises those "huddled masses yearning to be free" if they don't want to spark a visceral reaction on the part of Americans, especially those seated on the right aisle. That is to say, had the Russians cast this conflict in terms of national protection but spoke the language of America and assured us that the Ukrainians would be afforded some degree of freedom, self-governance, and autonomy, this conflict could have been avoided.
How reasonable it would be to expect Putin to tap into the American psyche before acting and actually care what it was is the same question you must ask of America at the collapse of the the USSR. Was the US and NATO really expected to think about what the Russians were going through?
And since this is the shoutbox, where things needn't entirely make sense, I cite to the music driving this post:
America was founded in rebellion against tyranny upon the declaration that certain rights come not from government, but from God himself, and any government that does not honor those rights is invalid by operation of the laws of nature. These principles limiting government and protecting individuals were then enshrined in a document that was then treated as sacred and interpreted to this day as if it were handed down on Mount Sinai. As any child who took American history knows death is preferable over subjugation ("Give me liberty or give me death"). Some decades later it was reiterated to us that our land "was conceived in liberty, dedicated to the proposition that all men were created equal," spoken by the Great Emancipator himself, who is heralded as having unshackled the bonds of slaves, a higher cause there could not be.
My point here is simple. Americans and their concept of liberty runs very deep, far deeper than sometimes I think is understood here, and something that is often ridiculed, but it is what it is. Russians need to be very careful in suppressing liberty from a nation that comprises those "huddled masses yearning to be free" if they don't want to spark a visceral reaction on the part of Americans, especially those seated on the right aisle. That is to say, had the Russians cast this conflict in terms of national protection but spoke the language of America and assured us that the Ukrainians would be afforded some degree of freedom, self-governance, and autonomy, this conflict could have been avoided.
This has nothing at all to do with the principles of a nation forged in the fires of the fight against tyranny. (music rises in the background with soldiers in silhouette against the flames) It has to do with a nationalistic desire to be big dog in the pack. It's the same as it ever was. This is what caused Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Grenada, the Dominican Republic, the Mexican War, the Invasion of Panama, the Spanish-American War, the subversion of the government in Chile, the placement of the Shah in Iran, the bombing of Cambodia...
We're supposed to be smart. We're supposed to know the score. We're supposed to know that ending innocent people dying is more important than Amurica's pride and tradition.
Reply to Hanover Yes we agree. Self-aggrandizing fantasy. That it just so happens to serve as an ideological cover to mass global slaughter is of course, something ignorable.
Oh yeah I forgot to mention how the Texas taliban have continue to march up North in their continued efforts to tell women to go to hell, especially if they get raped.
It's just not really responsive to what I was saying. @jamalrob offered a perspective that I generally agreed with, which is that the perspective of the actor must be considered when assessing behavior, but I think it's a two way street.
If you are of the opinion that all motivation is world domination, then you've disagreed with both of us and have rejected the thesis generally. So I didn't find that interesting. OK, then, Russia wants the world and we want the world, simple enough. so we're slugging it out.
My point here is simple. Americans and their concept of liberty runs very deep, far deeper than sometimes I think is understood here, and something that is often ridiculed, but it is what it is. Russians need to be very careful in suppressing liberty from a nation that comprises those "huddled masses yearning to be free" if they don't want to spark a visceral reaction on the part of Americans, especially those seated on the right aisle.
Also should be noted that this utter shit isn't even an ideal - it's what powerful Americans tell stupid Americans so they can continue to pursue their actual ideal of enriching themselves and their friends as the expense of the latter.
My point here is simple. Americans and their concept of liberty runs very deep, far deeper than sometimes I think is understood here, and something that is often ridiculed, but it is what it is. Russians need to be very careful in suppressing liberty from a nation that comprises those "huddled masses yearning to be free" if they don't want to spark a visceral reaction on the part of Americans, especially those seated on the right aisle.
That's some stale-ass Kool-aid you're nursing.
Reminds me of Petronius's slow bloody suicide in the tub.
Reminds me of one of my many bad romances, based upon the notion that one of us is to be up above it and the other is permitted to be down in it. That is, the expectation is that one be forever rational, deliberative, understanding, and empathetic and the other be permitted to live out their emotions and baggage, laying fault upon the rational one for not having better administered the situation.
It might be a reasonable expectation. If your girlfriend's family unexpectedly fell apart and disowned her, she lost her job and had a mental breakdown, one might expect you to take responsibility and captain the ship of love with a firm but fair hand, until she got herself together again.
This is a metaphor and not a comment on your disastrous love life.
I take your point about the ideal of American liberty, but I think the point here might be that we're talking about what was happening in and around Russia, not in and around the US.
If you are of the opinion that all motivation is world domination, then you've disagreed with both of us and have rejected the thesis generally. So I didn't find that interesting. OK, then, Russia wants the world and we want the world, simple enough. so we're slugging it out.
I would continue with this discussion, but in penance for being a jerk in my previous post, I won't.
Whatm'I gonna do now, play fucking Wordle with the plebs?
I'll PM you the answers daily, fucking up whatever minimal joy you might have had playing. Not sure why, but I just texted my brother the answer as well.
And no, I'm not 10 years old. This humor has no age restriction.
In my wombat research I learned that they, along with a number of other Australian marsupials, have fur that glows under ultraviolet light. This trait was discovered only very recently in 2020. https://wildlife.org/wombats-and-other-australian-mammals-glow-in-uv-light/#:~:text=December%2028%2C%202020,might%20secretly%20do%20the%20same.
I also learned that wombat shit can be brewed into an eye opening shit tea that is a delightful accompaniment to shit scones along with the elusive shitfruit from the shitvine. https://www.google.com/search?q=shithead&client=ms-android-tmus-us-revc&prmd=vibn&sxsrf=APq-WBtJAbI0S8GvIWzNxZcCkYRDOx0tew:1648340612533&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjZ4Lalg-X2AhW5QzABHeujA4cQ_AUoAnoECAIQAg&biw=412&bih=777&dpr=2.63#imgrc=ffWf7548RWU4QM
For those who play Wordle, the daily word guessing game, today's answer is EPOXY. You can enter this in on the first guess and be declared a genius.
I got it on the 5th try, then came here and found that you have given away the answer.
there are several tricks to getting the right answer. I have developed a good system playing the other version. I have reached up to 54 words in one streak, but had to go to bed.
also learned that wombat shit can be brewed into an eye opening shit tea that is a delightful accompaniment to shit scones along with the elusive shitfruit from the shitvine
Why is it that on my mobile device I can’t use italics or hyperlink words on this site? Am I missing something?
I think it’s because the responsive design truncates the formatting menu on small screens. Simply turn you phone horizontally and more formatting options will appear.
The thing about Otis is he was one of those people that can't be acknowledged any more - funny drunk guys. Other examples from the Good Old Days - Dean Martin, Crazy Gogenheim, WC Fields, Dudley Moore... The only one left is Barney Gumbel.
The thing about Otis is he was one of those people that can't be acknowledged any more - funny drunk guys. Other examples from the Good Old Days - Dean Martin, Crazy Gogenheim, WC Fields, Dudley Moore... The only one left is Barney Gumbel.
I hadn't realized the significance of my avatar to you, but you make a touching argument that homage ought be paid to this icon of the dying breed of socially acceptable alcoholics.
I will reconsider my decision to change it, and while I'm thinking on it, I'll change it to a banging hot supermodel, just because.
Reply to T Clark Joke from an article on moral relativism in Quillette
A surgeon, an engineer, and an economist all die around the same time and are met at the Pearly Gates by St. Peter. “Welcome good souls! Welcome! You’re in the right place,” he informs them. “But, unfortunately, we have a shortage of mansions so two of you will need to spend some time in Purgatory while yours are finished. In the interests of fairness, we have devised a competition to see who gets in first.” After receiving assurances that they would be staying in one of the nicer parts of Purgatory, they all agreed and St. Peter began, “Okay then. Top answer moves in today. What is the oldest profession known to man?”
The doctor shot up a hand and stepped forward. “Oh! I know, I know! Surgeon! God extracted a rib from Adam to make Eve. That’s surgery.”
The engineer stepped forward and said, “Before God made Adam and Eve, he created Heaven and Earth and that’s engineering. So engineer is the oldest profession, I do believe.”
They all turned to the economist, who paused for dramatic effect, then answered, “Before the creation of Heaven and Earth, all was chaos. And who do you think created that?”
Joke from an article on moral relativism in Quillette
By my conservative estimate, about two people die every second in the world. Assume half of those go to heaven. That means, if heaven can't provide at least one mansion/second, the line waiting will rapidly become unwieldy. Conclusion - the scenario you describe seems very unlikely. I think the Quillette should recheck their numbers.
Concerning Hanover's avatar, living in the land of milk and honey makes one look like that. I went to school in Atlanta eons ago and I, too, resembled that image.
But my current avatar shows how all that changes over time . . . :sad:
Reply to T Clark If heaven has a housing deficiency, one has to assume that it is a matter of policy, rather than supply, what with God Almighty being the last word in inventory control.
Why are there houses in Heaven? Seems rather un-heaven like.
There is a common theme I always associate with the US south. You hear it in many old time country music and gospel songs - when we go to heaven, we all will have mansions.
If heaven has a housing deficiency, one has to assume that it is a matter of policy, rather than supply, what with God Almighty being the last word in inventory control.
If you can give me an estimate of the percentage of people who will eventually go to heaven go to purgatory first, I'll recalculate the length of the line at the Pearly Gates.
Hey, he denied Christ 3 times, so I wouldn't put a misrepresentation of the housing problem beyond him. Besides, the surgeon and engineer were predestined to spend time in purgatory, anyway, so...
Hey, he denied Christ 3 times, so I wouldn't put a misrepresentation of the housing problem beyond him. Besides, the surgeon and engineer were predestined to spend time in purgatory, anyway, so...
How many engineers can dance on the head of an economist?
If heaven has a housing deficiency, one has to assume that it is a matter of policy, rather than supply, what with God Almighty being the last word in inventory control.
Then we must assume the same for housing here on earth and assume that homelessness is God's will.
It's sort of weird no one is asking me stupid questions and making lame jokes to me like guys are supposed to do to hot people like me. This whole being a woman thing isn't at all what I had hoped.
It's sort of weird no one is asking me stupid questions and making lame jokes to me like guys are supposed to do to hot people like me. This whole being a woman thing isn't at all what I had hoped.
I think it's that goofy looking woman's head sitting on your shoulder that deters them.
My name during this transitional period is Honey-Ovaria. It's a lovely name I think and it identifies my sugary coated eggs awaiting in my womb for fertilization. And by "fertilization," I mean gobs of sticky ejaculate forced deep inside me as an act of passion.
Wait, I'm not through with the most disturbing post ever....
I will name my resulting child Abortoranious after the Greek god of terminated gestation, which will be this child's fate as I ain't got no time for no baby, hear me?
Now I'm done.
I'm not sure I'm ready for this being a woman thing.
Especially applicable to you, MR. Honey Ovaria: "If men could get pregnant, abortion on demand would be a sacrament." So said Gloria Steinem, "And I'm talking to you, Honey."
BTW, fertilization usually happens in the fallopian tubes. You sound a bit hysterical--usually caused by a wandering uterus. A wondering uterus, on the other hand, causes feminist philosophy.
I had a meeting this morning that caused me a lot of trepidation and nerve wrecking. I took a couple of headache pills 40 mins before the meeting. 4 hours later, my nerves had just calmed down, but headache took over and now I feel nauseous and want to vomit. :vomit:
Pro tip: use a thumb or other blunt object and press in into the solar plexus as you breathe. This will help diaphragmatic breathing and stimulation of the vagus nerve.
It's sort of weird no one is asking me stupid questions and making lame jokes to me like guys are supposed to do to hot people like me. This whole being a woman thing isn't at all what I had hoped.
It's because you're not mean and moody. You are merely disenchanted.
Reply to praxis
The only way to create negative pressure in your airways other than your diaphragm is the accessory muscles in your neck and shoulders. A person who is having panic attack isn't using those, so they are using their diaphragm, they're just breathing shallowly.
What you're calling diaphragmatic breathing is just deep breathing.
Tell them to take a deep breath to a count of 5, and then exhale to a count of seven. That will relax the diaphragm.
And never advise vagal stimulation. If they were successful in that, they could become bradycardic and pass out.
According to Wikipedia, Hugh Beaumont "...studied at the University of Southern California and graduated with a master of theology degree in 1946." Or did you mean Ward Cleaver? Here is some information from Wikipedia about his fascinating life:
[i]Ward is a farmer's son and hails from Shaker Heights, an actual location in Ohio, which also has a suburb called Mayfield. Ward attended a preparatory school, is a veteran of World War II (having served as a surveyor in the Seabees), a state college graduate (majoring in philosophy),[2] and member of a fraternity (Alpha Kappa), a responsible white-collar professional, and an upstanding citizen. Ward met his future wife, June Evelyn Bronson, when they were teens. The two dated and went to state college together. They married and became the parents of two sons, Wally and Theodore (the Beaver).
Ward is an archetypical white-collar, briefcase-toting professional of the 1950s. He wears a business suit, works in an office with a view of a metropolitan area, has a secretary named Grace, and leaves home early in the morning and returns in the early evening. He works for a "big company" with main offices in New York City. He drives to work in his Plymouth unless June needs the car during the day for an errand. He is home on weekends for golfing at a local country club. Occasionally, Ward is required to do some office work at home. In one early episode, for example, he works at home on a women's marketing survey. His co-worker and friend is Fred Rutherford, a smug, pompous man who refers to the workplace as "the salt mine".[/i]
god must be atheistMarch 29, 2022 at 21:03#6753170 likes
As of 2017 little was understood about exactly how vagal nerve stimulation modulates mood and seizure control.
The vagus is the tenth cranial nerve and arises from the medulla; it carries both afferent and efferent fibers. The afferent vagal fibers connect to the nucleus of the solitary tract which in turn projects connections to other locations in the central nervous system. Proposed mechanisms include an anti-inflammatory effect, as well as changes in monoamines.
If I live to be a hundred years old (add 32 more years) I still won't know what a vagal nerve is. All I know is Vagus sounds very... profane. Indecent. "Put this in your vagus and scat, you demonic hussar." Or something to that effect.
I would seriously think of creating a life-like cat so that cat lovers who don't like the chewing and clawing could have cats in their life. (not the stuffed cat that moved mechanically. That's crap)
You wouldn't understand unless you're a sensitive - it's an ineffable-mystical-Kabbalistic-orphic-speculatively-gnostic truth. To paraphrase Dr Jung, 'I know'.... :halo:
Pro tip: use a thumb or other blunt object and press in into the solar plexus as you breathe. This will help diaphragmatic breathing and stimulation of the vagus nerve.
On reddit there are these subreddits where you can ask experts questions. Sometimes you have to wait days for an expert to write something. In the meantime you can see that people have been writing answers, but you can't see what they are because those people aren't approved posters.
The approved posters are usually very generous. Sometimes they direct you to lectures that you wouldn't be able to access otherwise. Or they might actually email you stuff.
It's a pretty good resource for rank amateurs like me.
Sub-Saharan Africa dominates the hunger list. https://www.statista.com/statistics/269924/countries-most-affected-by-hunger-in-the-world-according-to-world-hunger-index/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Global%20Hunger,with%20an%20index%20of%2045.1.
I would think those economies are heavily agricultural, many sustenance farmers and some hunters and gatherers. It'd be hard to call them capitalistic in the same vein as the US or any industrialized country. That is, they can't blame their limited food on corporate greed.
In any event, I'd expect (although I couldn't find a source here) that the greatest contributors to ending hunger are capitalistic industrialized nations, if, for no other reason, than that those governments and those citizens have the largest amount of expendable income (ironically as the result of greed).
Reply to Hanover
The comment is more about the way capitalism requires stratification. To maximize profit, you need a labor force that's hungry (literally or figuratively).
So the mark of capitalism is financial inequality: an elite and large numbers of dependent people.
Hunter gatherers don't have that kind of inequality. They all starve at the same time.
Hunter gatherers don't have that kind of inequality. They all starve at the same time.
The word "starve" is an exaggeration in Western industrialized countries, usually occurring where there is mental illness or other inability to obtain assistance. That is, people aren't actually on the streets dying of hunger in the US or other parts of the West.
In Sub-Saharan Africa there is actual starvation. I would agree it's not the result of a lack of altruism that causes the hunger, but more so just a lack of food.
Reply to Hanover
Yea. The Sahara desert is getting bigger. It's actually been growing for the last 10,000 years, but it's about 10% bigger than in the early 20th Century. We're a long way out from the days of megafauna when you could just punch a sloth in the face and feed the whole town.
This doesn't have much to do with how capitalism requires inequality.
Yea. The Sahara desert is getting bigger. It's actually been growing for the last 10,000 years, but it's about 10% bigger than in the early 20th Century. We're a long way out from the days of megafauna when you could just punch a sloth in the face and feed the whole town.
This doesn't have much to do with how capitalism requires inequality.
I think capitalism creates inequality more than it requires it.
I used to live on the outskirts of the Sahara with my wife Lillyflower, my concubine Buttercup, and my camels Humpdehump and Thristyasshit and we'd eat goat every night while wailing songs to the gods beneath the moonlight. Then one night the Sahara crept onto my outskirts with it's asshole expansion bullshit and wrecked my whole existence in a total dick move. My ladies ran off, calling me a common desert rat and found some fucker deep in the burbs to shack up with and fuck silly.
This climate change thing hit me in a hard way. It's some real bullshit I tell you.
I think capitalism creates inequality more than it requires it.
Doesn't capitalism require private property? Isn't private property a form of inequality, unless everyone gets their share? Does everyone ever get their share?
I learned everything I know about stone age economics from "The Flintstones."
They lived during the Jurassic age and were not hunter gatherers. If memory serves, Fred worked in a rock quarry, and there were institutions like law enforcement, which indicates a state government.
According to renowned planetary scientist Rick E. Pedia, there hasn't been any vulcanism on the moon in 50 million years.
Yeah, and for being so cocky and self assured, I wouldn't be surprised if he's not the first one the good Lord injects a sulphuric ass blast to for throwing down the challenge. You think the Will Smith bitch slap was all the talk? Wait for this belly washer comeuppance.
If we legalized the retaliatory slap, we might ironically create a more thoughtful and civil society. It's like my idea that they should eliminate airline security screenings so that it will be too dangerous to attempt a hijacking.
It was my understanding that a slap with a glove as a challenge to a duel is still as common as Krispy Kreme down there in the Land o' Cotton and Voter Suppression.
Reply to T Clark Just read the paper and saw the Georgia legislature passed a new procedure for book banning and we FINALLY eliminated the gun license requirement.
Such is the result of Trump losing Georgia. Trump has backed Perdue against the incumbent Governor Kemp for Kemp's refusal to overturn the election. Now Kemp must prove how conservative he is.
Such is the result of Trump losing Georgia. Trump has backed Perdue against the incumbent Governor Kemp for Kemp's refusal to overturn the election.
I thought impeaching Trump was a bad idea - both times. I've also thought that prosecuting him now was going to backfire. I've changed my mind. I hope they nail his knees to the floor. And his little [s]dog[/s] son too.
One thing I love about these is that he doesn't always even pronounce it the same way; i.e. "choodinoofy poopy", followed by "choodinoofy...n'poopy". Brilliant.
Not all of them are that funny, but there's some other good ones.
I wonder how many people out there try to use those pronunciations. I would hope it is a lot, but that seems cruel. They were trying to be correct.
When I was a kid, I used to read "The Phantom" in the Sunday paper comics section. One of those old-style adventure comics with a hero in a purple suit and a mask. Kind of like Batman - no superpowers. I used to call him the "pontom" to myself. Then one day I heard someone pronounce it correctly. I remember feeling so relived I had never said it out loud in front of anyone.
I read a lot as a kid, and spent a lot of time alone, so there were many words that I realized later I had been mispronouncing in my head. To the extent I still sometimes accidentally mispronounce obscure words in real life. That dilettante life.
For sure...I think they say "n'poopy" in Languedoc, whereas in Paris it tends to just be a straight "poopy", or even a "poop'a'doo".
I've always liked Chateautrois-de-Pape better than Neuf. A bit more robust and drinkable.
Just checked and found out. "Pape" means "pope." The village is near Avignon where some popes lived in the 15th century. I guess it means "the Pope's ninth crib."
The article was pretty terrible that you cited. It didn't even include the case name in order to Google the actual text of the opinion and all it did was blast the opinion as a terrible departure from the Voting Rights Act.
I did locate the 12 page opinion and skimmed it. It seems to say that there are limited reasons a district can be drawn upon racial lines, with the primary goal being to be sure that the rights of a minority are not improperly diluted by distributing minorities into majority districts. It looks like Wisconsin created a district for the purposes of granting a minority an additional district, and the Court found that to be a violation of the Constitution because it was a raced based districting not authorized under the facts. It seems to be a reverse discrimination claim.
The opinion was 7-2, and I didn't read the dissent.
Whether it's a radical departure for prior law would require more research, but I think there's grounds to be suspicious of both sides if you wish to assume political motivation from the decision.
Reply to Hanover It was saying that the conservative leaning Court is getting aggressive about applying a conservative bias. But I thought the whole point of judicial conservatism was to leave politics out of decision making.
Is that just naive? Are conservative judges just as likely as liberal ones to try to advance political agendas?
Is that just naive? Are conservative judges just as likely as liberal ones to try to advance political agendas?
Everyone has an interest they wish to advance I guess. I'm fairly moderate on these sorts of things and I don't want to say that the right has this steadfast integrity to the true principles of the Constitution while the left just makes things up that comport with their sense of progressive morality. That would be a fairly naive thought.
As to whether a decision that strikes down a law as being racially motivated goes, I do think such rulings have more to rely upon than those referencing a genral right to privacy (which is a right strongly protected by the left). The post-Civil War Amendments (13, 14, and 15) clearly protect against forms of racial discrimination whereas the right to privacy issues are harder to extrapolate from the text. The point being that in this instance there might be less activism on the right than you sometimes see on the left.
But again, I'm trying to stay neutral here because I'm not of the mindset that one side is pure and the other politically motivated. Everyone is selling a point a view.
I read a lot as a kid, and spent a lot of time alone, so there were many words that I realized later I had been mispronouncing in my head.
Me too. I still hear awry as "awe-ree" in my head just before I tell myself it's "a-rye". I only discovered the truth in my late twenties. Then there's misled, which someone told me they always read as "mizzled".
Hollywood privilege allows Will Smith to walk on stage, slap the host, and then sit back down and watch the show.
And then come up and accept an award. I'd like to see what would happen to anyone who walked up and slapped his face on the street. Not that I recommend you do that... Unless you really want to. :chin:
I'd like to see what would happen to anyone who walked up and slapped his face on the street.
I'm currently imagining a scenario in which Will Smith makes a joke about my wife in the street, which I find funny until I turn to my wife and see that I'm not supposed to find it funny and therefore step up to defend her honour.
I'm currently imagining a scenario in which Will Smith makes a joke about my wife in the street, which I find funny until I turn to my wife and see that I'm not supposed to find it funny and therefore step up to defend her honour.
I think everyone is forgetting the most important thing - Chris Rock is much funnier than Will Smith. Better actor too.
I think everyone is forgetting the most important thing - Chris Rock is much funnier than Will Smith. Better actor too.
I never liked any of Chris Rock's movies, but his comedy routine is really funny. He goes on rapid fire for over an hour. So, if he needed a slapping, it was for his movies.
I'm currently imagining a scenario in which Will Smith makes a joke about my wife in the street, which I find funny until I turn to my wife and see that I'm not supposed to find it funny and therefore step up to defend her honour.
If someone called my wife bald and she was bald, I'd be forced to acknowledge the point and accept the difficult hand my family had been dealt.
On the other hand, if someone called my wife bald and she had adequate hair, I'd simply motion towards her head with a clarifying gesture so that those in attendance would be alerted to the accuser's falsehood and the shame would be on him, not my wife.
The point being that there are only two reasonable responses in this scenario, neither of which involve physical attack.
I never liked any of Chris Rock's movies, but his comedy routine is really funny. He goes on rapid fire for over an hour. So, if he needed a slapping, it was for his movies.
I went to see Chris Rock doing stand-up many years ago. He was pretty good, but his total inability to deal with the single mild heckle disappointed me, while I felt sorry for him at the same time.
If he thought my wife's baldness was amusing and deserving of mockery, I might--how you say--whoop his ass.
I'd just pet my wife's bald head and tell her that she needs to focus on growing her hair and addressing the real problem as opposed to sending me into battle to fight against an unfortunate truth.
I don't have a wife. I have a short bald man who I dress up in female clothes and take around with me though in order to tempt people to insult him/her, so I can beat them up.
I don't have a wife. I have a short bald man who I dress up in female clothes and take around with me though in order to tempt people to insult him/her, so I can beat them up.
What does it mean to "have" a short bald man? Sounds kidnappy.
Reply to Baden He's your short bald special man friend and some would say you're entitled to defend his honour with horrific violence whether he's wearing a dress or not.
He's your short bald special man friend and some would say you're entitled to defend his honour with horrific violence whether he's wearing a dress or not.
I had a special bald man, but he kept sticking his fingerlings into my soft eggs.
My wife and three children are, as Snagglepuss used to say, con-noisy-ers. Food, wine, beer, whiskey. I'm... not. Robust but not too much. Fills the mouth nicely. Nice grapey flavor. Easy on the tanin.
Robust but not too much. Fills the mouth nicely. Nice grapey flavor. Easy on the tanin.
To each their own. I think of myself as a jack of all trades and master of none. I love to ball out on a $100 omakase when I can, and I also love Taco Bell.
My wife and three children are, as Snagglepuss used to say, con-noisy-ers. Food, wine, beer, whiskey. I'm... not. Robust but not too much. Fills the mouth nicely. Nice grapey flavor. Easy on the tanin.
I joined a wine club and got 15 bottles of wine for like $50 and they said they'd send me a new selection at full price every month and I could cancel at any time.
Got the wine, filled my cabinet, canceled immediately.
Reply to Noble DustReply to T Clark If you guys are not just messing with me, you can hear it here: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/awry
Reply to Noble Dust Seriously though, I didn't understand what you two were on about, but now I suspect that your comment was just a way for you to amusingly use the word "awry". Did I get it right?
god must be atheistApril 01, 2022 at 09:39#6762720 likes
I don't know, the ShoutBox is the only thread worth watching and commenting in these days.
Time to bring in another external philosopher... likes of Massimo Pigliucci and David Pierce. To add some spice to the old and beaten-to-death topics of the forums.
Other than the ShoutBox, the forums deal with the same old, same old... what is god, is there one, isn't there one, what are its properties. Is there a consciousness and how it attaches to the body. Is god scientific or not. God, god, god, no god, no god, god, that's all the forum has got reduced to. And consciousness. What does "cause" mean? What is mysticism? Oh, yes, and morality and free will.
Maybe it's just me. Maybe I've become jaded. Maybe I've become too wise or too stupid. But I find things outside the wit of @Hanover all... kind of boring on these forums.
Time to bring in another external philosopher... likes of Massimo Pigliucci and David Pierce. To add some spice to the old and beaten-to-death topics of the forums.
How about a philosopher of mathematics? Some one who can really teach me a thing or two, rather than the mathemagicians we get around here, who are so self-deceived by their own sophistry.
Did any of the wines have the words "Boones," "Farm," or "apple," in their appelations?
They were actually good quality wines because they wanted to entice me to stay in their wine club, but I was way too clever to fall for that.
Speaking of Boones Farm, I once had a contest with Kurt that I could drink a quart of orange flavored Boones Farm quicker than he could. I drank mine faster than him.
While it appears I won that contest, it's hard to say things went all that well for me.
Seriously though, I didn't understand what you two were on about, but now I suspect that your comment was just a way for you to amusingly use the word "awry". Did I get it right?
@Noble Dust and I have been goofing around with mispronouncing words. You were just collateral damage.
My idea is to have a Zoom discussion among selected members regarding a particular topic. I think it would be entertaining, but I better not fucking hear anyone talk about my wife's head.
My idea is to have a Zoom discussion among selected members regarding a particular topic. I think it would be entertaining, but I better not fucking hear anyone talk about my wife's head.
This idea was enough to lure me back in. I am in the middle of school and my weekly firefigther classes....so I had to give up Facebook, Reddit and a shit ton of fools on Match but I am reading you guys and obviously keeping an eye on you.
So....it is with BOLD, almost divorced, finding myself where i abandoned myself so many years ago to be okay with being given scraps of time, attitudes too many neg to balance out the positive.
I am not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but Cosmic Wanker is not the same since his Aortic Dissection. Which brings me to tears fffffffffffffffffuckl......
Anyway, I am down for this Hanover! Please make it happen and let me know what I can do to help.
I really need to sponsor the forums so I can post pictures.
He's lost his capability of empathy, sympathy, love, dedication, valueness, a whole lot of symptoms point to a sustained brain injury in the sense that they had to cool his body down to some low ffing temp to keep the blood from damaging any more of his aorta and when they are in that cold mode, there are times when the brain doesn't get enough blood.
It doesn't matter to me because his habits haven't changed but what does kill me is that my eldest is the only one who still speaks to Cosmic Wanker. I text him and work through the attorneys but what he is doing to our son is unfair for him to have to shoulder. I am built for this shit but man this armor gets heavy and living in Warrior Mode is soul taxing.....
ArguingWAristotleTiffApril 02, 2022 at 02:06#6765390 likes
And as you can see, I am not posting because I am an emotional mess, not much positive in that.
Serious comment - I have found going away for a month or two makes a big difference.
I have become more drawn here cause I have a stressful job. :shade:
And I hate it when my mind is full of ugly things cause of stress as I could not think of fond things about this person I'm very fond of, it ruins my thoughts. :(
I have become more drawn here cause I have a stressful job. :shade:
And I hate it when my mind is full of ugly things cause of stress as I could not think of fond things about this person I'm very fond of, it ruins my thoughts. :(
You've only been here a few months. @god must be atheist and I have been around for years. Sometimes I feel like I've said everything I have to say five times and I've run out of ideas. A month or so off lets me get the dust out of my gears.
I love the forum, so I keep coming back. What would you all do without me? [Deleted] and [deleted] would run the place into the ground without me uphold standards.
They speak Spanish and Portuguese in South America.
I said Southern, not South, but, you are correct, Spanish is heavily spoken here. My county is about 25% Hispanic, so my kids became really good soccer players.
Reply to Noble DustReply to T Clark "Out of an abundance of caution" (very popular during these plague years) I checked the Urban Dictionary for the meaning of 'T bone'. So, whether I would like a T bone for lunch" or not would very much depend on the particulars of the offer.
Below is a picture of "T. Bone [Pickens]" himself, Texass Tycoon, with his lawyer ? wife ? secretary ? mistress ? maid ? persona care attendant ? PR flak ? whatever.
"Oddly, "tea bag" has the same slang meaning as T bone. Tea bags and T bones both involve sleeping recipients, it says. Kinsey's ghost said he had never heard of anyone actually doing either thing. Apparently this odd behavior is more presumed than practiced. Or, maybe, it's wishful thinking among some philosophers.
I thought I had seen all the Seinfeld episodes there were at least twice. Don't remember the George T bone bit. Were the Seinfeld writers innocent, or were they fielding a double entendre, do you think?
Too bad about Clark's wheelhouse, but a lot of great jokes are no longer allowable, sadly. What with our new and higher consciousness of myriad inequities, former or current oppressions, this/that/and the other liberations movements many topics are off limits (in hyper-polite society). Some topics, like non-binary celibacy and incellism are so weird, I wouldn't know how to begin joking about them.
I periodically require some refreshingly inappropriate jokes.
I know this been floated here before, but, I don't think it would be bad to have a discord channel for TPF. A way to speak directly to people who want to participate. It's an opportunity to have another avenue for this place.
What are your thoughts about format? Is it a social hour or a panel discussion?
My only request is that it be considerate. On Valentines Day, everyone gets a card. If you don't plan to make it open to all, make the arrangements by PM.
god must be atheistApril 04, 2022 at 01:26#6772760 likes
Below is a picture of "T. Bone [Pickens]" himself, Texass Tycoon, with his lawyer ? wife ? secretary ? mistress ? maid ? persona care attendant ? PR flak ? whatever.
It does not matter. Tonight she's my dream lover. She's about 16 years younger than I, in her early fifties... perfect age gap for a heterosexual couple for pipe dreams. They say the average 70-some-olds on dating sites wish to meet energetic 58-65 year old women. Whatever for, is beyond me.
Of course I'll let you know when it's scheduled. Or, maybe it's already happened and you never knew. Ba ha ha ha ha.
I have fixed pictures in my mind of what you all look like. There is no doubt that those pictures are not accurate, except for @Bitter Crank. He looks just like me. All old white men look the same. I have no desire to know what you really look like. I've always pictured you as a cross between Danny DeVito and Joseph Stalin. I wouldn't want to be disillusioned.
Hey, I been drinking sodas and eating burgers at the Varsity long time ago. No need to translate.
When we would drive through downtown, I'd always stop at the Varsity for the kids to eat. Then one day it happened. Like the kid who proclaimed the emperor wore no clothes, my son said "this food sucks."
Too bad about Clark's wheelhouse, but a lot of great jokes are no longer allowable, sadly. What with our new and higher consciousness of myriad inequities, former or current oppressions, this/that/and the other liberations movements many topics are off limits (in hyper-polite society). Some topics, like non-binary celibacy and incellism are so weird, I wouldn't know how to begin joking about them.
I periodically require some refreshingly inappropriate jokes.
I would cautiously agree with you to an extent... I think one thing humor does is address societal taboos; things people think about but are afraid to mention. It took me a long time to realize this, being raised in a very conservative environment where "dirty" humor was utterly unacceptable. The notion I grew up with was that people who made dirty jokes were exactly that; dirty; uncouth. But I don't think that's right, and if anything there is a sort of bizarre role-reversal with what you describe as our "new and higher consciousness", one that I'm not sure is completely healthy. On the other hand, an off-handed joke in casual company can hit a sore spot for someone, which I've been the blunt of myself. The ideal is being sensitive to the people around you, while also being able to entertain dark or dirty humor for it's weirdly freeing effects. Tough balance I guess.
Seems clear enough who cares and who doesn't? It's not like such bills are unheard of; they've already been implemented in many a first world country. Weird.
The ideal is being sensitive to the people around you, while also being able to entertain dark or dirty humor for it's weirdly freeing effects. Tough balance I guess.
It's not a tough balance: if "sensitive" people are present, it's a no go. It's not just the "sensitive people"; it's also the knights in plastic armor who will step in to help suppress behavior that offends.
The thing about humor is that it is, fundamentally, not 'nice'. Yes, there are jokes that do not offend that are funny, but the ones that get the greatest laughter and that we remember belittle, satirize, demean, and so on to some degree. A good joke has a sharp edge, not a jagged pme.
Mel Brooks: "If you are walking down the street, fall into a sewer and die, that's hilarious. If I get a paper cut on my finger, that's a tragedy." Compare Garrison Keillor with John Waters. Keillor: Man to penguin: "It looks like you are wearing a tuxedo." Penguin: "Who says I am not?" Waters -- Pink Flamingos, a great movie-length joke in profoundly bad taste about a contest to find the filthiest people in the world."
Here's a presentation about Pink Flamingos. Waters' POV towards suburban (or generally, proper Methodist taste) good manners is the same as the POV of "offensive" jokes.
So, must we wallow in bad taste all the time to be "authentic"? Not at all. It's the contrast we need.
Hey, this discussion of Pink Flamingos is serious -- they use the word weltanschauung. Can't get more serious than that.
It's not a tough balance: if "sensitive" people are present, it's a no go. It's not just the "sensitive people"; it's also the knights in plastic armor who will step in to help suppress behavior that offends.
I hate to do this, but life experience has lead me to label myself a "sensitive person", almost to the nth degree. But I can and still do appreciate a risque joke. Maybe I'm self-sabotaging here, but not sure if your sentiment checks out. I suppose there's sensitive people who can't handle jokes or hard truths, and sensitive people who can. I dunno. I'd rather not say too much. (I'm certainly not offended).
The ideal is being sensitive to the people around you, while also being able to entertain dark or dirty humor for it's weirdly freeing effects. Tough balance I guess.
I don't think it's all that tough. All you have to do is wink and stick out your tongue immediately after you make the joke.
It's not a tough balance: if "sensitive" people are present, it's a no go. It's not just the "sensitive people"; it's also the knights in plastic armor who will step in to help suppress behavior that offends.
I like humour that is spontaneous and I can be pretty ribald myself, but I generally hate stand up comedy, 'funny movies' or anything overly contrived for laughs.
I think that's right - humor is essentially a form of criticism.
I think you could equally say that it's an alternative to criticism. It's a laughing off of the problem. Or if it is criticism, it's of the mild variety that turns anger, sadness, misfortune, and angst into something else.
Peter Cook, talking about satire, mentioned "those wonderful Berlin cabarets which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War".
Peter Cook, talking about satire, mentioned "those wonderful Berlin cabarets which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War".
It isn't just sensitivity. Various people are trapped in literalism and are rule bound. Some unfortunates can't tell a joke from a statement. Some seem suspicious of hidden meanings, so they don't like word play, like somebody might be putting one over on them. Borderline jokes (might be sarcasm or just sharply clever) make some feel insecure, or they were insecure to start with.
Reply to Bitter Crank People's personalities and cognitive abilities vary too. I suspect it's not just that some people take offence, or are less mirthful; they are wired differently.
My brother and one of my friends provide a safe space for the most disgraceful and outrageous jokes conceivable. Also it seems to be impossible to offend my wife with a joke or with bad language. Probably because she's not a native English speaker and it doesn't hit as hard.
Being humorous in online discussions, on the other hand, is a distinct art. You can clearly see that @Noble Dust and @T Clark are novices. :joke:
god must be atheistApril 04, 2022 at 10:04#6774480 likes
The origin of humour, which planted the seed of all jokes. Please watch for the thread "The Origin of Humour" in the General Philosophy forum. I'll do it now.
Being humorous in online discussions, on the other hand, is a distinct art. You can clearly see that Noble Dust and @T Clark are novices.
You're just jealous because I said Hanover looks like Joseph Stalin. I see you more as a typical Scot, you know, like Groundskeeper Willy from the Simpsons.
I think you could equally say that it's an alternative to criticism. It's a laughing off of the problem. Or if it is criticism, it's of the mild variety that turns anger, sadness, misfortune, and angst into something else.
Humor is important to me. It cuts directly to the heart. It's a good way to get through to people with whom you are in conflict. I had a good interchange with a rabid Trump supporter on a political forum. We talked about Mystery Science Theater 3000 and agreed that Mike sucks and Joel is the only one worth watching. After that we got along much better, although neither changed our minds. That was back before I gave up politics.
Most of all, humor is personal. Making someone laugh is a gift to them. I am always grateful when someone does that for me. Good comedians are like good disk jockeys, restaurant critics, poets.... They open things up. Make the world bigger.
Reply to T Clark Whether Scottish soldiers wore kilts or tartan trews depends on the regiment and the time period. That photo was taken when I was just back from the Crimean War. The trousers were all the rage at the time.
Humor is important to me. It cuts directly to the heart. It's a good way to get through to people with whom you are in conflict. I had a good interchange with a rabid Trump supporter on a political forum. We talked about Mystery Science Theater 3000 and agreed that Mike sucks and Joel is the only one worth watching. After that we got along much better, although neither changed our minds. That was back before I gave up politics.
Most of all, humor is personal. Making someone laugh is a gift to them. I am always grateful when someone does that for me. Good comedians are like good disk jockeys, restaurant critics, poets.... They open things up. Make the world bigger.
A heartwarming story that completely failed to raise a chuckle, which left me disappointed but with warm feelings for humanity.
@god must be atheist started a philosophy of humour thread earlier today that you might be interested in: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12767/the-origin-of-humour
Only @Noble Dust is authorized to call me "Clarky." Use by any other person constitutes a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Section VIII, Part 4 - Nicknames. Meet you at Den Haag.
Reply to T Clark Referencing the UDHR / VII.4 Nicknames was fairly humorous. It was moderately amusing on two levels: 1) that unauthorized use of your alleged nickname constitutes a possible violation of the UDHR, and 2) it manages to satirize the vast plethora of rights the UDHR asserts we all should have. Like any self-respecting dictatorship gave a rat's ass about it.
So, B+. That's a good grade, because a lot of humor hereabouts fails to rise much above a C-.
Referencing the UDHR / VII.4 Nicknames was fairly humorous. It was moderately amusing on two levels: 1) that unauthorized use of your alleged nickname constitutes a possible violation of the UDHR, and 2) it manages to satirize the vast plethora of rights the UDHR asserts we all should have. Like any self-respecting dictatorship gave a rat's ass about it.
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson went on a camping trip. After a good meal and a bottle of wine they lay down for the night, and went to sleep. Some hours later, Holmes awoke and nudged his friend.
"Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see."
Watson replied, "I see millions of stars."
"What does that tell you?"
Watson pondered for a bit. "Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you?”
Holmes was silent for a minute, then spoke. "Watson, it tells me someone has stolen our tent!"
Only Noble Dust is authorized to call me "Clarky." Use by any other person constitutes a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Section VIII, Part 4 - Nicknames. Meet you at Den Haag.
I shall call you Clark Bar, a fun treat even older than you are.
Watching a Netflix movie where they were having sex standing up, and he held her up throughput, but I'm not sure if it was through bicep strength alone or if he had a kickstand like appendage that made that doable.
Reply to Hanover Another Clark [derived from Latin clericus, meaning someone who was educated--e.g., could read, write, do sums, and other tasks around the monastery, like engineer a new nave after the previous one collapsed, having been designed by a knavish friar who faked his credentials], this one a super 100.
I would like to announce that I am now accepting nickname submissions. Submissions can be PM’ed to @Baden no later than April 15th. He will then post them anonymously in this thread. Good luck to the contestants.
Btw I just creeped on your profile and found this under "location":
"Mental prison of my own design - fortified by impenetrable walls of ingrained core belief, vigilantly and omnisciently patrolled by guards of arrogance and self-virtue."
:clap: :clap: :clap:
If only a minuscule percentage of the population here were as self-aware.
I want a nickname. All my childhood friends had cruel and offensive nicknames, but for some reason I was always just called by my name. This made me feel ostracized and unpopular.
What are your thoughts about format? Is it a social hour or a panel discussion?
I would try a hybrid. I would run a poll for the top 10 folks that the forum members might like to listen to and ask questions of. Like if @Banno@jamalrob were chosen to be on the panel: they would have to agree to the two-way conversations that they would have top avail themselves to in accepting the nomination to sit on that panel. We are really looking to fill 5 positions on the panel but if we find 10 in the poll, we won't have to run another in the event that those chosen do not wish to participate on the panel. And yes I fully anticipate that reaction from some forum members so I will just toss these names out and the more names the better, to make sure it is as inclusive as everyone wants it to be.
180 Proof, Hanover, Tobias, Benkei, jamalrob, Baden, GMA, Michael, frdake, Maw, TClark, Noble Dust, BitterCrank, Sir2U, frank, Tom Storm, streetlightx, I know I have forgotten a bunch but it's a start...add more please:
Then once we establish the panel, we will need an MC and a sidekick to help the flow of the social hour aspect of it.
ArguingWAristotleTiffApril 05, 2022 at 16:21#6779360 likes
Watching a Netflix movie where they were having sex standing up, and he held her up throughput, but I'm not sure if it was through bicep strength alone or if he had a kickstand like appendage that made that doable.
Thoughts?
I've paused the movie while awaiting replies.
Not likely to be without assistance of a wall or a hidden shelf. Then again it is the movies so I am just speaking from a non magical side of reality.
Was it too adults or very young adults? Maybe....if the male was 18....he might be able to manage it but anything much older than 23, the bending of appendages, while still remaining in the act of intercourse would be unlikely.
I feel confident that I will be corrected if I am off target.
If you come up with an agenda and proposed format, I'll scrounge up the participants. Then we'll just need a Zoom link and time. Those wishing to protect anonymity can turn off their video or even audio if they'd like.
It needn't be a perfect format. I can wing it. I've made a career of bullshiting.
Apparently, Lord Yahweh had a piece of land in Sonoma, California a few decades ago — 30 acres (? 350m × 350m), as of May 6, 1969.
It was that summer Betty Penrose's house was destroyed by lightning, and she sued Lord Yahweh accordingly, for $100,000 in general and punitive damages.
[quote=Scruton]Rabbits are gregarious animals, for whom there is only one mental torture greater than solitary confinement, which is that of being cuddled by a member of a large rabbit-eating species. The pet rabbit learns to adapt to its conditions, much as human beings learned to adapt to Stalin’s gulag. Being unable to shift its eyes, the rabbit maintains its generous stare even when held by a smelly omnivore emitting vile drooling noises and smiling down on it with a mouth full of teeth. Correct behavior is rewarded, after all, with a piece of lettuce. In this way the rabbit teeters from terror to terror and from day to day.
In the wild, however, in the teeming burrow where he mates promiscuously with his kind, where the only smell is the smell of rabbit, and where every intruder is regarded with abhorrence, the rabbit takes his revenge: eating crops, destroying saplings, and undermining paths and fields.[/quote]
I've almost gotten to the point where I think having pets is inhumane, as much as I love animals. Maybe a cat, and one that can go in and out, but I'd have to be working from home or something.
Reply to Noble Dust Keeping dogs and cats isn't inhumane if done right. Keeping guinea pigs is all right if you have a group of them, they have a garden to forage in during daylight hours, and you don't dress them up in costumes. Otherwise, yeah.
Right. As a kid I grew up with birds (budgerigars), and I love birds, but I didn't realize at the time how needy they are. As an adult I would love nothing more than to adopt a few birds, but you need to be basically at home all the time, and giving them regular attention. I would love nothing more, but it's extremely unrealistic.
Reply to Noble Dust It seems wrong to me to imprison a bird like that. Budgerigars should be in the wild, soaring majestically over the Andes, their piercing eyes scanning the mountainside for prey.
Keeping guinea pigs is all right if you have a group of them, they have a garden to forage in during daylight hours, and you don't dress them up in costumes. Otherwise, yeah.
A group of guinea pigs is called a herd. https://peteducate.com/what-is-a-group-of-guinea-pigs-called/
Reply to Noble Dust Cats would just as soon we left during the day, Dogs, on the other hand, pretty much insist on us being available, preferably all the time. Cats are good at staring at corners, dogs not so much. On the other hand, if you are gone large, furry, drooling dogs appreciate the opportunity to sack out on your bed all day, their head on your pillow.
A group of condors is called either a condo or a scarcity. https://identify.whatbird.com/obj/440/_/california_condor.aspx#:~:text=A%20group%20of%20condors%20are,a%20%22scarcity%22%20of%20condors..
I've got 3 dogs, a cat, 4 goats, and 5 chickens. They do whatever they want, and they don't try to run away, so I guess they're happy.
I have 5 dogs, there were seven but 2 died at the end of last year. 2 cats. We used to have a small flock of chickens and I am planning on getting some more when I retire.
But there is no way in hell do I want goats. I am thinking about a couple of sheep so that I can stop cutting the grass though.
But there is no way in hell do I want goats. I am thinking about a couple of sheep so that I can stop cutting the grass though.
Goats are friendly little guys. They eat the grass and jump on everything and require little work. Depending on the breed, you might need to shear the sheep. Might be fun, but it's and work I think.
If I get more land one day, I'd like to get a bunch of sheep and a dog to herd them. I want to retire to what I'm thinking some want to retire from.
As soon as God has been located, he will be brought to justice for the genocide of the dinosaurs; the evidence is now incontrovertible.
unenlightenedApril 07, 2022 at 08:50#6787880 likes
This, and the above are part of the New Humor, that i am promoting. New Humor consists of unfunny jokes intended to provoke a mild sense of disappointment. Laughter is not expected or desired, just a reaction of - "Oh I see what you did there, but why did you bother?"
This will have a deeply calming effect on the zeitgeist and help prepare the collective for the mass extinction to come. You are welcome, but thank me afterwards.
As soon as God has been located, he will be brought to justice for the genocide of the dinosaurs; the evidence is now incontrovertible.
Fuck the dinosaurs - ugly mothers... look at the godawful mess this verkakte deity made of human beings - all those blatant design flaws and diseases. A class action must be taken against this Almighty Screwup for poor manufacturing standards endangering life!
This, and the above are part of the New Humor, that i am promoting. New Humor consists of unfunny jokes intended to provoke a mild sense of disappointment. Laughter is not expected or desired, just a reaction of - "Oh I see what you did there, but why did you bother?"
The anti-joke. https://www.keeplaughingforever.com/anti-jokes
unenlightenedApril 07, 2022 at 13:48#6788880 likes
The intention of an anti-joke is to have a punchline which is not funny, in fact because the punchline is such a let down the joke then actually becomes funny!
Reply to Hanover Completely different! That is poking fun at humour, in a mere extension of self parody. There's no real philosophy, and the goal is the same as any other joke. That's not going to solve the Ukraine crisis, is it?
Completely different! That is poking fun at humour, in a mere extension of self parody. There's no real philosophy, and the goal is the same as any other joke. That's not going to solve the Ukraine crisis, is it?
I do see the distinction, but you've created a complicated construct. If I understand, you want a purposefully not funny joke that represents itself as a joke, but then it's not really funny, but it's not unfunny enough to evoke laughter at its unfunniness. It's just a bad joke, with only you knowing it was intentionally bad, so you can knowingly laugh to yourself at their disappointment, but you can't reveal your intent, else they might laugh at your novel cleverness.
With this understanding, I do think there is a possibility of a cease fire and a possibility of complete normalization of US/Russian relations, although sometimes my optimism gets ahead of me.
I arrived at a new type of joke myself. It's the explaining resolution joke, where you go on and on explaining how a joke works, as if anyone is paying attention, and then you provide a non-sequiter resolution to an unrelated problem.
It's like when you tell a joke that's funny to some people but too edgy to others, so you mumble it so only some can hear, but you don't repeat it to those who say "huh?" because that may trigger their listening closer, and then Covid is eradicated in Africa.
See what I did there? The application of this joke form is limitless.
unenlightenedApril 07, 2022 at 15:38#6789410 likes
I arrived at a new type of joke myself. It's the explaining resolution joke, where you go on and on explaining how a joke works, as if anyone is paying attention, and then you provide a non-sequiter resolution to an unrelated problem.
Fascinating. Where on Earth did you get the idea? Is the Latin essential?
If I understand, you want a purposefully not funny joke that represents itself as a joke, but then it's not really funny, but it's not unfunny enough to evoke laughter at its unfunniness. It's just a bad joke,
No, of course not. If it was a bad joke, people would laugh. Like this:
A mile high penis! Ha, ha, ha.
No, good jokes, but not funny. Like in today's UK news, the government published a new energy policy that includes building 8 new nuclear reactors. The plan is that they will get the go-ahead in 10 years, and then in another 10- 15 years they will start to be commissioned. It's a great joke, but not remotely funny.
No, good jokes, but not funny. Like in today's UK news, the government published a new energy policy that includes building 8 new nuclear reactors. The plan is that they will get the go-ahead in 10 years, and then in another 10- 15 years they will start to be commissioned. It's a great joke, but not remotely funny.
I'm starting to see I think. It's the joke that would be funny if someone were writing satire, but that it's actually true makes it a tragedy. Like if we sold the Irish children as food to ease their poverty, that would be a great joke, but not funny if actually true.
Maybe that's a bad example because that would be funny either way, but you get my drift.
This, and the above are part of the New Humor, that i am promoting. New Humor consists of unfunny jokes intended to provoke a mild sense of disappointment. Laughter is not expected or desired, just a reaction of - "Oh I see what you did there, but why did you bother?"
Yes, you have roughly found one way to do it. I think there are many ways.
Reply to T Clark I'm sorry, I'm monolingual English, apart from some French, Catalan, German and Welsh. I don't understand whatever that language is; but I think I detected laughter, so that would rule it out anyway. What makes this form of humour so refreshing is that it is more or less immune from any commercial exploitation, although I dare say it might be used as part of some inhumane torture or punishment.
I'm starting to see I think. It's the joke that would be funny if someone were writing satire, but that it's actually true makes it a tragedy. Like if we sold the Irish children as food to ease their poverty, that would be a great joke, but not funny if actually true.
TV laugh tracks were recorded decades ago. It is understood that most of the people laughing in those recordings are dead. Orson Welles once described these tracks as ghostly peels of laugher echoing out of the graveyard.
TV laugh tracks were recorded decades ago. It is understood that most of the people laughing in those recordings are dead. Orson Welles once described these tracks as ghostly peels of laugher echoing out of the graveyard.
Well, since you explain it that way, I won't find them as annoying as I usually do. I mean, dead people have to find pleasure wherever they can.
Reply to T Clark That's true, but I don't think I would want to be stuck in an eternal loop validating the alleged mirth of The King of Queens... In this instance, if I weren't already dead, I'd ask you to kill me...
I've got a new type of humor. The punchline is always in Sindhi.
Why did the chicken cross the road?
??? ??? ???? ??? ???
Hahaha! It's so much funnier that way
Okay Hanny, I just have to know...who the hell is your boss that lets you get away with this EPIC level off enjoying happy hour banter during the day? Hmm?
ArguingWAristotleTiffApril 07, 2022 at 21:33#6790670 likes
Okay Hanny, I just have to know...who the hell is your boss that lets you get away with this EPIC level off enjoying happy hour banter during the day? Hmm?
Reply to T Clark Would Click and Clack be a @Hanover thing? Seems too cornball for Hanover's highly elevated sense of humor and extremely sophisticated milieu composed of chickens, goats, cats, dogs, and his alleged clients, who would cover the feed cost of the salon d'Georgia cum menagerie.
ArguingWAristotleTiffApril 08, 2022 at 02:02#6792040 likes
As soon as God has been located, he will be brought to justice for the genocide of the dinosaurs; the evidence is now incontrovertible.
It's well-accepted that if the dinosaurs hadn't become extinct, humans never would have evolved. If the jury is made up of humans, you would probably have trouble getting a conviction. You probably couldn't even find an unbiased jury.
Back to goats. I like goats a lot and I'd keep some if I had land in a pleasant semi-rural setting. I'm impressed by their character and hardiness. I've had some pleasant Russian goat encounters over the past two years, and before that I saw goats in Spain being herded by wizened goatherds, feral goats on the tops of Spanish and Scottish mountains, and "Goats on the Roof" on Vancouver Island.
I didn't see any goats in France, but I did once go to a French market for goat's cheese. I mistakenly asked for "fromage de cheval" (horse cheese) instead of "fromage de chèvre". Similarly in Spain I asked a fishmonger for "un caballo" (one horse) instead of "una caballa" (one mackerel).
Incidentally, both the French and Spanish words for knight or gentleman relate to horses: chevalier and caballero. Nowadays, as with "gentlemen" in Britain, you mostly just see "caballeros" on men's toilets.
My guess is you googled "baseball goat", and the machine spat out a cringy overlay photo of Ichiro Suzuki, one of the best players of the modern age, with a photo of a goat. GOAT stands for Greatest Of All Time.
My guess is you googled "baseball goat", and the machine spat out a cringy overlay photo of Ichiro Suzuki, one of the best players of the modern age, with a photo of a goat.
I do see the distinction, but you've created a complicated construct. If I understand, you want a purposefully not funny joke that represents itself as a joke, but then it's not really funny, but it's not unfunny enough to evoke laughter at its unfunniness. It's just a bad joke, with only you knowing it was intentionally bad, so you can knowingly laugh to yourself at their disappointment, but you can't reveal your intent, else they might laugh at your novel cleverness.
With this understanding, I do think there is a possibility of a cease fire and a possibility of complete normalization of US/Russian relations, although sometimes my optimism gets ahead of me.
I arrived at a new type of joke myself. It's the explaining resolution joke, where you go on and on explaining how a joke works, as if anyone is paying attention, and then you provide a non-sequiter resolution to an unrelated problem.
I think this is just a form of the joke that I pioneered here:
I think the argument is more like this: we might have prevented the Russian state from becoming such a bad actor if we had understood its deep sense of geographical vulnerability, its genuine perception of NATO as an existential threat, and its desire to gain international standing after the nineties; and if we had acted in accordance with this understanding instead of arrogantly expanding our own sphere of influence on its doorstep because it seemed easy at the time.
Note that the "we" of the argument doesn't include me and that it is not my argument, though it seems all right as far as it goes. I just shared it because it shows that the idea that the US was arrogant is neither unreasonable nor restricted to an anti-American position.
Had a yoghurt drink and black coffee for breakfast.
unenlightenedApril 08, 2022 at 08:30#6793090 likes
Australia is totally ludicrous, and has been since it was first discovered in the Dreamtime.
— unenlightened
The world is ludicrous. What is it about Australia that is totally so?
1. It looks like a cat's head.
2. It burns and floods on alternate years except when it does both at once.
3. @StreetlightX and @Banno.
4. It has only ever been invaded by British criminals.
Reply to T Clark There are plenty of antinatalists on this site that have no survivalist bias.
1. It looks like a cat's head.
2. It burns and floods on alternate years except when it does both at once.
3. StreetlightX and @Banno.
4. It has only ever been invaded by British criminals.
Ok. In that case you left out: Most famous Australians are not actually Australian - Russell Crowe, Mel Gibson, Naomi Watts, Olivia Newton John, Guy Pearce, Keith Urban, the band ACDC...
Ok. In that case you left out: Most famous Australians are not actually Australian - Russell Crowe, Mel Gibson, Naomi Watts, Olivia Newton John, Guy Pearce, Keith Urban, the band ACDC...
That is just the nature of fame. eg, most famous tigers are not tigers; most famous bears are not bears; most famous musicians are not musicians; etc.
"The Almighty Johnsons" is from New Zealand, so you can add it to ?Tom Storm's list.
Yes, I know. I like to pretend I don't know the difference between Australia and New Zealand. I was disappointed Tom Storm didn't get my incorrect reference. I usually use "The Flight of the Conchords" as my reference but I decided to do a changeup.
Speaking of goats, I crossed paths with this goat on a trail once in Montana.
His name was Jeff. He was on holiday from the Alps, was an avid skier, enjoyed sudoku, and had a pleasant, if not homely, wife. A good bloke all around. We continue to exchange postcards at Christmas.
Reply to Banno
He went missing for a few months previously and I was wondering where he was then and he resurfaced, so I suspect he may do so again. However, some people on the site do seem to vanish without trace...
Reply to BannoReply to Jack Cummins We don't know whether people who disappeared were merely disinterested in continuing or who no longer continue because they were run over by a truck, bus, or Russian tank. Maybe we could have an agreement that if we don't participate during a given period (say 365 or 730 days) and haven't resigned, then we will be presumed dead.
A lot of us are at the point in life where death is just not going to be a big surprise.
Reply to Bitter Crank
That may be a bit too reminiscent of Ritchey of the Manic Street Preachers who was declared dead after he was missing for so long. One person who I was concerned about was someone who wrote a few threads, some of which were focused on suicide and he just stopped, so he may have really killed himself.
With some people, including Kenosha Kid it may be that they had a lot of spare time due to lockdown and are working now or busy.
Tim and I exchanged PMs. He's feeling pretty burned out about the forum right now. Feels like a lot of discussions turn into, in his words, mud wrestling with pigs. I told him I hope his enthusiasm will come back with time. We'll see.
Following Gravity's Rainbow I suspect. An (ex)professional physicist, he once told me he had left the profession and was concentrating on his guitar. Something about a pot of gold.
He's feeling pretty burned out about the forum right now. Feels like a lot of discussions turn into, in his words, mud wrestling with pigs.
Unfortunate. I’m aware when members that I develop a kind of connection with go AWOL, and I haven’t developed that with Mr. Wood, but nevertheless I noticed him missing the other day for some reason.
With some people, including Kenosha Kid it may be that they had a lot of spare time due to lockdown and are working now or busy.
Yeah, yeah, Kenosha apparently knows how to reverse time, so I would think that he has an infinite amount of spare time, back and forth, to deal with right now. How do you ever get out of that one?
Tim and I exchanged PMs. He's feeling pretty burned out about the forum right now. Feels like a lot of discussions turn into, in his words, mud wrestling with pigs. I told him I hope his enthusiasm will come back with time. We'll see.
I guess, hanging with the pigs for too long, and you sort of become one of them. He might never get out of that new skin.
unenlightenedApril 09, 2022 at 13:56#6796600 likes
This is, in one sense, the terribly wrong thesis of Bernard-Henri Lévy in his new book 'Left in Dark Times', is that the 21st century Antisemitism will be progressive or none. Because, again, the underlying thesis is that every anti capitalism is incipiently anti-Semitic. This is ideologically a wonderful invention. You take the most horrible crime of the 20th century, holocaust, and then you use it to disqualify in advance any questioning of the system. [...] the difference between liberalism and the radical left is that, although they refer to the same three elements, liberal center, populist right, radical left, they locate them within a different topology. For the liberal center the radical left and radical right are two forms of the appearance of the same totalitarian excess ... while for the left, the only true alternative is the one between itself and the liberal mainstream. With the populist radical right there is nothing but the symptom of liberalism's inability to deal with the leftist threat ... So I think we should more than ever insist on what Max Horkheimer of the Frankfurt school said 70 years ago: 'Those who do not want to talk about capitalism, critically, should keep quiet about fascism.'
Here's a baby koala that got kicked out of his tree, and now crying. Where's humanity in this? Like a basic necessity gets taken out of you. It's like you're denied...water.
Here's a baby koala that got kicked out of his tree, and now crying. Where's humanity in this? Like a basic necessity gets taken out of you. It's like you're denied...water.
It's sad, but folks get evicted everyday. Pay the rent or get put out.
Well, that's the thing. It's not even like rent. A tree is like water to koalas.
So I researched this and what was happening was that the young male was going up the tree to shack up with a honey, but the older male was protecting his turf and he tossed his creeping ass to the ground.
What you were seeing was a mating game.
Is mating like water? Depends on how thirsty you are I suppose.
Folk used to say that koalas never drank, getting all their moisture from eating leaves. It was bullshit, though. The leaves are not moist enough, but ull of eucalyptus oil, giving koala meat a nasty taste. They have an incredibly long appendix - thirty feet or so; long ago I assisted on post mortems on koalas, a smelly business. It is thought that the appendix is used in breaking down the oil.
Hey, it was a long time ago, but definitely more than a couple of metres long. It was during an investigation of unexplained koala mortality in what is now the Wild Rivers National Park, amongst large and apparently otherwise healthy animals. They were being found at the base of their trees. Nothing came out of the post mortems, as I recall, but this was twenty years before the discovery of Koala Retrovirus.
Hey, it was a long time ago, but definitely more than a couple of metres long. It was during an investigation of unexplained koala mortality in what is now the Wild Rivers National Park, amongst large and apparently otherwise healthy animals. They were being found at the base of their trees. Nothing came out of the post mortems, as I recall, but this was twenty years before the discovery of Koala Retrovirus.
Very interesting phenomenon. So, there was a koala retrovirus?
How tall, generally, would a person with a 14 inch appendix come out to?
Metaphysician UndercoverApril 11, 2022 at 11:32#6803390 likes
[quote=Wikipedia]Charles Darwin suggested that the appendix was mainly used by earlier hominids for digesting fibrous vegetation, then evolved to take on a new purpose over time. The very long cecum of some herbivorous animals, such as in the horse or the koala, appears to support this hypothesis. The koala's cecum enables it to host bacteria that specifically help to break down cellulose. Human ancestors may have also relied upon this system when they lived on a diet rich in foliage. As people began to eat more easily digested foods, they may have become less reliant on cellulose-rich plants for energy. As the cecum became less necessary for digestion, mutations that were previously deleterious (and would have hindered evolutionary progress) were no longer important, so the mutations survived. It is suggested that these alleles became more frequent and the cecum continued to shrink. After millions of years, the once-necessary cecum degraded to be the appendix of modern humans.[28]
Dr. Heather F. Smith of Midwestern University and colleagues explained:
Recently ... improved understanding of gut immunity has merged with current thinking in biological and medical science, pointing to an apparent function of the mammalian cecal appendix as a safe-house for symbiotic gut microbes, preserving the flora during times of gastrointestinal infection in societies without modern medicine. This function is potentially a selective force for the evolution and maintenance of the appendix. Three morphotypes of cecal-appendices can be described among mammals based primarily on the shape of the cecum: a distinct appendix branching from a rounded or sac-like cecum (as in many primate species), an appendix located at the apex of a long and voluminous cecum (as in the rabbit, greater glider and Cape dune mole rat), and an appendix in the absence of a pronounced cecum (as in the wombat). In addition, long narrow appendix-like structures are found in mammals that either lack an apparent cecum (as in monotremes) or lack a distinct junction between the cecum and appendix-like structure (as in the koala). A cecal appendix has evolved independently at least twice, and apparently represents yet another example of convergence in morphology between Australian marsupials and placentals in the rest of the world. Although the appendix has apparently been lost by numerous species, it has also been maintained for more than 80 million years in at least one clade.[29]
In a 2013 paper, the appendix was found to have evolved at least 32 times (and perhaps as many as 38 times) and to have been lost no more than six times.[30] A more recent study using similar methods on an updated database yielded similar, though less spectacular results, with at least 29 gains and at the most 12 losses (all of which were ambiguous), and this is still significantly asymmetrical.[31] This suggests that the cecal appendix has a selective advantage in many situations and argues strongly against its vestigial nature. This complex evolutionary history of the appendix, along with a great heterogeneity in its evolutionary rate in various taxa, suggests that it is a recurrent trait.[32]
Such a function may be useful in a culture lacking modern sanitation and healthcare practice, where diarrhea may be prevalent. Current epidemiological data on the cause of death in developed countries collected by the World Health Organization in 2001 show that acute diarrhea is now the fourth leading cause of disease-related death in developing countries (data summarized by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). Two of the other leading causes of death are expected to have exerted limited or no selection pressure.[33][/quote]
The science is a little bit sketchy when the fourth leading cause of death is supposed to be related to significant "selective advantage", while two of the other leading causes of death exert no selection pressure. Maybe the researchers exert a little selective bias, in their conclusion. Possible solution: the digestive system has a mind of its own.
ArguingWAristotleTiffApril 11, 2022 at 12:54#6803600 likes
ArguingWAristotleTiffApril 11, 2022 at 13:00#6803630 likes
Reply to frank
OH Frank, now the FDA has a map to make sure BIG Pharma can 'fix' an unhuman like digestive system.
Then a year from that release, they can pursue a search for the cure of what the 'fix' caused.
And then come the Nationwide Attorneys who specialize in the injuries sustained by the Koalas as a result of using the product for its intended purpose.
ArguingWAristotleTiffApril 11, 2022 at 13:04#6803650 likes
And I am declining to pay for this social media platform, in which I have seen what is now out there in the dating pool, what some of the new social guidelines are and no, I do not want to be called "Mommy" for anyone who dares ask.
Capice?
Reply to ArguingWAristotleTiff
There's a gigantic oak tree in my neighbor's yard. I sit and stare at it sometimes because it's so beautiful, but at the same time I worry that my neighbors will cut it down.
I guess it means I'm trying to control the world and it's not in my control.
All I have is the way the tree is now. I'm trying to let go of the need to control it. Does that make sense?
Reply to T Clark Koalas have 6 foot long appendixes but they're all way under 6 feet in height. It follows that all people with 14 inch appendixes are under 14 inches tall.
Koalas have 6 foot long appendixes but they're all way under 6 feet in height. It follows that all people with 14 inch appendixes are under 14 inches tall.
I stand corrected. This is what they call "logic," right? Finally it all starts to make sense to me.
ArguingWAristotleTiffApril 11, 2022 at 17:45#6804610 likes
All I have is the way the tree is now. I'm trying to let go of the need to control it. Does that make sense?
Yes, yes, yes. It makes all too much sense now. :shade:
My Mom has been telling me as long as I can remember: you cannot control others, all you can do is control how you respond; always be kind to everyone you meet; never pass judgement on another person because you never know what they are dealing with behind closed doors; if all you can do is smile? Smile as brightly as you know how and be genuine in your interactions. :flower:
Not bad considering she let touch a wall socket with a wet diaper on when I was 2 years old. :rofl:
ArguingWAristotleTiffApril 11, 2022 at 17:48#6804620 likes
For me as a Mom?
Good lord my kids still fear me and they better if they know what is good for them.
Poor things, anytime, anyone their age or males in general BLOW me away with their lack of compassion, sympathy, empathy or just being a good and decent human being?
They get their asses chewed and told I had better not find out that they behaved in such a way,
Now as long as there is a breath in my body... No, Sir. :brow:
Having said that: both of my boys know I would fight to the death for them and neither have a single doubt in their minds whether or not I have their backs. :100:
Wikipedia:It is suggested that these alleles became more frequent and the cecum continued to shrink. After millions of years, the once-necessary cecum degraded to be the appendix of modern humans.[28]
There's a gigantic oak tree in my neighbor's yard. I sit and stare at it sometimes because it's so beautiful, but at the same time I worry that my neighbors will cut it down.
So I guess it's official -- sit and stare at tree, worried neighbor will cut down.
I'd done this. In fact, there's a back patio at the house, I placed a couch on the patio, I'd lie there or sit there and watch the trees (yeah, more than 5 huge trees).
Reply to I like sushi Truth! From now on, philosophy shall be taught with clever cartoons. Away with long dull books, terminally boring lectures, and over-heated classrooms.
Truth! From now on, philosophy shall be taught with clever cartoons. Away with long dull books, terminally boring lectures, and over-heated classrooms.
You left out half-baked discussions on philosophy forums.
Saosin- Follow and Feel
She's watching me, I could be from a distance. Should I care? Is there something more I should have known? I know that I wonder.
Circa Survive- Sleep Well
A vengeful God, who will come and save the grateful one?! The faithless take the Sun again...
Replying to you because I can never manage to tag you outright.
Clarky and @jamalrob, my Ballantine Fantasy copy of Titus Groan hath arriveth today. I haven’t started it yet but I’m super amped to get into it. Looks wild.
Yup! So cool; I love authors who make illustrations of their own works; Tolkien did this, especially his maps. It makes the whole experience so much more intimate.
Yup! So cool; I love authors who make illustrations of their own works; Tolkien did this, especially his maps. It makes the whole experience so much more intimate.
Have fun.
ArguingWAristotleTiffApril 16, 2022 at 19:17#6823390 likes
Omg!!!!
Someone please explain to me how I am too nice?
Is the general population not used to their ideas being genuinely entertained so when I come along and ask, does that make me appear to be a wolf in sheep's clothing?
Okay look, for the second time I am being told that I deserve better than the person who I am choosing, by the person I am choosing.
I don't get it.
It's not a long term relationship, defined early, friends with benefits, and nothing but good times.
I'm utterly confused because I have said that I don't want a commitment.
Alternatively, I don't sleep around or with more than one person at a time.
Help me you males!
Is it possible that it is a projection onto me that he sees in himself?
I don't understand y'all
Perhaps it has nothing to do with the relationship in general and he’s merely insecure about his sexual prowess. Should he be? Curious minds want to know.
Reply to ArguingWAristotleTiff If his explanation makes no sense, it's probably not true. Dishonesty in relationships is actually a thing. So, don't look at the explanation. Look at the conclusion. For whatever reason, it ran its course.
ArguingWAristotleTiffApril 16, 2022 at 22:35#6824040 likes
Perhaps it has nothing to do with the relationship in general and he’s merely insecure about his sexual prowess. Should he be? Curious minds want to know.
Not at all. Very secure and has reason to be.
ArguingWAristotleTiffApril 16, 2022 at 22:39#6824060 likes
if his explanation makes no sense, it's probably not true. Dishonesty in relationships is actually a thing. So, don't look at the explanation. Look at the conclusion. For whatever reason, it ran its course
His further explanation makes sense so it's all good
I just wonder what energy I am projecting because I am standing taller than I ever have, I feel appreciated and I am rocking school.
This is my only internet hangout right now with school as heavy as it is.
I am very secure in my erectile dysfunction. I can always count on it. Never fails, 100% reliable. Tried and true. No woman left satisfied, that's my golden guarantee.
I generally slept with only one guy at a time, unless more were available.
An aside on cats and dogs: All cats are females; all dogs are males. Cats are fussy. Dogs have lower standards. A dog will enthusiastically hump your leg. Cats might sit on your lap for a minute or two. Cats and dogs are what they are; they can't help it. Women are more catlike (not catty, mind you), and men are more dog like. Some men, at least, are a lot more dog like.
I've been out of the relationship business for quite a while, but A LOT of what I hear from others who are -- males, females, gay, straight, younger, older -- indicates that relationships are just more difficult to establish now than in the past, and once established are more difficult to maintain. I can name some possible factors for this, but the list is not going to help.
#1: Older people (like middle aged and up) arrive at the bar, coffee shop, restaurant, bedroom, car--wherever -- with a wagon load of baggage. Once upon a time, relationships, falling in love, first sex, etc. was new and exciting. That ship left port a long time ago.
#2: when we were young, our expectations were simpler. [see the Beach Boys: She'll have fun fun fun 'Til her daddy takes the T-bird away.]. Fun Fun Fun just isn't as easy to achieve now. We have a car, a house, a mortgage, children. Now we are the daddy who takes the T-bird away.
#3: We are more complicated than we used to be. Wear and tear have left some damage in their wake. When we were young, the 'give a shit indicator' tended to be on the way down most of the time. Now it is on the way up from day to day, year to year.
The older I get, the lower my expectations. Like I said, I'm not dating these days, but I still meet new people every now and then. A clinical approach seems to work as well as any other. Rather than take offense, I try to think, "That's strange; how did they get that way? Doesn't matter--not taking him/her/them home anyway."
So, what about loneliness and unfulfilled desires? Life is what we do while making other plans; finding substitutions for what's missing, and the like. Life is a bitch, and then we die.
god must be atheistApril 16, 2022 at 23:36#6824160 likes
Omg!!!!
Someone please explain to me how I am too nice?
Is the general population not used to their ideas being genuinely entertained so when I come along and ask, does that make me appear to be a wolf in sheep's clothing?
Okay look, for the second time I am being told that I deserve better than the person who I am choosing, by the person I am choosing.
I don't get it.
It's not a long term relationship, defined early, friends with benefits, and nothing but good times.
I'm utterly confused because I have said that I don't want a commitment.
Alternatively, I don't sleep around or with more than one person at a time.
Help me you males!
Is it possible that it is a projection onto me that he sees in himself?
I don't understand y'all
The guy rejects you, "you are too nice for the human race, go away", that's all. If a guy says "you are too nice" he means "I can't stand you any more." He can't pretty well say that, and he knows that, so he says "you're too nice for me." Everything else said is meaningless. Just decoration on the speech-tree.
But don't worry, it works both ways. I have been rejected two ways by women: "You are too nice" and "get away from me, creep."
god must be atheistApril 16, 2022 at 23:42#6824170 likes
I've been out of the relationship business for quite a while, but A LOT of what I hear from others who are -- males, females, gay, straight, younger, older -- indicates that relationships are just more difficult to establish now than in the past, and once established are more difficult to maintain. I can name some possible factors for this, but the list is not going to help.
I live in a small town now, and everyone is in a relationship. Those who are not, are trying to be.
There are no swinging singles, there are no swinging couples. At least not in my circles, and if I am wrong, then they don't flaunt it because it's socially unacceptable.
It's easy to get into a relationship in small towns. You just need to roll up your sleeves, grit your teeth, and be patient, and compromise, compromise, compromise. Those who are incapable of it, or unwilling, or have no clue what it even means, are single and I daresay lonely.
But don't worry, it works both ways. I have been rejected two ways by women: "You are too nice" and "get away from me, creep."
The first line means "I'm embarrassed to be seen with you" to the women. The second line is just really a feeling of fear or grossed out, but the dude might still be hot.
When we were young, the 'give a shit indicator' tended to be on the way down most of the time. Now it is on the way up from day to day, year to year.
I read that the hippie generation didn't give a fuck. Now we have the social media, and fake lives are more fun than authenticity and real. So, people now give a fuck if only to boost their ego online.
Here's my street cred: married for 20 years, divorced for 5, married now for 1 1/2.
My thought about today's dating is that the impediment is too much choice, it's too easy, and it's too anonymous. You log on and you're instantly bombarded with choice in a hyper-competive race. The way you succeed is to accept it's a numbers game and to hang in there. The way to fail is to take it personally and give up.
Pre-internet, your choices were limited to those in your proximity, you likely knew them or someone close to them, and you couldn't just give them a try and then move on to the next swipe right when you grew restless. You'd run through your choices pretty quick and you'd be known as "that guy."
I joke with my wife that I found her just playing around on my phone. While there were hundreds of misses and hundreds of hours in that search, that's an insanely convenient way to find a spouse.
I wouldn't particularly want my children to learn about critical race theory in elementary or high school. It's political philosophy, not history or sociology. It doesn't outrage me if other parents feel the same or if school boards respond to that opinion. Of course my youngest is 32, so I don't have to worry about it.
Florida Rejects Dozens of Math Textbooks Over Alleged References to CRT (Apr 16, 2022)
So the math problems are something like…
A back man is put on trial for a traffic violation. The jury consists of 18 white men and two black women. How many years of imprisonment is the defendant sentenced to?
Btw, it is very suspect that they won’t say which books were banned.
Professor wins a judgment of $400,000 for being written up and reprimanded for refusing a transgender student a "she". He responded to her question in class by "Yes, sir". The student got upset and asked the professor to refer to her as a she, moving forward. The professor refused. She then threatened that the professor be fired. Long story short, the professor got written up (negative permanent record) and whatever it is that they had to do. The professor sued for violating his Christian beliefs by being forced to change his knowledge and perception about the gender.
Reply to L'éléphant It's an interesting opinion and I think a correct one. The background on it was the trial court dismissed the professor's suit by stating the university had a legitimate non-discrimination policy. The appeals court (6th Circuit) reversed, holding that if this university could dictate its professors use the pronouns requested of the students, another university could dictate that its professors not use the pronouns requested of the students but only use biological ones.
That is, it's entirely a question of free speech and allowing professors to decide.
Once the 6th Circuit reversed and sent it back for trial, the university settled for $400k. Whether a jury would have actually awarded that, who knows. It seems excessive to me, considering that amount is over 4x the average family's income and he got it by just having to deal with an unfair employment review.
. The appeals court (6th Circuit) reversed, holding that if this university could dictate its professors use the pronouns requested of the students, another university could dictate that its professors not use the pronouns requested of the students but only use biological ones.
I find this unconvincing, something is wrong. Although, I'm glad for the professor -- the permanent record would derail or ruin his career for many years, affecting his ability to earn a living at that level.
But going back to the above, it is not a "vice versa" because the new thing is the one that's holding hostage the traditional or customary practice, if you will, of addressing people. But they're the ones who know the law, so I defer to their wisdom.
Another thought - I spoke up because, in the ongoing conversation on the forum, one particular side of this story is told more often then the other.
My thoughts on CRT.
CRT is an abstract theory that argues that racial inequities are embedded into the fabric of American society such that white people will receive an advantage often unknowingly and despite their best intentions to be racially sensitive.
That theory, as a theory, is doubtfully taught at the high school level, but maybe perhaps it is in an advanced placement sociology class.
It seems CRT is extrapolated beyond race as well, making the same arguments for heterosexuality and male-ness, claiming those attributes provide similar unfair advantages as whiteness.
Again, that theory as a theory is not taught.
What I think the CRT objectors reference would be the characterization of non-traditional behaviors as acceptable, while the CRT proponents would only see that normalization as a refusal to accept the embedded inequities.
Less abstractly and more concretely, we all watched Leave it to Beaver, and in no episode were we told fathers were to wear suits and go to work, were to be the moral backbone of the family, that men were to marry only women, that children were to be born within a marriage, that boys had only crushes on girls, that mothers baked cookies and kept a clean home, and that clean cut America was all white, etc., but that is precisely the image provided. That is what we were being told.
So, if the examples in my child's math textbook showed two women with a transsexual child, the objection by parents wouldn't be to CRT as an abstract theory, but it would be to the notion that this family dynamic violated their ethical standards. That is, the very fact one objects to the lesbian family in the math book is proof he advantages heterosexual relationships, even though he likely never even thought he weighed into this debate. You might be an oppressor and not know it.
My point here is that I think CRT is probably true insofar as societal norms are so pervasive we overlook they are being enforced and are negatively impacting those outside the majority population.
What this means is that if we don't want our children to be presented non-traditional examples of relationships, for example, we need to do it with a justification that the traditional system is superior, as opposed to arguing that children are too young to even think about what constitutes a proper relationship. The point is that children are being bombarded with what are to be considered normal relationships regardless of whether we intend it.
If CRT is true, it is true, regardless of whether it's taught.
CRT is an abstract theory that argues that racial inequities are embedded into the fabric of American society such that white people will receive an advantage often unknowingly and despite their best intentions to be racially sensitive.
What this means is that if we don't want our children to be presented non-traditional examples of relationships, for example, we need to do it with a justification that the traditional system is superior, as opposed to arguing that children are too young to even think about what constitutes a proper relationship. The point is that children are being bombarded with what are to be considered normal relationships regardless of whether we intend it.
If CRT is true, it is true, regardless of whether it's taught.
I don't buy it. From what I've seen, there's more to CRT than that. It preaches contempt for white people and blames each of us personally for how black people are treated. Perhaps you believe that we deserve that, but I don't. I think the thing that bothers me most is that it is not good strategy.
CRT is an interpretation of historical, sociological, and political fact. It's a caricature, a cartoon. Whatever the merits of the approach as applied to black people, it's different for transgender people. They make up less than half a percent of the population. I can see some argument perhaps for trying to show representative samples of gay people in text books, but I can't see it for transgender people.
Here's the solution, especially for educational materials that have nothing to do with social issues - just don't show anyone where I have to care what sexual identity they have. No married couples. No romantic situations. Show mechanics and their customers. Teachers and students. Doctors and patients.
god must be atheistApril 18, 2022 at 09:36#6828890 likes
one particular side of this story is told more often then the other.
There are more than two sides of the particular issue. At the surface it may seem only as two. Well, by typology, there ARE two: "us" and "them". But to a Hungarian nationalist, Hungarian is the super race; to a Bulgarian nationalist, Bulgarian is; and to a Zimbabwean nationalist, naturally, Zimbabwean is the super race. There is the simple typology of "super race" and "non-super race", but put the three in a room and all of a sudden a coin will have three heads, no tail, and no telling where it would end.
I don't buy it. From what I've seen, there's more to CRT than that. It preaches contempt for white people and blames each of us personally for how black people are treated. Perhaps you believe that we deserve that, but I don't. I think the thing that bothers me most is that it is not good strategy. CRT is an interpretation of historical, sociological, and political fact. It's a caricature, a cartoon.
Which CRT paper or book - or maybe more than one - did you read for you to come to this conclusion? Just curious.
god must be atheistApril 18, 2022 at 09:43#6828920 likes
I don't buy it. From what I've seen, there's more to CRT than that. It preaches contempt for white people and blames each of us personally for how black people are treated. Perhaps you believe that we deserve that,
In my opinion it's not that us, white folks, DESERVE that. It is just the status quo, and CRT's aim is that bigotry has to be annulled, and the races have to be made virtually equal, each person to be judged on his or her own merit.
The contempt for white folks is a balancing measure; it is needed to to bring the scales of social justice back to level. It is just as wrong as contempt for Black people, but that is there already, deeply seeped into the mind of the American. (And now due to the international cultural influence of the USA, now that attitude is omnipresent.) To KNOCK this incorrect and false idea out from the cultural codification, a revolution is needed, of sorts; not necessarily fought with guns. Revolutions are full of unpleasantness; this one has the unpleasantness of necessarily needing to kneed and thrash white people.
god must be atheistApril 18, 2022 at 09:48#6828950 likes
Perhaps the CRT should have started and continued on a different vein: instead of turning centuries of bigotry and hatred against Blacks into a hatred and bigotry against Whites, to do a balancing act, maybe it should have started to turn the hatred and bigotry against Blacks into love and acceptance, for all. That would have been the Christian thing to do.
But the dark forces of evil are also a Christian thing. And America loves a polarized world. To them balance is equal hatred, not pervasive love.
A quick citation because it is almost certain that all those who like to blab about CRT have never read a word of it in their life save from what they have regurgitated from 2 minute news clips:
via Charles Mills: "By recognizing [racial domination] as a political system, [CRT] voluntarizes race in the same way that the social contract voluntarizes the creation of society and the state. It distinguishes between whiteness as phenotype/genealogy and Whiteness as a political commitment to white supremacy, thus making conceptual room for "white renegades" and "race traitors." ... Correspondingly, the "Racial Contract" demystifies the uniqueness of white racism (for those who, understandably, see Europeans as intrinsically White) by locating it as the contingent outcome of a particular set of circumstances ... In a sense, the "Racial Contract" decolorizes Whiteness by detaching it from whiteness, thereby demonstrating that in a parallel universe it could have been Yellowness, Redness, Brownness, or Blackness. Or, alternatively phrased, we could have had a yellow, red, brown, or black Whiteness: Whiteness is not really a color at all, but a set of power relations."
This is why it's always funny when white people actively identify themselves with the critique of whiteness advanced by CRT. They [s]read about[/s] learn fifth-hand about all this horrible shit associated with whiteness and they go 'oh yes that's me! Now I'm being told to feel bad about that' rather than 'oh no that isn't me at all and it would be really good to put an end to all that shit'. Of course it's exactly like white people to make a critique of racial domination all about their feelings instead (who oh who will identify themselves - volunteer themselves as representative of - this last statement? Can't wait to see).
I don't buy it. From what I've seen, there's more to CRT than that. It preaches contempt for white people and blames each of us personally for how black people are treated. Perhaps you believe that we deserve that, but I don't. I think the thing that bothers me most is that it is not good strategy.
I see CRT as an academic theory that if truly debated would be debated like any other social science theory. It's truth would lie in empirical data, including comparisons to other cultural groups (with discussions about the applicability of those comparisons) and determining which disadvantages resulted from covert racism and which were from other factors.
CRT is not being treated as an academic discussion right now. It's being used as a basis for social policy and the motivations are not to decipher the extent to which CRT is correct, but in how effective it might be to either protect or disrupt the status quo.
What we hear about it from the right is that CRT is reverse racism disguised as science. From the left we hear that it is a scientific claim being weaponized by white supremacists to protect a racist system. Judging from recent political outcomes, it has been used as an effective buzzword to sway people toward the Republican perspective.
Which CRT paper or book - or maybe more than one - did you read for you to come to this conclusion? Just curious.
I read several articles about Robin Diangelo, both critical and more approving plus one or two about CRT and freedom of speech, which were critical. Can't remember the names. Beyond that, I've seen what has been on the TV news.
I see CRT as an academic theory that if truly debated would be debated like any other social science theory. It's truth would lie in empirical data, including comparisons to other cultural groups (with discussions about the applicability of those comparisons) and determining which disadvantages resulted from covert racism and which were from other factors.
I think it is a pseudo-academic theory that is really a polemic political statement. It's like Marxism. I don't mean that as a disparagement. It doesn't make any predictions based on facts. There have been plenty of studies on the effects of being black in a hostile white society.
CRT is not being treated as an academic discussion right now. It's being used as a basis for social policy and the motivations are not to decipher the extent to which CRT is correct, but in how effective it might be to either protect or disrupt the status quo.
I agree with the first part of this, but I don't think people really care about how effective it is. It's a statement of resentment from minorities and a little token to make white liberals feel like they are doing something. As I said, I don't think it is an effective method to improve the lives of minorities.
Reply to T Clark Ugh, no wonder. Diangelo is awful and her work is, for the most part, an outlier, albeit a popular one for having been marketed so well. She makes a living being a consultant for corporate entities who want to give some facade of racial relations training in the workplace, and her writing works to promote her business. She does exactly what the Mills quote I cited above argues not to do: to confuse skin color with a relationship of power.
Anyway, here, if you want more than this media think pieces and corporate trash, try just the introduction of this [PDF] on for size. From the horses' mouth at least.
Ugh, no wonder. Diangelo is awful and her work is, for the most part, an outlier, albeit a popular one for having been marketed so well. She makes a living being a consultant for corporate entities who want to give some facade of racial relations training in the workplace, and her writing works to promote her business. She does exactly what the Mills quote I cited above argues not to do: to confuse skin color with a relationship of power.
For better or worse, Diangelo and her ilk are the public face of CRT here in the US. I agree with you and Mills. I'll read at least the introduction of the article you linked. Thanks.
There are more than two sides of the particular issue. At the surface it may seem only as two. Well, by typology, there ARE two: "us" and "them". But to a Hungarian nationalist, Hungarian is the super race;
In the US there are minorities other than blacks that are treated with disrespect and discrimination, but I think white/black racial discrimination is the biggest, most intractable problem.
In my opinion it's not that us, white folks, DESERVE that. It is just the status quo, and CRT's aim is that bigotry has to be annulled, and the races have to be made virtually equal, each person to be judged on his or her own merit.
Sure, I can see how white racial antipathy hurts black people, Hispanics, and other minorities. I don't know how to change that. I don't think CRT is the way.
From what I've seen, there's more to CRT than that. It preaches contempt for white people and blames each of us personally for how black people are treated. Perhaps you believe that we deserve that, but I don't. I think the thing that bothers me most is that it is not good strategy.
Kind of like saying that climate change science is designed to make us feel that we’re bad stewards of the world and is poor strategy because it’s been successfully politicized.
Kind of like saying that climate change science is designed to make us feel that we’re bad stewards of the world and is poor strategy because it’s been successfully politicized.
CRT is bad strategy because it won't work.
I try not to get involved in discussions of racial issues. I've been attacked for my opinions before. I only responded to Jorndoe's original post because this is the Shoutbox and I don't like knee-jerk opinions. So, I'm done with this particular conversation.
You didn't say "white person," you said "white people," of which I am one.
Are you the white people that CRT refers to? Or do you define yourself so fixedly by the color of your skin? Jesus, it's 2022, you'd think people would be over this 18th century racial essentialism by now.
Diangelo is largely bullshit but she is right about one thing: the absolute yawning terror white people have about being called, in any way, shape, or form, white people.
That an intellectual movement will not change the nation's political direction
And what is this supposed to mean? Has an intellectual movement (qua intellectual movement) ever "changed a nation's political direction"? Does CRT harbour such ambitions? Much of it provides ways of thinking about social problems, coupled occasionally with suggestions as to how to ease them. Surely there are those who will use such efforts to inform their own social or political practices. But what kind of nonsense standard is "will this intellectual movement change the nation's political direction?", by which to judge it? Complete garbage question. As if a cotiere of ivory tower analysis published largely in obscure journals and taken up as a boogey man by cultural war morons has ever met, or even attempted to meet, such a standard.
How about: do the analyses offered ring true? Are the suggestions they offer - where in fact they are offered - plausable? What do such analyses obscure, if anything? But - "will it change the nation's political direction?" Come on. My God if anyone is going to panic over intellectual movements that have 'changed a nation's political direction' maybe consider Qanon which has actually gotten people murdered and continues to make America more fascist than it already is. Now there's something with an infinitely greater degree of social pertinance - unsurprisingly, not formulated behind paywalled journals.
Reply to StreetlightX If you're acknowledging it isn't going to change anything other than making for interesting academic discussion, then we're in agreement.
T Clark said it was bad strategy. You asked what that meant. I think he meant it won't do anything even if it's correct. Some ideas sway people. This isn't one of them.
If you want to bridge the black/white gap, ascribing blame, even if entirely justified, will not result in change.
This is a marketing question. They're not going to buy what you're selling. Sucks. Pearls before swine and all that.
Hold on, you've just changed the goalposts to an entirely different suburb. It's one thing to "change the political direction of a nation". It's quite another to "sway people". And if the latter is at stake then you are rather straightforwardly wrong, insofar as CRT has quite obviously "swayed people", without which we would not be here having this conversation.
I read several articles about Robin Diangelo, both critical and more approving plus one or two about CRT and freedom of speech, which were critical. Can't remember the names. Beyond that, I've seen what has been on the TV news.
Hold on, you've just changed the goalposts to an entirely different suburb. It's one thing to "change the political direction of a nation". It's quite another to "sway people". And if the latter is at stake then you are rather straightforwardly wrong, insofar as CRT has quite obviously "swayed people", without which we would not be here having this conversation.
We're the peculiar breed of us that doesn't count. We philosophize for its own sake like we matter.
CRT articles might sway the 5 or 6 people who actually read them to another point of view, or more likely might just make them think "hmmm" in that dispassionate way readers of journals say.
Mostly I expect CRT will do as the marketers market it, which is to make white people think they are being canceled, so they run out and vote to stop that from happening. You'd have almost thought CRT was created by the right just for the backlash. I like to imagine there's that sort of illuminati.
I'm not arguing against the merits of CRT. It, as I said earlier, probably has some truth to it, but it's not changing any hearts. Minds maybe 5 or 6. Hearts, none.
You'd have almost thought CRT was created by the right just for the backlash. I like to imagine there's that sort of illuminati.
As it is understood by the wider non-academic community, it literally was. Like, these people groped around for an issue to light the match of a cultural war over, and latched on to CRT, precisely because it was obscure and they could project all sorts of racial anxieties into it so that dupes like Clark could passively absorb it from the environment and think they have any clue whatsoever what they are talking about.
You're right that CRT will do 'as the marketers market it', and it just so happens that almost the entitreity of that marketing cohort are right wing culture war types. These people don't give a shit what CRT is, or says. They use it as a brand-name to impugn any discussion on race that happens to come up in any scholarly or quasi-academic setting whatsoever. These people admit as much in public and still passive receptacles like Clark eat it right up:
"In this context, Rufo’s role is clear. He takes critical-race theory as a concept, strips it of all meaning, and repurposes it as a catchall for white grievances. “The goal,” he tweeted, “is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory.’ We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.” In an interview with the Post, he said the tweet described an “obvious” approach: “If you want to see public policy outcomes you have to run a public persuasion campaign.”"
god must be atheistApril 19, 2022 at 14:18#6833840 likes
This makes me rant, StreetlightX. Maybe I am too stupid to see the relevance of your quote, or maybe I see beyond it and therefore disagree with it, or maybe I already agree with its conclusion, but it is not stated very clearly what it wants to say.
At any rate people don't like it when someone says "You don't know anything about this topic, or if you know something, it is very little, and your opinions therefore necessarily and CATEGORICALLY must be wrong." You do that in this post, and I don't like that, to be honest.
A quick citation because it is almost certain that all those who like to blab about CRT have never read a word of it in their life save from what they have regurgitated from 2 minute news clips:
via Charles Mills: "By recognizing [racial domination] as a political system, [CRT] voluntarizes race in the same way that the social contract voluntarizes the creation of society and the state. It distinguishes between whiteness as phenotype/genealogy and Whiteness as a political commitment to white supremacy, thus making conceptual room for "white renegades" and "race traitors." ... Correspondingly, the "Racial Contract" demystifies the uniqueness of white racism (for those who, understandably, see Europeans as intrinsically White) by locating it as the contingent outcome of a particular set of circumstances ... In a sense, the "Racial Contract" decolorizes Whiteness by detaching it from whiteness, thereby demonstrating that in a parallel universe it could have been Yellowness, Redness, Brownness, or Blackness. Or, alternatively phrased, we could have had a yellow, red, brown, or black Whiteness: Whiteness is not really a color at all, but a set of power relations."
This patently does not make sense to those who are not familiar with the topic, and it does not make sense to anyone who has less education than a Ph.D. in sociology.
To wit:
What does it mean to "demystify the uniqueness of white racism"? What's the original mystery?
What does it mean to "demystify (anything) by locating it [whiteness] as the contingent outcome of a particular set of circumstances"?? You understand these things, StreetlightX? You must, otherwise you would not publish this.
There is no insight in this: "Or, alternatively phrased, we could have had a yellow, red, brown, or black Whiteness: Whiteness is not really a color at all, but a set of power relations." This is obvious.
Gross misstatement: "By recognizing [racial domination] as a political system, [CRT] voluntarizes race in the same way that the social contract voluntarizes the creation of society and the state." You don't voluntarize your race. That's stupid. "I'm white, but from tomorrow on I shall be Black." There is nothing voluntary about race ... one of the most solidly "given" characteristic, that can't be changed. This was phrased tragically falsely. You don't "voluntarize" yourself into a race; but you accept the consequences of being part of a particular race. That's not voluntary, either. It is forced on you. This writer just does not know the meaning of words and how to use them, so he or she hides his or her inaptitude to express himself or herself behind impossible-to-understand phrases, like "demystifying whiteness", which is total bullshit. Little wonder it did not make sense to me, because I know language. I can always spot someone who does not. And this writer does not.
Of course it's exactly like white people to make a critique of racial domination all about their feelings instead (who oh who will identify themselves - volunteer themselves as representative of - this last statement? Can't wait to see).
This SO true!! So VERY VERY TRUE. Also true is that every last person on Earth makes everything they learn in their lives a topic of relation to their own beings and feelings, including their "raceness" (FCOL) whether it's whiteness, blackness, yellowness, or brownness. It's like saying "bad bad white people, they see with their eyes". Everyone sees with their eyes. Everyone relates to everything in judging how it affects them.
That's why most kids hate school. They have to learn stuff they don't know how to relate to their lives. There may be things that are of relevance, but the 9-year-old kid does not have the insight, experience and knowledge to see that. So most kids hate school.
Reply to god must be atheist Right, so you have no idea what CRT is about and find it goes over your head. Yet you still feel qulified to have a strong opinion about it. Yeah, sorry, you're no more to be taken seriously than someone with a strong opinion about quantum mechanics. This stuff literally is graduate level work, something not taught to 9 year olds. There is no shame in not understanding it. There is infinite shame in not understanding it then projecting your own incomprehension into a screed against it. Your imbicility is yours alone to deal with.
god must be atheistApril 19, 2022 at 14:35#6833920 likes
Reply to StreetlightX What you said is a clear-as-the-azure-sky-in-the-deepest-summer AD HOMINEM fallacy. I showed precisely how stupid the quote was; you replied I don't understand it, because I don't have graduate level work in CRT.
I did not know you were this stupid, this bigoted about who can understand what, and this blind to criticism. In fact, all my previous respect for you evaporated all of a sudden.
Anyway, here, if you want more than this media think pieces and corporate trash, try just the introduction of this [PDF] on for size. From the horses' mouth at least.
god must be atheistApril 19, 2022 at 14:38#6834010 likes
Reply to StreetlightX Well, I care. This is a philosophy forum, where backgrounds don't matter, only reasonable arguments. Many don't practice that on these forums, and now you demonstrated that you don't care to practice that either. Well, I care, and I care what and how people say and write here. If their argument is only an AD HOMINEM and they close the argument with that, I don't have respect for them, whether they care about that or not.
Again, the capacity of white people to turn a discussion of centuries of racial opression into one about their feelings will never not surprise me.
Whatever is ailing StreetlightX seems to have gotten worse. A sedative, perhaps? More exercise and fresh fruits and vegetables? Gotta be something to help that guy,
I don't find CRT (which sadly no longer stands for Cathode Ray Tube) all that difficult to understand. It isn't all that objectionable either, on its own--separated out from the peculiar rhetoric of the academic left, and the perpetually pissed-off affect of a particular set of True Believers. I can't fault True Belief: I've been a True Believer at times. It's bracing to be the one man more right than everybody else who is not a member of the small circle of other True Believers.
Racism is a strand in the Gordion Knot of interlocking injustices that constitute life as we know it. All we have to do to untie this knot is unravel every form of racism, sexism, classism, capitalism, heterosexism, binaryism, militarism, Americanism, Europeanism, imperialism, organism, and every other "-ism" there is.
Being the hopeless romantic that I am, I recently watched both seasons of Bridgerton (kinda like Hamilton without the song and dance). Due to my conditioning it took a little getting used to, I'm sorry to say, but even well into it I would still get what they refer to in psychology as 'predition errors' when new scenes with new characters would come up.
Mustard doesn't go on my brisket. Mine is a Jewish brisket that slow cooks in the oven with carrots and onions. You describe a smoked Texas brisket, a far better solution to large cheap cuts of fatty beef.
Probably nobody would care but I want to share a random but interesting fact: The next Monday (April 25th) I will be 25 years old. I don't know but it feels magic when you reach an age which exactly fits in the day of birth :flower: :eyes: :sparkle:
Probably nobody would care but I want to share a random but interesting fact: The next Monday (April 25th) I will be 25 years old. I don't know but it feels magic when you reach an age which exactly fits in the day of birth
Happy birthday Javi.
Unfortunately, my birthday is on December 71st this year.
If you are, you would be able to answer a few questions for me:
How did your mom describe her divine pounding from our Heavenly Father?
Did the crucifixion hurt like a son of a bitch?
All things considered, had you known then what you know now, would you still die for my sins?
Are you related to Jim Morrison, and if not, why does he look like you?
It preaches contempt for white people and blames each of us personally for how black people are treated. Perhaps you believe that we deserve that, but I don't.
Looks to me like an infinite task. Not that is shouldn't be fought, but there's a lot of sensitivity these days, a little too much, I think.
There are, indeed, many people who cultivate feelings of being oppressed. They hope it gives them "street cred" among the other actual and alleged oppressed groups. Even better is stacking several layers of oppression to join the aristocracy of suffering. Some of these people deserve some ridicule; some deserve sympathy.
We must never forget that we are primate animals--somewhat evolved, but not so evolved that we can be considered godlike. We have the capacity to think rationally some of the time, but we can't count on it whenever clear thinking is in order. Often enough when faced with challenges, we will resort first to a time-tested response--battle, literal or figurative.
Despite all the turmoil, sturm and drang of a crowded world, most people go about their lives in the manner suited to short-term survival which often enough adds up to long-term survival. We work every day; we mate and raise a family; we cooperate with one another to improve life together. We "carry on".
Straight white privileged males, along with many other types of people, are the necessary strands in the grand warp and weft of society. No group is inferior; no group is superior, despite some having more and some having less. In the aggregate, people are pretty much alike in strengths and deficiencies (which is why we are totally screwed).
Racism is a strand in the Gordion Knot of interlocking injustices that constitute life as we know it. All we have to do to untie this knot is unravel every form of racism, sexism, classism, capitalism, heterosexism, binaryism, militarism, Americanism, Europeanism, imperialism, organism, and every other "-ism" there is.
Yay! Jism. Now we are talking.
god must be atheistApril 20, 2022 at 08:51#6836530 likes
What a coincidence! So am I. And so is apparently my mother.
If your mother was Jesus and you're Jesus, then that means that God impregnated you and you gave birth to yourself. There's a gender fluidity issue at play here we have to work through, but I think we can make sense of this. It's sort of like the Trinity I think.
I know in the mountains sometimes uncles and fathers are the same person, so it could be like that, but, again, it a complex theology we need to think about.
know in the mountains sometimes uncles and fathers are the same person, so it could be like that, but, again, it a complex theology we need to think about.
The idea that a person can't have sex with God and give birth to themselves is just an old social construct that Republicans use to try to keep us in the Dark Ages.
I know in the mountains sometimes uncles and fathers are the same person, so it could be like that, but, again, it a complex theology we need to think about.
The difficulty is in finding out which people deserve ridicule and which do not. To some extent, everyone has legitimate grievances in terms of belonging to a certain group. Not all of them are equally valid, say, billionaires who complain about "class war".
Fringe cases like this aside, it's a fairly complex problem.
You've got to question whether there is a God. What kind of entity would have you born on Christmas so you only get one day of gifts?
FALSE! I was born every day of the year. It's the Baptists who reduced getting born again to just one day of your life.
You can imagine my resistance to being stuffed inside myself over and over again to make this happen. Butt, the Spanish Inquisition was worse, I guess.
It also proves that reincarnation does not necessitate a unit's prior death. You can live several lives all at the same time.
(I got this idea from having dated a nymphomaniac for over 26 years. She was addicted because her O's lasted a half hour each time. I figured later, that her orgasms were only the usual 8 seconds long, but she was having multiple o-s, and interestingly one started before the other finished, in a very long string.)
Reply to god must be atheist The Virgin Birth was an unusual case of primate parthenogenesis. That's named after that time Athena accidentally gave birth to the Parthenon. Talk about labor pains!
Poor Athena has only recently recovered from her cosmically bad case of osteoporosis--all those marble columns.
god must be atheistApril 21, 2022 at 01:18#6838840 likes
Of all the things nymphomaniacs suffer from, is monogamy one of them?
Heck, no. Not this one. She was cheating on me with anything that had a pair of pants on. (Except women.) It was still worth it for me, for her, because we never turned the other down. And she was dynamite-looking beautiful. She knew that that was her ticket to an abundance of sex. And, interestingly, she was brilliant. We were a good fit intellectually as well. Emotionally... not so good. She was flamboyant and socially over-enthusiastic; I was shy, a recluse and overly sensitive. We kept on writing poetry to each other the first two years.
god must be atheistApril 21, 2022 at 01:19#6838860 likes
Reply to Bitter Crank So... Athena was osteoporotic because she lost all her marbles?
god must be atheistApril 21, 2022 at 01:26#6838910 likes
If your mother was Jesus and you're Jesus, then that means that God impregnated you and you gave birth to yourself. There's a gender fluidity issue at play here we have to work through, but I think we can make sense of this. It's sort of like the Trinity I think.
I know in the mountains sometimes uncles and fathers are the same person, so it could be like that, but, again, it a complex theology we need to think about.
That's precisely how and what it is. The more incomprehensible, the more unintuitive, the more self-contradictory a religious dogma or tenet is, the more the flock is ready to believe it.
In this sense, "the uneducated wife of a peasant in Bretagne" and a super-brainy quantum mechanic are totally alike.
It is on the back of the ignorance of the masses that religious leaders, scientists, and clever politicians ride to succeed.
That is what the laugh was for, it would have been magic if he could have waited.
Waited for what? Waited until 2025 before he turned 25? That would have been real magic if he could do that, kind of like being born on Feb 29, real magic.
At least I waited until 4:20 PM on 4/20 before I let the magic begin, unlike some people I know who start at 4:20 AM, and get the real magic.
Reply to Hanover The story of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem in a stable to a virgin is, of course, fictional. This isn't a denial of Jesus' birth and life, but the people who put together the story in the Gospels were removed in time and space from the places and events they described. The Gospel redactors lived elsewhere in the Roman Empire and did not have local verification of details. The whole Christmas Eve story -- shepherds, angels, stables, kings from the orient, virgins giving birth and still being virgin ----- all that is literary and moreover, presses ancient prophecies into service.
Jesus, who we can be certain was conceived by the usual method, was born in obscurity and lived most of his life in obscurity. There is no reason the we would know any of the details of his birth. (He was less obscure when he died and, many would assert, stayed dead.)
Don't waste your time explaining shit to someone who's his own sister-in-law.
GET MY SISTER IN LAW OUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH!
And stop interfering with me learning about Jesus. He's a fascinating being. I learned that @frank is the Prince of Peace and that his mother rode our Heavenly Father, blessed be his name, into the wee hours of the morning until her cervix was a soupy fucking mess. Nine months later, the Lord's head crowned just past the labia and out emerged Jim Morrison.
Following that, Mary Magdalene continued to use her three holy of holies: one for the son, one for the father, and one for the holy ghost. A most entertaining lady she was. Her stripper name was Trinity.
Wiki says he was born between 4 and 6 BCE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_of_birth_of_Jesus
Somebody explain that to me.
Damned! He was born even before his own birth? Suspicious... He secretely fertilized mamma Maria? Is the first coming actually the second one? Is our waiting in vain?
And in 1945 was a bomb! She definitely livened up Alamogordo, NM, otherwise voted "most boring shit hole E of Bakersfield, CA. But I thought the Alamo was in Texas?
I had twin students that were born on Feb 29.
They claimed to be too young to do homework as they had only had 4 birthdays. That was one of the best excuse I have ever heard.
I had twin students that were born on Feb 29.
They claimed to be too young to do homework as they had only had 4 birthdays. That was one of the best excuse I have ever heard.
If that's their childish attitudes, I'd tell them they'll have to wait a long time before they'll be old enough to have a drink. Some people will never grow up!
I got a new laptop, and I can't tell if, on my old computer, I had the trackpad setup to scroll linearly (two fingers scrolling down = down) or the opposite (two fingers scrolling down = up, as in a pulling motion)...my small mistakes in scrolling keep telling me it was linear, but then I can't remember how my work laptop is setup, and maybe my instincts are just from that. And I forgot to check today and I just scrolled away for hours without thinking about it. But if I were to set my personal laptop, from which I'm typing, to linear, I'm afraid it will feel too weird. Of course, then I would probably know for sure that it's my work laptop that's set to linear, and yet the uncomfortable nature of feeling weird when experiencing the abrupt switch to linear gives me pause. It may even be that the simple abrupt switch itself could be enough to add more confusion to my dilemma. My intuition tells me my old personal computer was set to linear, but my shoddy and very unreliable memory seems to remember my work laptop being set to linear. I also just realized after all this pontification that I had the directions mixed up in my head. Scrolling can give you seasickness if you're not careful.
Reply to Noble Dust Aberrant use of pontification. Otherwise, I have no idea what you’re talking about, having used a trackball since 2015, but I hope everything works out for you.
BCE stands for “before the common era” so there’s no contradiction in saying Jesus was born in 4 BCE.
Latest news from Moscow: I haven’t seen anyone wearing a Z t-shirt, but I did see an old woman wearing a sweater with “I am a cat” in English on the front.
Aberrant use of pontification. Otherwise, I have no idea what you’re talking about, having used a trackball since 2015, but I hope everything works out for you.
Towards our previous discussion of mispronunciation after long years of spending time alone and reading a lot, another byproduct of this environment is getting senses of words close but slightly off. Ah well. I won't ruminate further.
Are you sure your trackball functions linearly? Which way is up and which is down?
Rolling up garners me some on-screen upness. Same for rolling down, mutatis mutandis.
Linear you are. I think it was Apple who initiated this bass ackwards normalization of the opposite direction. In my system preferences, under trackpad - scroll/zoom, it lists "scroll direction: neutral" as the default, and gives the description "content tracks finger movement". This is their description of the non-linear movement in which scrolling down with two fingers warrants the opposite effect: the screen moves up, as if in a pulling motion. Le sigh.
My problem is my work computer and home computer were set differently, but apparently I've used both for so long that I just seamlessly switched between, and now that I have a new home computer I'm completely lost at sea, and I don't know why.
You were talking about scrolling with a trackpad, I mentioned I didn’t know what you were talking about cos I don’t use one, and you asked if my trackball functions linearly, which I took as a reasonable question but now realise was based on a misunderstanding, cos a trackball is for moving the pointer, not for scrolling. And that’s all I will ever say again on the topic.
a trackball is for moving the pointer, not for scrolling
Ah yes, I now remember that from the ice age in which I used a Windows computer. I was thinking of an antiquated mouse that has a little scroller in the middle. How do you scroll, anyway? I kant imagine life without a trackpad :blush:
That's exactly what I'm imagining. But I guess it has both... the scrolly-ball (trademark) and the scrolly-thing (not trademark). Do you use a device like that now?
As you can see, it has a big scroll wheel surrounding a central ball. I configured it for clockwise = down. I liked it a lot but then it broke and I couldn't get a wireless version so I got the Logitech.
I know I said I'd say no more about this subject but, well, it's just so interesting.
I got a new laptop, and I can't tell if, on my old computer, I had the trackpad setup to scroll linearly (two fingers scrolling down = down) or the opposite (two fingers scrolling down = up, as in a pulling motion)...my small mistakes in scrolling keep telling me it was linear, but then I can't remember how my work laptop is setup, and maybe my instincts are just from that.
The trackpad is a terrible invention. It's designed to make you inadvertently click on all sorts of things which you otherwise would not click on, when your fingers get clumsy. The clickbait wasn't enough for them, so they moved on to the next level. Don't use the trackpad! It's an extremely bad habit and will end up getting you into God knows what sort of trouble.
Towards our previous discussion of mispronunciation after long years of spending time alone and reading a lot, another byproduct of this environment is getting senses of words close but slightly off. Ah well. I won't ruminate further.
One of my favorite words is "erstwhile." Most people don't know what it means. I used it, incorrectly, for a long time before I looked it up. It means nothing like what I thought it did.
Reply to frank We white folks whose testicles descended from Northern Europe would be in a real fix. Our fried hides would horrify the rest of the -- melanin-rich -- world. We would have to migrate close to the arctic circle. We would still rule the world, of course. Look at how well the British did, ruling the Empire from one small ratty sceptered isle. And the French, the Dutch, the Deutsch, the Vikings...
Reply to frank Well, "Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun," per Noel Coward. Apparently they are impervious to heat.
In the mangrove swamps
Where the python romps
There is peace from twelve till two.
Even caribous
Lie around and snooze;
For there's nothing else to do.
In Bengal
To move at all
Is seldom, if ever done.
But mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun.
Today is April 23th so Happy World Book Day! here we called it as "Sant Jordi or San Jorge (St. George)"
The custom is give away a rose and a book. :flower:
This is the book I give you:
For the select chosen, cherished, and true, I will at this time mention that I am now convinced that my old computer had a linear scroll function; i.e. the opposite of my current setup. Thanks byeeee
Also, for 'Murica, I recently came back from the Cleveland Guardians/New York Yankees game with my buddy who's also from The Land. I am toasted! Mazel tov!
Scrambled eggs with Swiss cheese, Greek yogurt, Irish breakfast tea, and mixed nuts (including Brazil nuts) for breakfast. Complex international fusion.
Reply to jamalrob The cheese was scrambled in with the eggs and the nuts put in the yogurt.
I was concerned with my growing pig intake, so I substituted bacon for the sausage I had been eating because bacon tastes better but that didn't resolve my pig problem but just my taste problem, so once the adhd wore off, I then revisited the initial problem and bought some nuts to replace the bacon.
Now I'm contending with ridicule from my nuts and eggs breakfast from a guy who eats barbecued vodka sandwiches. Maybe I'll go back to my pig diet.
Reply to Hanover You could add oatmeal muffins sweetened with honey and banana. Also I put whey powder and dried peanut butter powder for extra protein.
They do produce giant farts, though. That's the only downside.
Today is April 23th so Happy World Book Day! here we called it as "Sant Jordi or San Jorge (St. George)"
The custom is give away a rose and a book. :flower:
This is the book I give you:
Thank you for the book, but all the words are spelled wrong. I can't even figure out what they say.
Reply to T Clark Mr. Carlson is just being fashion forward for his next job. White scrota are now seen as a sign of white supremacy to fashionistas to whom Tucker will be modeling his new line of genital jewelry. How brown should his balls be? Ask the HR hack in charge of diversity. Somewhere between cafe au lait and espresso.
Comments (63126)
Well, there you have it.
Kaadan kahvini päällesi.
It's pretty cold in Russia. They're not overjoyed. Something needs to be done about Africa and India. The UN should make a committee.
I bet if the Russians had a really hot Summer, things would be worse there. Ergo, ceteris paribus, the hotter the worser.
Are you happier in summer or winter?
Spring is my favorite.
:grin: I didn't want to whine, but I've been struggling with mosquitos for the last few years. They're an aggressive Japanese kind. I've been trying to reduce their breeding areas, but research shows that my efforts won't work.
There's an invasive Japanese spider in Georgia that eats them, so I'm hoping it will spread up toward where I am.
So I'm kind of ambivalent about summer. Winter is easier.
Those Asian mosquitoes always get the worst reputations.
I've gotten fixated on them. I probably just need to accept them.
When I say garden boy, I mean my business partner and housemate.
Did you call him "garden boy?"
There's a thing called mosquito dunks. It makes the males sterile. I use them, but it doesn't help much.
Ah yes, it was mosquito dunks. To be honest I was kind of bullshitting, or talking theoretically. I don't think our attempt at eradicating the tiger mosquitoes worked at all. What I learned is that they don't travel far and if you can find where they're coming from you can, they said, fix the problem. I remember finding this information and going to my garden boy, explaining it to him, and saying, "make it so".
tarkalleen.
I read about some research that showed that even insecticide doesn't work for more than a few days. The little assholes are here to stay.
In America they breed in plastic drain pipes or anything that can hold rain water for the ten days it takes them to mature.
I normally start the day rich in fiber myself, today with organic banana and blueberries, coconut yogurt, and crunchy granola – for the fiber, vitamins and stuff, and the flav'a.
:lol:
That much coffee kills the appetite, I imagine.
First thing in the morning I drink about half a liter of strong green tea, which forces me to have breakfast because otherwise the too strong tea leads to nausea on an empty stomach.
It might, but this is a more recent thing. I didn't drink coffee for 5 years and still didn't eat b'fast. Are those huge blue things really blueberries? I don't think I've ever seen them before, certainly not that large.
The blueberries at Whole foods are twice that size, actually.
What a wicked world, where fake urologists recommend eating shit,
Don't talk about Georgia. You know nothing about my ancestral lands and what sorts of spiders we may or may not have.
I control my mosquitos with trout. They eat the nymphs before forming into adults. Each morning I open the door, the trout run out, do their thing, then come back in for a treat and an ear scratch with a belly full of nymph.
We don't use spiders like you suggest. Spiders bite the fuck out of you when you scratch their ears and they leave fluid filled pustules on your fingers.
After you finish, you should eat the same thing for dessert by substituting the yogurt with rocky road ice cream.
Check the package. Sounds like you bought grapes or maybe plums.
This neighbor kid i knew used to eat white dog shit when he was really little. He went on to being a fucked up older kid.
But Georgia was on my mind. Because of an old sweet song.
How is that different to the strikingly similar work of apologists?
When I was a little kid I would find these dry odorless white tubular objects, about the size of a Tootsie Roll. I did not eat them because they were clearly some sort of dirt-thing, but I did wonder what they were. Where did they come from? I was surprised to hear that the Tootsie Roll dirt-thing was actually dried up dog shit. Odd.
If mentioning Tootsie Roll made you salivate, here's a picture of Tootsie Roll Industries HQ in. Chicago. Been in business since 1896. Go buy a bagful if you want to keep them in business.
I am taking her with me on my now magical journey. I suspect we'll turn heads when we arrive at the midnight shift.
Would an ozone generator help? I've got a 24/7 one I use that kills flies or any bug that's dumb enough to get trapped here.
The adjectival function of shitting makes little sense here. We have never heard of bricks defecating.
The cubic quality of the black object suggests weathered coal. It could, we suppose, be fecal matter deposited and then shaped by some animal with OCD. Kangaroo? Crocodile? Dung beetles shape fecal matter (not their own), but their preferred shape is a ball which can be rolled to some convenient location, for egg-laying and consumption.
Quoting Bitter Crank
My guess is it's a photo of wombat shit. Wombats are famous for their roughly cubic excrement.
Wombats, a larger, ground-dwelling relative of the Koala, are very territorial, have very poor vision, but an excellent sense of smell. As a result they mark their territory with their scats, shitting regularly (around 90 times) over the course of the night as they patrol their borders.
To maximise the odoriferous effect, they shit on the highest nearby object, usually a rock.
To avoid the scats rolling off the rock, they have developed an extraordinary elasticity in the last part of their colon, such that their shits are cuboid. Any proud rock in wombat territory will be crowned with a stack of cubic wombat shit.
They stack their cuboid shits on high.
Koalas ain't got nuthin' on wombats.
Interesting. I'll check it out.
Are you an American, living in Finnland? You imported unhappiness with you and they did not confiscate it at the border.
Are you a Finn living in America? Of course you are unhappy. Discontent and malfeasance spreads there like Cholera or Malaria.
I've got to practice until I'm good at that. It's my only hope for fame, fortune, love and acceptance.
Hire a sharpshooter. Or else (if cheaper) a Darts Champion.
Monty Python, Entrance to Cave Scene, "Holy Grail".
It's short for "Dustinnekkauppinnen." Nobody who is not familiar with this, could guess that "Huck" is a short form for "Huckleberry", either. And he was a Finn, too.
Ha ha! And the horses agree. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=603739380886497
Part of the problem is that I love insects. They're amazing. I mean, just look at the engineering of a fly. All that technology in a tiny package. How could you smash it?
The whole plot has to tilt toward the gruesome before it starts to make sense to annihilate the little wonders.
"There's a conflict in every human heart between good and evil."
Stranger than the shape is how the wombat pooed it perfectly balanced on top of a rock, as though placing it proudly on display. What evolutionary advantage could poo pride possibly have?
You're Hungarian, isn't that right? Do you see any similarities between the Finnish and Hungarian languages?
I understand how you might feel about destroying something so efficient, but I still find it far less difficult personally to smash a fly than a dog.
They are both part of the Uralic language family. Please, for the love of god, learn your linguistic family trees.
I know they are from the same language group. That has always fascinated me. I was asking whether @god must be atheist could recognize similarities.
It's not just efficiency, although that's part of it. They're beautiful.
Dogs have obvious emotions that we can understand. Killing a dog is murder. Killing a fly can't be murder because it's hard to identify with them (for me, anyway).
I used to have armies in Ural when I played Risk, so I'm pretty familiar with the Uralic language group as well.
Killing a dog isn't murder actually. It's frowned upon, but not murder.
I tripped over Fred and fell onto him, sort of smashing him. He sleeps in the dark hallway on the way to the bathroom. He didn't seem to really care. He just wondered why I would do that.
Well, emotionally. Maybe not legally.
Quoting Hanover
I wonder if he realizes you can't see in the dark like he can.
They're in the same language family, so it's possible they have as much and as little similarity as, say, Russian and English, which, like Finnish And Hungarian, are on different subdivisions of the same family.
My uninformed guess is that Finnish and Hungarian have some cognates that are as clear as those between Russian and English, like these:
sister/sestra
brother/brat
two, three/dva, tri
nose/nos
I think you're probably right, but I was looking for a little more. I took German as a freshman in college and immediately felt at home in the language in a way that I never felt in French. I was wondering if there was that sense of recognition between Finnish and Hungarian. My guess is that there isn't.
My brother and I went to Europe together in 2014. He had lived in France for three years and is fluent. As I wrote, I took one year of German in 1971 and ... am not fluent. I spent three months with disks relearning German. Even so, I was far from fluent. I also had my high school French. I have never had more fun. We had philosophical conversations in French with his Belgian friends. He would translate when I got lost. I would try to tell jokes in French and he would explain the odd looks I got when I did. I was our primary German translator. A lot came back, including that feeling of being at home. I love the feel of that "ich" sound in the back of my throat. We don't have it in English.
The voiceless velar fricative? We have that in Scottish English.
According to https://www.historyhit.com/why-are-so-many-english-words-latin-based/, 60% of English words are Latin based, making it closer to a Romance language than a Germanic one. But then I read somewhere else that 60% of English words were either Greek or Latin based. If Greek, then it would be Hellenic and not Roman. The article gives all sorts of reasons for that, but I had thought the main reason was the Norman invasion of 1066, but I always heard it had something to do with the sciences and that terminology.
With modern English, I think it's such a hybrid it's hard to place it specifically on one branch, but as you go back in time it becomes more and more Germanic.
I find French very easy to read and to decipher due to the common roots, but I can't understand it when its spoken by a native speaker.
English simplified itself, dropping a lot of the Anglo-Saxon inflections. I've found the relationship between spelling and pronunciation in French especially frustrating while the sound/spelling relationship in Spanish is pretty straight-forward. I suppose English learners find a lot of problems with English spelling too.
Were the Finns to conquer England next week (good idea? Yes? No?), the next generation of children would be bilingual in Finn and English, without any difficulty. Language difficulty is mostly the province of post-language-plasticity among adults.
Quoting jamalrob
In other words, the 60 or 70% figure for Latin/Greek is misleading because it includes lots of words that aren't used much, particularly in non-technical language. English is still basically Germanic.
Quoting Hanover
Well, you do have a history of ignoring the science of linguistics.
I would defintely look on with delighted interest, assuming it wasn't too bloody.
Bandit, Henry VI, Part 2. 1594
Critic, Love’s Labour Lost. 1598.
Dauntless, Henry VI, Part 3. 1616.
Dwindle, Henry IV, Part 1. 1598.
Elbow (as a verb), King Lear. 1608.
Green-Eyed (to describe jealousy), The Merchant of Venice. 1600.
Lackluster, As You Like It. 1616.
Lonely, Coriolanus. 1616.
Skim-milk, Henry IV, Part 1. 1598.
Swagger, Midsummer Night’s Dream. 1600.
He created or gave new meaning to more than 300 words that begin with "un".
Unaware, Venus & Adonis. 1593.
Uncomfortable, Romeo & Juliet. 1599
Undress, Taming of the Shrew. 1616.
Unearthly, A Winter’s Tale. 1616
Unreal, Macbeth. 1623
"Alienate" is an example of a neologism based on Latin roots. One of the Sir [blank] Moore people. There was a lot of that. later on, learnéd physicians started giving names to parts and diseases based on Ancient Greek. So, "pneumonia".
I am multi-semi-lingual.
:snicker:
We need to get to the bottom of this.
Because it's the only aspect of communication that can be mechanised (along with spelling of course.).
Otherwise you would have to have good communicators in schools to model good practice.
Their world. If your world includes accountancy, you need more than three numbers and so on. And within each world are subworlds with different specific needs and expectations re communication style, of which an explicit knowledge can be useful (and often necessary); hence top-down standardized grammatical literacy can complement bottom-up diversified linguistic competency. This doesn't detract from the base-level given re the latter in any functioning human community.
For you to insist upon a subculture following your standardized language on the basis that your standard will help their language competency appears to be a pretextual effort to make them talk right and act right. Why not identify their standards and advance those and even adopt those as your own?
My point being that language is an obvious means to maintain the status quo, so let us openly teach our grammar as a tool for social advancement and leave the idea of equal rights for all dialects as a purely academic truth, true as it may in fact be.
But do you think strong oratory skills are at all related to mastery of grammar and vocabulary? I'd think for some yes, but then I think of the persuasive backwoods preacher as well.
Chomsky, Pinker, et. al. claim that children do not learn grammar, they invent it new every time. If you talk to them in grammarless pidgin, they will create a creole with grammar. Grammar is hardwired.
I've read otherwise, particularly with deaf children who aren't taught language but form their own hand signals. Their self created language is far inferior to actual teaching them a developed sign language.
The two languages separated at a time which nobody can point out. We don't know when the two nations separated, or where, or why. Hungarians came out of the east, apparently fleeing something fierce and fearful, in the first millennium, and they travelled west. Hungarians eventually settled the Carpathian Basin.
I don't know Finnish, which is as far removed from Hungarian and vice versa as ancient Greek is from Modern German. So I can't tell you if there are any similarities that may make one speaking one language understand the other. There are several words (about fifty to eighty, if I remember the history lesson well) that are basic words in the vocabulary of forest-dwelling natives: arm, blood, artery, tree, grass, honey, teat, etc. And apparently the grammar is similar, although in its details nothing shadows the other one. By that I mean that role in the sentence of words are expressed by suffixes, and by postpositional words; and there are no genders and there are no prepositions (in, by, for, etc.). However, the suffixes and postposition words are dissimilar.
Hungarian has been heavily influenced by Turkish, Slavic languages, and German. In the early 1800s a movement of language innovation took place, which was quite successful, but further removed the vocabulary base from Finnish. These days anglocised Latin words are entering the language by the droves; using Latin words along with memes from the ancient Greek and Roman mythologies dominated the culture also in some parts of the 1800s, but the war of revolution and independence of 1848 gave rise to patriotic nationalism, at a time when the masses of the whole world had been enamoured by the paradigm set by America and France: Liberty, independence, and equality of men. This steered to use the language in a purer way, that is, with using fewer foreign words.
I suspect Finnish was influenced by Russian, and by Germanic languages, such as Danish, Swedish, Ogdenian, and Preturian. (These last two are fictious languages which I just made up.)
The twentieth century saw a few Yiddish words come into the Hungarian language. Despite the long Russian occupation, and Russian language as a Russian as a Second Language being compulsory subject from grade five to post-graduate studies, very few Russian words entered the language. Most Hungarians, even those who grew up in that era of Russian domination don't speak Russian at all, let alone speak it well.
The vogue is now to use English words with Hungarian spelling, in purely Hungarian text. This throws me for a loop, because the pronunciation is screwed up. I don't understand my own brethren when they speak with English words that have been melded into the language. And because Hungarian is heavily phonetic language, and they write the English words with Hungarian spelling, I stare at the words in texts with the same bewilderment as Joseph stared at the baby.
I heard similar things about children blind from birth who were asked to describe the female beauty and to analyze Picasso's Guernica for artistic merit including symbolism and bad painting skills. And no amount of straps, severe beatings and denial of dinner before bedtime would have any effect on their account on art.
Interesting. Thanks.
I was trying to remember what Pinker wrote about sign language in "The Language Instinct." When I looked on the web, I came up with this about deaf children in Nicaragua who created their own sign language. Here's a link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3662928.stm
According to the article, the children developed a sophisticated language with strong grammatical rules, now called NSL, Nicaraguan Sign Language. The whole nature vs. nurture is apparently still going strong in the study of language.
I heard similar stories about apes who had rudimentary language skills by sign language or by manipulating objects that were in a way used to express things in a symbolic language. Some authors mentioned (don't ask who, why or when, because I don't know) that when a human conversationalist with chimpanzees put "You go eat run" the chimpanzee protested and said, by replacing the last symbol, to form the sentence "I go eat banana" or something similar. Chimpanzees had the same language intuition inasmuch as using verbs and nouns as humans used them by functionality.
Another author asked a gorilla, "Are gorillas animals? Are gorillas humans?" The gorilla replied, "Gorilla is animal."
Then again, yet a third, completely different set of authors claim that the language of gorillas and chimpanzees were always replies, to a well structured human-made sentence they supposedly understood, but this third set of authors claimed that the sign language by gorillas and the symbol manipulation by chimpanzees was not a function of their language skills, but a response to a human initiation, and they were meaningless imitative gestures.
It'd be Interesting if we could take a bunch of babies and isolate them and see what language they were speaking in a few years. My guess is that they'd be saying things like, "Wow! I'm really hungry" and stuff like that.
My bedbugs taught me to scratch where it itches. I'm 68 years of age. My BBs are, on the average, a few weeks old. This taught me that you are never too old to rock n roll, which is actually a euphemism for onania* and squeezing bedbugs to death.
* Google speller and error checker was based on a Victorian dictionary's vocabulary, inasmuch as it denies that humanity and/or human nature continues below the belt. It red-squiggly-underlined "onania". It offers no alternative spelling for this perfectly useful and for its semantics well-accepted word.
He compels no one to change their thinking who are not in line with his claim, for his claims can't be substantiated. Nothing he says can be proven, and therefore his claims can be validly and summarily rejected or else subjectively accepted.
My IQ is said to be within the range of 240-290.
My dog used to scratch the door, too, but not for the same reason as yours, but because the door itched for him. If my dog wants to go out, he says, "Asshole, open the door already or else."
When I took the test, it said I was "purty smart."
I have done it in the past but will no longer.
I thought this started with "Forgive me father for I have sinned..."?
To which the response is "Forgive me father for i will do it again."
Or not repeating oneself turns out to be the hardest thing.
Grins~ So Sassy!
In a LOT of parts of life. :confused:
I knew a cat who, as a kitten, was taught to wash her paws before eating. Little did the owner know that the then kitten would become an adult and have kittens. Two of her kittens ended up learning to wash their paws before eating. The mother cat showed them how to do it. (There was a bowl of water, they would dip their paws in the bowl of water, just like the mother cat did)
Weird, I got "you stupid idiot" when I took it.
There is that. I still weigh what I did when I was 20 (35 years ago), 325 pounds....
I wasn't getting into any normative stuff, just describing the way things work. Part of my last post was to recognize that the teaching of the standard dominant grammar is a tool for social advancement. And, yes, subculture dialects are equal linguistically in that they fulfil their social function pretty much just by continuing to exist in standardised forms in particular groups. So maybe we agree on that much and I don't know what else there is to it in terms of 'equality'. Obviously, there's a sense in which a subculture dialect isn't 'equal' to a dominant dialiect when it's out of its particular context because it doesn't fulfil the same communicative function or may present barriers to communication. And vice versa.
After many years of division and rancour, I sense agreement coming.
Careful. I did not make a claim about my IQ other than what was SAID about it. You can say anything about anything, you should consider that too.
My claim was a response to @Sapien1, who claimed Chris Langan's IQ was said to be something. If it's a slugfest, then I'm in it, I said to myself quietly.
Yes, it's been long enough that @Hanover can back down while saving face because no-one remembers the original argument. :smile:
Studies are on both sides of this issue. Some say eating breakfast helps weight loss, others the opposite. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/weight-loss/expert-answers/food-and-nutrition/faq-20058449#:~:text=Answer%20From%20Katherine%20Zeratsky%2C%20R.D.,also%20help%20with%20weight%20control.
If I were you, I'd pick the study to justify what I wanted to do.
I never noticed that @Hanover ever says anything contrary to someone else's claim or opinion in a tone or structure of an argument. I read in @Hanover's expressions about a very different world but not one that excludes what others say about the world... just different, and at the same time quietly coexisting. His opinions are not put forward as the "only truth" such as an argument about the existence of god by theists and by atheists.
This is my impression, anyway.
But... Alpha and Omega are Greek... It's all very confusing.
Quoting Bitter Crank
:D That's hilarious, stealing. Credit @Bitter Crank?
My comment was not intended as criticism against you. I was just being wittily self-deprecatory. Or self-deprecatorily witty. Or something like that.
Lucky you. :up:
That is my understanding of the whole purpose of science.
If someone has a normal curve values table, and can look up at what deviation occurs 1 out of seven billion, that's then reinterpret that value to the corresponding IQ, then one could know what the theoretical maximum is.
Anyway, @T Clark, I did not take offence at all whatsoever of your observation. I never thought of it as criticism let alone cutting criticism. I am only paranoid if I am in a bad mood or if I am angry, or if my ego shield is very weak.
Thirsty fellas. Might'a been recognizable by their activity levels (and red eyes) for some time?
Quoting Red Bull gave them wings! Thieves take off with ONE MILLION euro worth of the energy drink in Belgium in 'very professional' heist (Aug 15, 2018)
Yes, I've seen cats dip their paws into the water. But the cats I'm talking about would dip both (front) paws not to drink.
What's special about Red Bull that someone would steal it? Is it an energy drink? Can you use it to make meth?
Beats me. Maybe the drinks were used for smuggling nuclear materials to the Luxembourgian resistance. Or something.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/marktait78/status/1503637688464904196[/tweet]
:lol:
It was a restful sleep, but as expected...
My online chess rating over the past decade for your review. When not wasting time here, I waste time there.
Oh look, they multiply your IQ score 100x to calculate the rating. Cute. :starstruck:
Jelly.
"Mental deficiency... divided into the following sub-classifications Borderline Deficiency (IQ 70-80), Moron (IQ 50-69), Imbecile (IQ 20-49) and Idiot (below 20)."
I won't be jelly unless you make it to Moron before me.
Scientist interprets the song a spider hears
Impressive. What kind of games do you play?
With rare exceptions, I only play blitz, and that habit, besides general low intelligence and not seriously studying the game, has left me with a much lower rating than yours.
Usually 3 to 5 days per move is the time control, but most move a few times a day. It's the online version of postal chess, if you're old enough to remember that.
You left out the rest of the scale: Fucktard (10-15), Piece of Shit (5-10), and Ass-hat (0-5). I'm an Ass-hat but close to Piece of Shit.
And the drumroll....
Eat your heart out Yo-Yo Ma.
I’m gonna start saying this more often.
That can be your new catchphrase. Mine is "Nuff said." Nuff said.
It's a handy phrase and has the added benefit of imbuing the user with an air of cultured sophistication.
"Above all, our people remain the essential ingredient in bringing the Red Bull brand to life."...
Are most dogs Christian nationalists?
Maybe. Although my gf used to own both a Rottweiler and a Pittbull and the Pitbull's name was 'Devil', so maybe not. :lol: The Rottweiler bit me once after I pulled another dog's head out of it's mouth. And it was the more well behaved of the pair.
I usually buy my dogs dead to start with to avoid the later disappointment.
The who's who of ad hominem. What's below -20?
Reminds me of a joke.
A kid is sitting outside a store with a dog. A man comes up and says, "Hey there son, does your dog bite?" The kid says no. The man pets the dog and gets bitten. The man says "You said your dog didn't bite!"
The kid says, "that's not my dog. "
Negative IQ. Interesing concept. Does that kick in when you eat the quiz rather than attempting to write on it?
Policeman: "Excuse me Sir, you need to be aware that your dog has been chasing a guy on his bike"
Dog Owner: "Are you crazy? My dog can't even ride a bike"
?
I've been paranoid about dogs for all my life. It's the fact you can't reason with them that makes me not trust them. I liken them to drunkards. Drunk drunkards, not sober ones. Once they make up their minds you are evil, and while the judgment is completely arbitrary, there is nothing you can say or do to appease them.
I can see the good point in dogs, too. They are man's best friends, truly. It is heart-warming when they run up to you when you get home, and they wrap their arms around your legs like your three-year-old human baby. And I have two dog stories that literally make my eyes water. My eyes also water when I hear Edie Brickell sing, "Philosophy... is a walk on a slippery rock, Religion... is a smile on a dog."
But the hounds of hell scare the shit out of me. And they can be a dobbermann, a bourgeoise, a poodle, or a frise bison. Before I get to know them, and before they get to know me, we are strangers and mortal enemies to each other.
Oh, and when they talk down to you and they protect the fucking rustbucket their owners drive. Shit.
Dogs talk down to you? Sir, do not eat the paper.... Sir!
Some people have IQs over 200. Theoretically the upper limit does not exist.
So theoretically the lower limit does not exist either. IQ is not an absolute measure of the smarts, it is a ranking measure... how many blokes are between you and the bloke in the middle, expressed in percentages. So if you have an IQ of 210, then some other person may have an IQ of -10, and still be a person.
Yes. They protect the car they are riding in, so everyone else is a piece of shit on the street to them. Mwaaa, I wanna my Mammy!
There's.a negative bloke in the middle? Kind of like a human shaped hole in spacetime? :chin:
It's you who is being negative.
It's all about dark energy, as an atheist you wouldn't understand. I used to deal continental jazz cigarettes to the Russian mafia until I discovered Scholasticism in a bath full of vodka. You're a google boy, not a man, man.
Glad I came to the bar tonight, lol.
That's in a Pink Panther movie.
"This means that Russia must be humiliated, limited, shaken, divided and destroyed," Medvedev wrote, saying if Americans succeed in that objective, "here is the result: the largest nuclear power with an unstable political regime, weak leadership, a collapsed economy and the maximum number of nuclear warheads aimed at targets in the US and Europe.""
Yea, that happened 40 years ago. What went wrong that we're doing it again? Anybody know?
How about complex IQ. What's your IQ? 117 + 6i.
[joke]It's my understanding that as you travel closer and closer to the speed of light your IQ approaches infinity. [/joke]
I actually agree with this. The expansion of NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union was a slap in the face to Russia. I can see why they feel it undermined their security. We are reaping what we sowed.
Always look on the bright side.
Well they were pretty thoroughly down on the ground by their own hands. What should NATO have done differently?
Stayed out of eastern Europe.
You mean refuse to interact with them? Or what?
Russia/USSR was always paranoid about keeping barriers between themselves and the rest of Europe. Geez, I wonder why. If we had just treated the newly freed former Soviet satellites as free, neutral countries instead of moving in and crowding Russia's borders, I think things would be better now. A stable Russia which felt secure would be a good thing for the world.
So when Poland applied for NATO membership, it should have been turned down? Is that what you mean? Or Europe and the US shouldn't have sent economic advisors?
I doubt Poland would have asked for membership without European and US encouragement. We should have made it clear that we wouldn't impinge on areas that Russia considered buffers. So, yes. If countries in eastern Europe wanted to join NATO, the should have been turned down. Maybe Russia would not have been provoked as much by letting them join the EU. The west was given a gift and we ruined it with our arrogance.
This is wrong.
This is the American version of the story.
So, you think this is an unbiased account? I'm an American and I care about my country, but I can see our arrogance and blindness in our relations with other countries. You may think the linked document is convincing evidence of your position, I don't find it so.
There's no need to continue this. I've had my say. You've had yours.
I can too. It's just not true that accepting Poland into NATO was a result of arrogance.
Is it possible that Poland, perhaps, had experiences in the not-very-distant-past of being invaded and occupied that led it to consider belonging to NATO as a protective measure???
Suppose pigs could fly and Ukraine has been admitted to the EU and NATO before 2014, would they be:
a) better off (safer)
b) no better off (no safer)
c) worse off (less safe)
Why would encouraging Poland (+ Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania too?) to join NATO be an act of arrogance?
Even self-criticism from the American establishment admits the arrogance of the US, as in this article from last year: Grand Illusions: The Impact of Misperceptions About Russia on U.S. Policy
From the summary:
They don't use the word "arrogant", but the accusation is clear enough.
Had a banana for breakfast.
NATO is not a threat to Russia. It's an obstacle to the resurrection of the Soviet Union.
If the US failed in the 1990s to realize that that was where Russia was headed, it was not arrogance. It was just ignorance.
For some reason everyone assumes that. It becomes a reason to ignore my point. How is that helpful?
Next? they will cut back on poor people's luxuries, then on poor people's essentials. That's where I come in. I take a ton of medications. Whose interest will lie in keeping me alive?
Well, I'll die eventually, I hope. Eternal life is for the gods, whether they exist or not. So if it comes for me ten-fifteen years too early, so be it.
I'd say it's for the greater good.
Soviet Union? Maybe a Federal Union or a United States of Eurasia. Communism failed mostly for poor management of economic resoures and mechanisms. The top management and executive body made many, many mistakes. One which is not talked about much is their treatment of national economics the same way as a household economy. That is: save money, spend only cash that you already made, restrict spending. They had periods periodically, for periods of a year or a few years when capital investment (new buildings, new machinery, etc.) were forbidden to buy.
In the vast west credit was the boss. You could spend money you did not own or earned. Stimulated the economy like crazy!
There were tons of other mistakes regarding the economy: discouraging innovation, nepotism, despotism, inability to enforce work ethic, theft by workers of equipment and materials that went unchecked,
The communist economic idea was an ideal idea. The European Union is practicing it now, with the Germans' leadership. The Europeans are socialists, capitalists, and have a quasi-centrally planned economy. A beauty. Too bad in any second it will be reduced to rabble.
Chocolate for breakfast for me.
The competition between the two nations was created by both. Whether it be the space program, the military, the Olympic athletes, the arts, the sciences, we had this need to each prove our system's superiority. Russia lost. Bad.
The defeat resulted in the US collecting the spoils, consisting of the ability to expand influence unchecked by the now fallen empire. There was no obnoxious end zone dance, just living out the consequences of victory and defeat.
Had the US showed its vanquished enemy greater sensitivity and insisted the former Soviet states be left as they were without access to NATO, the EU, or a general western welcome, I have serious doubts that kind gesture would have been rewarded in this dog eat dog world. My speculation is that Poland et al would be finding itself in the shoes of Crimea, and the pundits would be asking why we didn't seize upon the opportunity to protect those folks when Russia was at its weakest.
All conjecture of what might have been, but right now, this second, Russia's in a war that isn't going to accomplish its goals. It's fucking up. Again. The fear is how this injured animal is going to react
Backed into a corner with just his ego? The injured animal would rather escape by chewing it's own limb off and die alone than to give into those abusing them. If the abuser is present while still cornered? An injured animal has more power than one who is uninjured. I don't mean in the sense of broken limbs but in the mind. The mind of an injured animal is fierce and has the ability to maintain and channel that chaotic mess into fuel for powerful comebacks, even if they know they are going to die in the process.
To die while escaping your past actions, your current chaos and anyone else's need for accountability is a hell of a lot easier than negotiating with the abuser.
And the honor that befalls a man who has fought and died for his country? Hero
Maybe not our "hero" but in his truth, just like our own truth, he is the one who knows the 'right' way life should be. He would much rather die trying than to lay down and let the world walk over him.
Wouldn't you?
I think the EGO is actively engaged and like anyone else, we need to provide him an off ramp, a way to save face. I say this not because of who we are dealing with, I just know that an injured animal allowed to go free, will either live or die by that choice but it has to be THEIR choice.
I understand why Poland would have wanted to join NATO, but I think the it was US and European policy that made it happen. I remember back under Clinton when it was all happening. I'm not that sophisticated in foreign policy, but I knew it was a mistake then.
Quoting Bitter Crank
That's not the right question, which is - would we be better off? Answer - No, no, no.
Quoting Bitter Crank
USSR/Russia gave us the best chance for world peace since WW2 and we thumbed our noses and laughed.
When you live next to a big, big dog, you have to learn how to get along like our neighbors and China's. Ukraine still lives next to one of the biggest. It's not our job to provide protection for eastern Europe at the risk to our own security. I think it's also bad for the former USSR republics and satellite states. It makes the big dog angry and afraid. Not a good idea.
The US "collecting the spoils" has been bad, dangerous policy.
I agree, even forgetting Russia still has lots and lots of nuclear weapons.
That would be an amazing first step. Truly.
The fact that he has said anything about them means they are a precious last resort, he knew before he said it that it is the very last bullet in the chamber and it is a suicide bullet, self engraved with his own name.
The way we should have responded was not to give more attention to the child throwing a tantrum, by not acknowledging the child verbally but not dismissing the threat they might pose to themselves and to others. It's kinda like being an adult.
I am afraid that the media enhanced Unicorn that Putin is riding has left the proverbial barn and he had help opening the gate, us.
Nuclear weapons sound sexxy, they grab attention and eyes drawn to the news, hearts are engaged in this world we all reside in, until one is used and that is when reality sets in.
I absolutely agree with you that we should not focus on the shinny warheads he has and try to get into his mind, compassionately, for he too is human and can find himself biting off more than he could chew.
We need to provide an offramp to him...
Humanity is a privilege and should be regarded, nurtured and handled with both hands.
A non-sequitur is a great way to end a thought. Here's my favorite:
Quoting Robert Frost
Yes, I know I've used this quote before, and I'll use it again.
WWII offers a counterexample of that. The assumption that appeasement will eventually satisfy an appetite is a bad one.
But more importantly, NATO has completely provided protection to eastern and western Europe in the countries that belong to it. Its absence from Ukraine is what has caused this war. An argument could be made from that that if the west more aggressively recruited eastern European countries into NATO and the EU at the time of Russia's recent collapse, Russia would have been effectively isolated and not provided any outlet for new empire building.
I'd argue that it's not NATO expansion that caused this war, but that it's incomplete NATO expansion that caused it.
Russia appears now to be pursuing a revanchist policy towards reconstructing the USSR. That's not surprising. Losing large chunks of official Real Estate is generally considered undesirable. Remember how the US went out of its way to regain the states that seceded in 1860? Both the Confederacy and the Union courted the two major European powers at that time -- Britain and France -- with different aims, to be sure.
Russia isn't 1930s Germany. Today's Europe isn't 1930s Europe. Both the US and Russia have nuclear weapons.
Quoting Hanover
The presence of NATO in eastern Europe makes the potential for war a much bigger problem. If Russia invaded a NATO country, the US would be obligated to send troops. Then there would be Russian and US troops fighting each other. What could possibly go wrong? I don't see that the US has any national security concern that makes expanding NATO a good idea. Or that makes getting actively involved in Ukraine for that matter. We share some of the blame for where the country is now. We supported the overthrow of a democratically elected government.
The USSR dismantled itself in an incredibly peaceful manner in an incredibly short time. We won the cold war!!! Yay!!! It would have been so easy for us to demilitarize eastern Europe. InstI'ead, we put NATO right on Russia's borders. Russia moved out it's troops and we moved ours in.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I'm sure there are lots of people in Russia who thinking getting rid of the USSR was a very bad thing. Putin is probably one of them. But there's nothing they can do about it. This war won't get them back what they had and I'm pretty sure that's not what's intended.
I'm surprised. You're the last person I would have expected military swagger from. Tell me once since World War 2 when the US sending in troops has been a good thing.
Sometimes history repeats itself.
Quoting T Clark
Russia didn't attack a NATO country for very good reason. Being in NATO offers the protection of Russia not attacking it. Russia attacked Ukraine now because of fears it would eventually enter NATO and they'd forever lose the ability to do that later.
Quoting T Clark
In 2014, the Ukrainian Parliament overwhelmingly supported trade agreements with the EU. Russia pressured the President to reject it. He did. Protests ensued over that and the general corruption and civil right violations pervasive in the country. The government cracked down on the protests and things got worse, resulting in over 100 deaths of protestors. That resulted in the formation of a new government and the fleeing of the president, and then to direct Russian military intervention. A new election was then held and the 2010 Ukrainian Constitution was restored.
The US vocally supported the uprising and the result, but blaming the US for the overthrow of a democratically elected regime based upon these facts is quite a stretch, although it does seem to get a lot of play on here lately. The Russians instructed the President to violate the will of Parliament and then sent boots on the ground when Ukraine couldn't advance the Russian interests.
Just tell me - what important national security interest does the US have in Ukraine? Or Finland? Or Moldova? Saying oh, oh, history will repeat itself in this instance is ridiculous. Your arguments are exactly the ones that got us into Vietnam.
"Dismantled itself" or collapsed? I wasn't aware that there was a deliberate disestablishment effort. A high-speed unraveling isn't the same as "dismantling itself". There was no civil war at the time of its disassembly/collapse, but there was a wild-west robbery of state assets which is the foundation of the oligarch's wealth.
Quoting T Clark
Seems like the Poles, Czechs, and Hungarians, for example, were not all that thrilled to be Russian vassal states, and weren't all that unhappy to see the door hit Russian asses on their way out.
Quoting T Clark
Gee whiz, my military swagger amounts to following the Ukraine war on the BBC and NPR and thinking the Ukrainians are getting fucked over by the Russians. As Kaja Kallas said, "I’m the Prime Minister of Estonia. Putin Can’t Think He’s Won This War." She said the Baltic States were on the receiving end of what the Ukrainians are now receiving, and it must not happen again.
Our good philosopher SSU needs to be protected from Russian aggression,
Sure, and we certainly didn't need to storm Normandy to end the Japanese threat, so why were we there? We could have sat on our atom bombs safe and secure while the Red Army did their thing and we could have left Europe to Europe.
Not every war is WWII and not every war is Vietnam. There's a slippery slope in both directions.
In any event, in this case, we didn't invade anyone. We haven't fired a single bullet. All we've done is promote American interests in an area that Russia didn't want our interests promoted, so they directly thwarted the will of a sovereign power's Parliament and then engaged in a military takeover and now they want to further complete that takeover.
We're the bad actor for not appreciating how bad an actor we were dealing with I guess. That seems to be the argument.
What's in it for the state's citizens? Well, how prosperous the economy is, how much independence citizens have, how free they are from interference by foreign states, how much they get to travel abroad and where--lots of stuff. Like American policy or not--and I dislike large batches of American policy--my individual interests are somewhat aligned with the interests of the state in which I live.
Several of our wars (Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, etc.) have not supported clear American Interests beyond the large military industrial establishment, which is a substantial piece of the economy (whether I like it or not). The amount of money spent on Afghanistan, for instance, just didn't seem justified. Iraq? Maybe there was some sort of national interest there -- it isn't clear to me what it was. Our support for Israel, as queasy as it makes some people, seems to based on a clear national interest. The Assads in Syria have engaged in indefensible predations on their own people for decades, so anything we did to weaken the Assads was probably a good thing. But even when dealing with slimy regimes like the Assads, we still have over-riding interests.
That Ukraine has attracted a lot of support seems reasonable. Its borders butt up against the EU and NATO, There are 10 million diaspora Ukrainians living in Europe and the US. Their landscape looks like ours -- lots of green, trees, lakes and rain, familiar looking buildings--quite unlike Iraq's flat beige concrete and sand landscape, mosques and veiled women covered up in black.
I think the collapse of the USSR was a good thing. I think vital, free, prosperous countries in eastern Europe are good things. On the other hand, Poland, Moldova, Ukraine, Hungary, Czechia et. al. will have to learn to live near big dog Russia without being able to count on the US for military support.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I don't see that.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I disagree.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Those are all nice things. Yes, Ukraine seems like a nice country. It's sad things are so messed up there now. How does that affect the US's national interest? How is what Russia is doing in Ukraine different from what the US did in Iraq? I find it hard to believe it could turn our worse, unless we get into a war with Russia. Let's not do that.
Yes, yes. Russia is very, very bad. Bad, bad Russia!!! I don't see how anything we've done has "promoted American interests." What are American interests in Ukraine? As I see it, peace and stability. Allowing eastern European countries to enter NATO has undermined that goal.
Ukranians are good people like Americans are good people. We know Americans are good because they speak English. Good people always support good people because the more good people there are, the less bad people. Ukranians used to be bad people but then they became good people by learning a bit of English. And that is a good thing, and the bad people must not be allowed to turn them bad again. So it is in America's interest to help them die before they become bad people again. This makes them heroes. Hurrah!
Kremlin: Ukrainians are turning into bad people by learning a bit of English. As they're no longer good people like us; let's go in and kill them.
Americans use that term?
Explains a lot! The trouble is you proper Americans have forgotten how to shout loud enough at these foreigners to let them understand.
Every schoolboy knows that a crock is what leprechauns put their gold in to bury it at the end of the rainbow. If you cannot find the gold in my post, it's probably because you haven't been putting out a saucer of milk for the wee folk.
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?????
A better plan is to castrate the Ukrainians, eliminating any threat they might pose, as there's no greater strength than weakness. Perhaps destroy all their resources, as no one will seek to conquer a land of ash.
Quoting T Clark
Make you case for why a reasonable person would prefer Russian rule over western European rule. From that we can then decide if your claim that Russia is not bad is accurate. Otherwise, you're not debating, but just trying to be condescending.
Why do you leave out Russians from the list?
The distinction is less about people than governments.
:yum:
One interesting element in the period of the Warsaw Pact was the development of a trading bloc through such instruments as the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. It was a kind of mirror of the process that lead to the EU. The Russians did not integrate with this cooperation amongst the 'satellites' at the time and did not try to replicate the trading bloc after the fall of the Union. This suggests that the source of the conflict predates the usual narrative of the Cold War.
They do. Sometimes they shorten it to "that's a crock". Who else uses the phrase "crock of shit"? I assume it isn't the French, because they's say "pot de merde". the Germans say Topf instead of crock, and alles Scheiße for crock o' shit.
I think the argument is more like this: we might have prevented the Russian state from becoming such a bad actor if we had understood its deep sense of geographical vulnerability, its genuine perception of NATO as an existential threat, and its desire to gain international standing after the nineties; and if we had acted in accordance with this understanding instead of arrogantly expanding our own sphere of influence on its doorstep because it seemed easy at the time.
Note that the "we" of the argument doesn't include me and that it is not my argument, though it seems all right as far as it goes. I just shared it because it shows that the idea that the US was arrogant is neither unreasonable nor restricted to an anti-American position.
Russia and the Curse of Geography
Had a yoghurt drink and black coffee for breakfast.
Yes.
It makes me feel bored. I'm not well-versed in geopolitics, but I do a lot of reading.
i.e. I'm of the same ilk, obviously.
Understandable.
Quoting Noble Dust
Don't let that stop you!
Quoting Noble Dust
As far as I know, PKD might be the best preparation for global chaos and bloodshed.
It depends on the novel, and you probably shouldn't base your contingency plan on a PKD novel....
Word (so American). I'm a bit buzzed and might have edited my response since you saw it, but close enough...
We Brits say "that's a firkin of pig shite".
This is a very important matter. Respond immediately.
I tend to think that I am not of an ilk, per se, but of an elk.
I am sorry, but I have to dissent. "Delay" does not rhyme with "flight". Nor does "it". Although "it" would be closer to rhyming with "flight" if it(1) were spelled "ite".
(1) Please note: the antecedent of "it" here is "it".
Brits are Britons. Ex-pats are Britoffs. Both Britons and Britoffs are Brits.
Two streets down the road from me there is a short little street in my 'hood, called "Picton Street". I am swelling with pride to be the first and so far only one in the 'hood to know and to disseminate the knowledge, that much like Brits are Britons, Picts are Pictons. Most people never heard of the Picts, much like they haven't heard of Bhutan.
I first encountered the word in the title of an old Pink Floyd song, "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict." At the first few occasions of seeing this title, I figured a Pict would be an artist's brush with a long, narrow handle. After all, pictures are painted with picts, aren't they, and the long handle is excellent to scratch your back or the brush is excellent to stroke each other. The third time I listened to this song, I was totally drunk on Cannabis, and it sounded like the song, such as it was, would never end.
The first sign of Armageddon. "And verily I say unto you, that the tongue of the people shalt be tied, and the throngs shalt be unable to speak."
Same here, and I similarly assumed from the title that a pict was some kind of implement. They didn't teach us about the Picts at school. We got the Wars of the Roses instead, and I don't recall the teachers telling us why we should care about a conflict between Lancashire and Yorkshire that happened 500 years ago. Of course, Pictish society was in the even more distant past, but fundamental to the history of what became Scotland.
We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control.
Quoting jamalrob I think your teachers were terribly secularists. Much like some philosophers' only concern is why the universe exists, most scientific research is about how it is structured, not why it is structured the way it is. (I am biting my own words, because part of the Bing Bang theory does state that the formation of several particular particles in a particular ratio to each other is why we have matter. But that's a different "why".) Only the philosophically inclined wee folks would be questioning why the teacher was not answering an unanswerable question.
Way to go, kids!
Especially the kind that corrects double negatives. "We don't need any education."
Quoting jamalrob
***
Now:
Likewise posting this here instead of the lengthy Ukraine Crisis discussion.
It's good to see increasing Russian voices speak out in this way. Dangerous to them, no doubt.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/25/russian-activists-sign-open-letter-calling-for-end-to-war-in-ukraine
:grin: I thought I was quoting Pink Floyd verbatim! But your right, those who speak with double negatives do NOT need education, beyond a point. However, they need to live in a socitey where people who speak with no double negatives do get an education. Hand washes hand.
Yes, it's the exact quote. My inner English teacher always ruins that song for me.
You must restrict yourself from listening to Country and Western, Rock, and RAP songs. I, on the other hand, somehow manage to reconcile my anally retentive personality by giving slack to language anomalies when it comes to culture. Or even Culture.
This was coined in the seventies, I think, or as early as the sixties: "Writers who can't write interview people who can't speak, and publish books for those who can't read."
No. I was brung up in a house where the statement "I love you like crumpets love butter" would likely be met with the response "The word 'like' cannot be used as a conjunction". 'Brung' and 'likely' would have been frowned upon also. These things stay with a person.
It's true. "Like" ought not to be used as a conjunction. Except in the example I don't think it serves as a conjunction. It serves as a comparative. "As green as the grass" is comparable to "green like grass". You must correct me if I erred. But if I erred, please tell me how "like" could be used other than a verb. And I am not sure of "other than" is correct, either; than is another comparative, and here we only use it, idiomatically, because "other" ends with -er which is the comparative case of monosyllabic adjectives.
Now I am totally confused. Please straighten me out, and please don't feel bad about it, and please don't spare my feelings. In the culture in which I grew up people obliged you when they corrected you ("you" being the General Hugh). I will not get offended.
("Shone like the sun" vs "shone as the sun". ??? the first one sounds correct to me. What gives? In the sentence I quoted from you at top the comparative is between two adverbial phrases, not between two adjectival phrases. They answer to "How" or to "how much", which indicate adverbs, not adjectives. So the "like" is not correct. You were right in the first place. "I love you the way crumpets love butter" indicates action, not feeling... I don't penetrate my butter, and crumpets don't spread over you. "I love you as crumpets love butter" sounds contrived. "I love you how crumpets love butter" requires an adverb before "how", otherwise the sentence sounds foreign ("precisely how", for instance). Please help me out. My intuition says the language evolved into accepting "like" as a conjunctive between adverbial phrases.)
I think it's a preposition.
Like you, I'm at the limit of my knowledge! I would have been taught that "I love you as crumpets love butter" was correct and "...like crumpets love butter" was a vile Americanism. I have learned enough to know that it does not matter.
HERE is an exhaustive explanation of the grammar governing 'as' and 'like'.
Much appreciated! Thanks!
Right! We, in North America eat bison, and whale, and sap of the maple tree, but we don't eat any kind of muppets!
I noticed just now that I used "your" several posts up on this page, instead of "you're". I expect the capital punishment. If not forthcoming, I'll fall into my own dagger to preserve the family's honour.
On, right?
To quote a line from a parodied folksong by the Womenfolk (1960s-70s)... "Let's all take our silver dagger and plunge it in our lily-white breasts". I think stabbing yourself with a dagger would be more effective than trying to fall on a dagger. One falls on one's sword, not one's penknife. In a different folksong she drew a penknife in her hand and wounded him full deep. Dangerous women!
You could fall on any sharp thing, of course -- a small tree gnawed off by a beaver, a pitchfork, a shovel...
Maybe something less ghostly.
If you fall into your own sword, you don't fall from high enough to gain momentum enough for the sword point to achieve penetration. The sword is 1 metre long; you just hurt yourself, shriek an "eeek" and not die.
A dagger lets you fall almost all the way to the ground. By the time you feel the pain it's too late to do anything about it. The fall will complete, and you can't avoid the dagger entering your body.
Nonsense!
Sufficient height and momentum would be important if the sword you borrowed for this project was dull. A well-sharpened pointed sword will penetrate abdominal tissue just fine without your needing a long fall.
But really, what's wrong with evacuating your skull with a shotgun? That seems to be one of the more popular methods in the modern world.
Marsupial.
Yes, it is a marsupial! :yikes:
That's fucked.
So similar in looks to dogs.
you discount human unconditional response to pain. The sword is 3 feet long. Just about the height of your abdomen. You can't expect someone to fall into something that hurts like crazy. The fall into the dagger is good because you don't have time to react to pain. By the time the dagger penetrates your skin, there is no turning back. "The dice are thrown."
Why not the gun? 1. In Canada, they are not available. 2. I was trying to imitate the honour of a Roman patricius. Their preferred method of honour suicide was to fall into (or onto) their daggers or short swords. The Roman's main attack-weapons were the long stick with the point end that you throw, I forgot the name, and the short sword, about 20 inches in length. It resembled more a dagger than a sword. So everyone had a short sword around the house somewhere.
Handy for when you had disappointed Caligula. Better than crucifixion. The advice I read was that you sort of lean over the very sharp pointed sword, then collapse your knees. Once you do that, our old friend gravity will take over; the sword will pierce, death will ensue.
I think it all depends on how much patience you have with the gap between the sharp object piercing the skin and the unconsciousness and death produced by exsanguination. In these matters I am very impatience and once I begin, anything longer than a few milliseconds becomes annoying.
No gun? We'll meet somewhere on our long mutually undefended border and I'll throw a loaded one over the 49th Parallel (the geographical line, not the movie) for you. We have enough to spare. What would you like?
Reminds me of one of my many bad romances, based upon the notion that one of us is to be up above it and the other is permitted to be down in it. That is, the expectation is that one be forever rational, deliberative, understanding, and empathetic and the other be permitted to live out their emotions and baggage, laying fault upon the rational one for not having better administered the situation.
In order for a relationship to be functional, both have to be assigned the same standard to adhere to, meaning neither is expected to have the wisdom of Solomon and neither is expected to be purely reactionary and irrational. Requiring one person to divorce themselves emotionally won't work, as the word "divorce" rarely enters the conversation in a working relationship.
But enough about me.
I agree, we need to know where Russia is coming from if we want a particular response from our behavior, but it's a two way street. You have well described the Russian mindset, and so I'll describe the American one. My reason for providing the American mindset is because it has to be considered as well because no one is expected to be purely up above it, but both will always be down in it.
So let me tell you about the psyche of America and describe American ideology (and I'm not interested in posts who wish to tell me America doesn't live up to these ideals, but ideals they are).
America was founded in rebellion against tyranny upon the declaration that certain rights come not from government, but from God himself, and any government that does not honor those rights is invalid by operation of the laws of nature. These principles limiting government and protecting individuals were then enshrined in a document that was then treated as sacred and interpreted to this day as if it were handed down on Mount Sinai. As any child who took American history knows death is preferable over subjugation ("Give me liberty or give me death"). Some decades later it was reiterated to us that our land "was conceived in liberty, dedicated to the proposition that all men were created equal," spoken by the Great Emancipator himself, who is heralded as having unshackled the bonds of slaves, a higher cause there could not be.
My point here is simple. Americans and their concept of liberty runs very deep, far deeper than sometimes I think is understood here, and something that is often ridiculed, but it is what it is. Russians need to be very careful in suppressing liberty from a nation that comprises those "huddled masses yearning to be free" if they don't want to spark a visceral reaction on the part of Americans, especially those seated on the right aisle. That is to say, had the Russians cast this conflict in terms of national protection but spoke the language of America and assured us that the Ukrainians would be afforded some degree of freedom, self-governance, and autonomy, this conflict could have been avoided.
How reasonable it would be to expect Putin to tap into the American psyche before acting and actually care what it was is the same question you must ask of America at the collapse of the the USSR. Was the US and NATO really expected to think about what the Russians were going through?
And since this is the shoutbox, where things needn't entirely make sense, I cite to the music driving this post:
and
Hogwash. Balderdash. Baloney. Bullshit. Ridiculous. Laughable.
This has nothing at all to do with the principles of a nation forged in the fires of the fight against tyranny. (music rises in the background with soldiers in silhouette against the flames) It has to do with a nationalistic desire to be big dog in the pack. It's the same as it ever was. This is what caused Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Grenada, the Dominican Republic, the Mexican War, the Invasion of Panama, the Spanish-American War, the subversion of the government in Chile, the placement of the Shah in Iran, the bombing of Cambodia...
We're supposed to be smart. We're supposed to know the score. We're supposed to know that ending innocent people dying is more important than Amurica's pride and tradition.
Couldn't help yourself:
Quoting Hanover
The reference was to the ideal, not the reality.
Seriously. Is that the best you can do?
Hanover lives in Georgia. You should not criticize, look down upon, or punish others for misfortunes out of their control.
It's just not really responsive to what I was saying. @jamalrob offered a perspective that I generally agreed with, which is that the perspective of the actor must be considered when assessing behavior, but I think it's a two way street.
If you are of the opinion that all motivation is world domination, then you've disagreed with both of us and have rejected the thesis generally. So I didn't find that interesting. OK, then, Russia wants the world and we want the world, simple enough. so we're slugging it out.
Also should be noted that this utter shit isn't even an ideal - it's what powerful Americans tell stupid Americans so they can continue to pursue their actual ideal of enriching themselves and their friends as the expense of the latter.
That's some stale-ass Kool-aid you're nursing.
Reminds me of Petronius's slow bloody suicide in the tub.
It might be a reasonable expectation. If your girlfriend's family unexpectedly fell apart and disowned her, she lost her job and had a mental breakdown, one might expect you to take responsibility and captain the ship of love with a firm but fair hand, until she got herself together again.
This is a metaphor and not a comment on your disastrous love life.
I take your point about the ideal of American liberty, but I think the point here might be that we're talking about what was happening in and around Russia, not in and around the US.
Have you ever listened to the Black Dresses? It's kind of your soundtrack.
×dancing to it while making coffee*
I would continue with this discussion, but in penance for being a jerk in my previous post, I won't.
Quoting T Clark
Holy cow! They could create a thylacine using the dunnart through gene editing. Okay.
:sad:
Ain't no thing but a chicken wing.
I'll PM you the answers daily, fucking up whatever minimal joy you might have had playing. Not sure why, but I just texted my brother the answer as well.
And no, I'm not 10 years old. This humor has no age restriction.
Holy science!
And yet piling one's shit on high is the purpose for this, or any, forum.
Wombats, all. Eats, roots, shoots and leaves.
I remember @I like sushi mentioning the CRISPR. I didn't pay attention to it at the time. lol.
Well, I'd rather chew on a candle than play your silly game. So there.
Quoting Banno
Hey, that was yesterday's Wordle!
In my wombat research I learned that they, along with a number of other Australian marsupials, have fur that glows under ultraviolet light. This trait was discovered only very recently in 2020. https://wildlife.org/wombats-and-other-australian-mammals-glow-in-uv-light/#:~:text=December%2028%2C%202020,might%20secretly%20do%20the%20same.
I also learned that wombat shit can be brewed into an eye opening shit tea that is a delightful accompaniment to shit scones along with the elusive shitfruit from the shitvine. https://www.google.com/search?q=shithead&client=ms-android-tmus-us-revc&prmd=vibn&sxsrf=APq-WBtJAbI0S8GvIWzNxZcCkYRDOx0tew:1648340612533&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjZ4Lalg-X2AhW5QzABHeujA4cQ_AUoAnoECAIQAg&biw=412&bih=777&dpr=2.63#imgrc=ffWf7548RWU4QM
I got it on the 5th try, then came here and found that you have given away the answer.
there are several tricks to getting the right answer. I have developed a good system playing the other version. I have reached up to 54 words in one streak, but had to go to bed.
https://www.wordleunlimited.com/
Metaphysical Animals
Ohhh shit.
Know what game you play with wombat shit dice?
Brace for this one, it's a good one....
Craps.
And the drumroll...
Where's Otis? Drunken yokel is more in line with my impression of you than fraudulent wizard.
I think it’s because the responsive design truncates the formatting menu on small screens. Simply turn you phone horizontally and more formatting options will appear.
Better?
The thing about Otis is he was one of those people that can't be acknowledged any more - funny drunk guys. Other examples from the Good Old Days - Dean Martin, Crazy Gogenheim, WC Fields, Dudley Moore... The only one left is Barney Gumbel.
Worked. Thanks
I hadn't realized the significance of my avatar to you, but you make a touching argument that homage ought be paid to this icon of the dying breed of socially acceptable alcoholics.
I will reconsider my decision to change it, and while I'm thinking on it, I'll change it to a banging hot supermodel, just because.
Whenever I comment on someone's avatar, it strikes me that the posts won't make any sense once the icon has been changed again.
A surgeon, an engineer, and an economist all die around the same time and are met at the Pearly Gates by St. Peter. “Welcome good souls! Welcome! You’re in the right place,” he informs them. “But, unfortunately, we have a shortage of mansions so two of you will need to spend some time in Purgatory while yours are finished. In the interests of fairness, we have devised a competition to see who gets in first.” After receiving assurances that they would be staying in one of the nicer parts of Purgatory, they all agreed and St. Peter began, “Okay then. Top answer moves in today. What is the oldest profession known to man?”
The doctor shot up a hand and stepped forward. “Oh! I know, I know! Surgeon! God extracted a rib from Adam to make Eve. That’s surgery.”
The engineer stepped forward and said, “Before God made Adam and Eve, he created Heaven and Earth and that’s engineering. So engineer is the oldest profession, I do believe.”
They all turned to the economist, who paused for dramatic effect, then answered, “Before the creation of Heaven and Earth, all was chaos. And who do you think created that?”
[tweet]https://twitter.com/existentialcoms/status/848254382386757632[/tweet]
By my conservative estimate, about two people die every second in the world. Assume half of those go to heaven. That means, if heaven can't provide at least one mansion/second, the line waiting will rapidly become unwieldy. Conclusion - the scenario you describe seems very unlikely. I think the Quillette should recheck their numbers.
You're forgetting purgatory. :roll:
But my current avatar shows how all that changes over time . . . :sad:
There is a common theme I always associate with the US south. You hear it in many old time country music and gospel songs - when we go to heaven, we all will have mansions.
I'm assuming St. Peter wouldn't lie about that.
If you can give me an estimate of the percentage of people who will eventually go to heaven go to purgatory first, I'll recalculate the length of the line at the Pearly Gates.
How many engineers can dance on the head of an economist?
Then we must assume the same for housing here on earth and assume that homelessness is God's will.
I think it's that goofy looking woman's head sitting on your shoulder that deters them.
I deeply resent you taking our completely pointless and ridiculous argument and making it all philosophical-n-stuff.
Wait, I'm not through with the most disturbing post ever....
I will name my resulting child Abortoranious after the Greek god of terminated gestation, which will be this child's fate as I ain't got no time for no baby, hear me?
Now I'm done.
I'm not sure I'm ready for this being a woman thing.
Especially applicable to you, MR. Honey Ovaria: "If men could get pregnant, abortion on demand would be a sacrament." So said Gloria Steinem, "And I'm talking to you, Honey."
BTW, fertilization usually happens in the fallopian tubes. You sound a bit hysterical--usually caused by a wandering uterus. A wondering uterus, on the other hand, causes feminist philosophy.
Never sugar-coat the facts of life.
Slow your breathing, through the nose if that’s comfortable, and from the diaphragm rather than the chest.
It's more of a trunk than a nose.
Did. Thanks. Nausea gone.
I literally felt my trunk weighed heavily.
:chin:
Breathing is by diaphragm or... pftttz. .
What’s that?
Pro tip: use a thumb or other blunt object and press in into the solar plexus as you breathe. This will help diaphragmatic breathing and stimulation of the vagus nerve.
I tried breathing deeply through my girlfriend's diaphragm and I nearly choked. I find it works better as a yarmulke.
It's because you're not mean and moody. You are merely disenchanted.
Ahem...
Bitter man talk. Very unbecoming. Am I right ladies?
Does anyone actually use diaphragms anymore? Has anyone actually seen one?
https://medium.com/the-establishment/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-diaphragm-6c067d47f8dd
You are absolutely right Hanny.
Now, I have to use the ladies room and we go in pairs, ready?
The only way to create negative pressure in your airways other than your diaphragm is the accessory muscles in your neck and shoulders. A person who is having panic attack isn't using those, so they are using their diaphragm, they're just breathing shallowly.
What you're calling diaphragmatic breathing is just deep breathing.
Tell them to take a deep breath to a count of 5, and then exhale to a count of seven. That will relax the diaphragm.
And never advise vagal stimulation. If they were successful in that, they could become bradycardic and pass out.
:starstruck: Touche!
Potato potahto.
Quoting frank
Prude.
Totally
To please the brick, mortar and masonry trade unions.
According to Wikipedia, Hugh Beaumont "...studied at the University of Southern California and graduated with a master of theology degree in 1946." Or did you mean Ward Cleaver? Here is some information from Wikipedia about his fascinating life:
[i]Ward is a farmer's son and hails from Shaker Heights, an actual location in Ohio, which also has a suburb called Mayfield. Ward attended a preparatory school, is a veteran of World War II (having served as a surveyor in the Seabees), a state college graduate (majoring in philosophy),[2] and member of a fraternity (Alpha Kappa), a responsible white-collar professional, and an upstanding citizen. Ward met his future wife, June Evelyn Bronson, when they were teens. The two dated and went to state college together. They married and became the parents of two sons, Wally and Theodore (the Beaver).
Ward is an archetypical white-collar, briefcase-toting professional of the 1950s. He wears a business suit, works in an office with a view of a metropolitan area, has a secretary named Grace, and leaves home early in the morning and returns in the early evening. He works for a "big company" with main offices in New York City. He drives to work in his Plymouth unless June needs the car during the day for an errand. He is home on weekends for golfing at a local country club. Occasionally, Ward is required to do some office work at home. In one early episode, for example, he works at home on a women's marketing survey. His co-worker and friend is Fred Rutherford, a smug, pompous man who refers to the workplace as "the salt mine".[/i]
I just watched a video on 'Vagus nerve exercises to rewire your brain' a few minutes before seeing your post. Can we do that?
Like what?
The vagus is the tenth cranial nerve and arises from the medulla; it carries both afferent and efferent fibers. The afferent vagal fibers connect to the nucleus of the solitary tract which in turn projects connections to other locations in the central nervous system. Proposed mechanisms include an anti-inflammatory effect, as well as changes in monoamines.
If I live to be a hundred years old (add 32 more years) I still won't know what a vagal nerve is. All I know is Vagus sounds very... profane. Indecent. "Put this in your vagus and scat, you demonic hussar." Or something to that effect.
What happens in vagus, stays in vagus.
You sort of pluck your skin up and play it like a banjo.
That won't kill you. Let us know the effect.
Are you suggesting that, 5 years later, we know all about it?
All this vagus talk is vaguely unsettling.
"Three things don't leave a mark: a snake on a rock, a fish in the water, and a man in a woman."
--Ancient Hindu porverb.
I can't believe they would stay on and that the cat wouldn't chew them off.
Right! I don't know how they make them stay. And if cats don't eat them. :yikes:
It's fine - you also wire their jaws shut.
I laughed at this. Then the thought of macabre overcame me. :scream:
Both cats look deeply humiliated.
Blah, blah, blah. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Sis, boom, bah. Eeny, meenie, mynie, moe. E-I-E-I-O.
...and a partridge in a pear tree.
Riveting stuff; I need to stay more on top of this thing. Hard FOMO right now.
Yeah - it's life changing.
Mmm - and how has it changed your life, Tommy?
I left out Vegas nerve and diaphragm breathing.
Is that like when you do too much coke in Vegas or something?
You wouldn't understand unless you're a sensitive - it's an ineffable-mystical-Kabbalistic-orphic-speculatively-gnostic truth. To paraphrase Dr Jung, 'I know'.... :halo:
Uh, that's me to a T buddy
Are you at least eating food yet?
They know it.
Here. Take a look for yourself.
Quoting praxis
Huh, doesn't sound like a coke bender.
The approved posters are usually very generous. Sometimes they direct you to lectures that you wouldn't be able to access otherwise. Or they might actually email you stuff.
It's a pretty good resource for rank amateurs like me.
Thanks. I'll take a look.
This is true.
Why is Bobby Hill naked on the moon? I don't think starvation is his immediate problem.
Is that the moon? Could be Nebraska.
Do you have evidence though that starvation is most prevalent in capitalistic countries?
He's also sitting raw ass on a geyser opening looking forward to a high steam powered enema that's gonna clean out his commie innards in a hurry.
The whole world is capitalist isn't it?
Sub-Saharan Africa dominates the hunger list. https://www.statista.com/statistics/269924/countries-most-affected-by-hunger-in-the-world-according-to-world-hunger-index/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Global%20Hunger,with%20an%20index%20of%2045.1.
I would think those economies are heavily agricultural, many sustenance farmers and some hunters and gatherers. It'd be hard to call them capitalistic in the same vein as the US or any industrialized country. That is, they can't blame their limited food on corporate greed.
In any event, I'd expect (although I couldn't find a source here) that the greatest contributors to ending hunger are capitalistic industrialized nations, if, for no other reason, than that those governments and those citizens have the largest amount of expendable income (ironically as the result of greed).
The comment is more about the way capitalism requires stratification. To maximize profit, you need a labor force that's hungry (literally or figuratively).
So the mark of capitalism is financial inequality: an elite and large numbers of dependent people.
Hunter gatherers don't have that kind of inequality. They all starve at the same time.
The word "starve" is an exaggeration in Western industrialized countries, usually occurring where there is mental illness or other inability to obtain assistance. That is, people aren't actually on the streets dying of hunger in the US or other parts of the West.
In Sub-Saharan Africa there is actual starvation. I would agree it's not the result of a lack of altruism that causes the hunger, but more so just a lack of food.
Yea. The Sahara desert is getting bigger. It's actually been growing for the last 10,000 years, but it's about 10% bigger than in the early 20th Century. We're a long way out from the days of megafauna when you could just punch a sloth in the face and feed the whole town.
This doesn't have much to do with how capitalism requires inequality.
I think capitalism creates inequality more than it requires it.
I used to live on the outskirts of the Sahara with my wife Lillyflower, my concubine Buttercup, and my camels Humpdehump and Thristyasshit and we'd eat goat every night while wailing songs to the gods beneath the moonlight. Then one night the Sahara crept onto my outskirts with it's asshole expansion bullshit and wrecked my whole existence in a total dick move. My ladies ran off, calling me a common desert rat and found some fucker deep in the burbs to shack up with and fuck silly.
This climate change thing hit me in a hard way. It's some real bullshit I tell you.
I think it also requires it, but I'll have to think that through.
This is a stream of consciousness conversation and it's a violation to deliberate.
Incorrect.
According to renowned planetary scientist Rick E. Pedia, there hasn't been any vulcanism on the moon in 50 million years.
Doesn't capitalism require private property? Isn't private property a form of inequality, unless everyone gets their share? Does everyone ever get their share?
Yes. You are one man proof of reincarnation. Or maybe the multi-verse.
I learned everything I know about stone age economics from "The Flintstones."
Lots of us have interesting lives, you have plenty of competition there.
It is your imagination that beats all of us. :lol: :rofl:
They lived during the Jurassic age and were not hunter gatherers. If memory serves, Fred worked in a rock quarry, and there were institutions like law enforcement, which indicates a state government.
Yeah, and for being so cocky and self assured, I wouldn't be surprised if he's not the first one the good Lord injects a sulphuric ass blast to for throwing down the challenge. You think the Will Smith bitch slap was all the talk? Wait for this belly washer comeuppance.
I'd still be waiting my bond hearing.
Yes. He lived in a creationist universe, as do we all. Final proof:
It was my understanding that a slap with a glove as a challenge to a duel is still as common as Krispy Kreme down there in the Land o' Cotton and Voter Suppression.
Now that is the most amusing thing I've seen, and heard, all day.
I thought impeaching Trump was a bad idea - both times. I've also thought that prosecuting him now was going to backfire. I've changed my mind. I hope they nail his knees to the floor. And his little [s]dog[/s] son too.
It's truly excellent. This is another favorite, although if you're not a wine drinker it may not hit as hard:
I literally L'ed OL. LOLed?
lol'ed, but you do you. Love that one. Not all of them are that funny, but there's some other good ones.
One thing I love about these is that he doesn't always even pronounce it the same way; i.e. "choodinoofy poopy", followed by "choodinoofy...n'poopy". Brilliant.
Yes. I do like L'ed OL.
I wonder how many people out there try to use those pronunciations. I would hope it is a lot, but that seems cruel. They were trying to be correct.
When I was a kid, I used to read "The Phantom" in the Sunday paper comics section. One of those old-style adventure comics with a hero in a purple suit and a mask. Kind of like Batman - no superpowers. I used to call him the "pontom" to myself. Then one day I heard someone pronounce it correctly. I remember feeling so relived I had never said it out loud in front of anyone.
It is my understanding that it is pronounced differently depending on what part of France you are in.
I read a lot as a kid, and spent a lot of time alone, so there were many words that I realized later I had been mispronouncing in my head. To the extent I still sometimes accidentally mispronounce obscure words in real life. That dilettante life.
Quoting T Clark
For sure...I think they say "n'poopy" in Languedoc, whereas in Paris it tends to just be a straight "poopy", or even a "poop'a'doo".
Can you explain this? If you get time?
It's about the Supreme Court and the Voting Rights Act.
I've always liked Chateautrois-de-Pape better than Neuf. A bit more robust and drinkable.
Just checked and found out. "Pape" means "pope." The village is near Avignon where some popes lived in the 15th century. I guess it means "the Pope's ninth crib."
The article was pretty terrible that you cited. It didn't even include the case name in order to Google the actual text of the opinion and all it did was blast the opinion as a terrible departure from the Voting Rights Act.
I did locate the 12 page opinion and skimmed it. It seems to say that there are limited reasons a district can be drawn upon racial lines, with the primary goal being to be sure that the rights of a minority are not improperly diluted by distributing minorities into majority districts. It looks like Wisconsin created a district for the purposes of granting a minority an additional district, and the Court found that to be a violation of the Constitution because it was a raced based districting not authorized under the facts. It seems to be a reverse discrimination claim.
The opinion was 7-2, and I didn't read the dissent.
Whether it's a radical departure for prior law would require more research, but I think there's grounds to be suspicious of both sides if you wish to assume political motivation from the decision.
Is that just naive? Are conservative judges just as likely as liberal ones to try to advance political agendas?
Everyone has an interest they wish to advance I guess. I'm fairly moderate on these sorts of things and I don't want to say that the right has this steadfast integrity to the true principles of the Constitution while the left just makes things up that comport with their sense of progressive morality. That would be a fairly naive thought.
As to whether a decision that strikes down a law as being racially motivated goes, I do think such rulings have more to rely upon than those referencing a genral right to privacy (which is a right strongly protected by the left). The post-Civil War Amendments (13, 14, and 15) clearly protect against forms of racial discrimination whereas the right to privacy issues are harder to extrapolate from the text. The point being that in this instance there might be less activism on the right than you sometimes see on the left.
But again, I'm trying to stay neutral here because I'm not of the mindset that one side is pure and the other politically motivated. Everyone is selling a point a view.
https://philpapers.org/rec/NAGTVF
Me too. I still hear awry as "awe-ree" in my head just before I tell myself it's "a-rye". I only discovered the truth in my late twenties. Then there's misled, which someone told me they always read as "mizzled".
And then come up and accept an award. I'd like to see what would happen to anyone who walked up and slapped his face on the street. Not that I recommend you do that... Unless you really want to. :chin:
Oh yeah, well, it might be worth it. Do it, man.
Disclaimer: I did not say that.
I'm currently imagining a scenario in which Will Smith makes a joke about my wife in the street, which I find funny until I turn to my wife and see that I'm not supposed to find it funny and therefore step up to defend her honour.
I think everyone is forgetting the most important thing - Chris Rock is much funnier than Will Smith. Better actor too.
Fair point. And the funniest guy in the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was Carlton.
I never liked any of Chris Rock's movies, but his comedy routine is really funny. He goes on rapid fire for over an hour. So, if he needed a slapping, it was for his movies.
If someone called my wife bald and she was bald, I'd be forced to acknowledge the point and accept the difficult hand my family had been dealt.
On the other hand, if someone called my wife bald and she had adequate hair, I'd simply motion towards her head with a clarifying gesture so that those in attendance would be alerted to the accuser's falsehood and the shame would be on him, not my wife.
The point being that there are only two reasonable responses in this scenario, neither of which involve physical attack.
I went to see Chris Rock doing stand-up many years ago. He was pretty good, but his total inability to deal with the single mild heckle disappointed me, while I felt sorry for him at the same time.
If he thought my wife's baldness was amusing and deserving of mockery, I might--how you say--whoop his ass.
I'd just pet my wife's bald head and tell her that she needs to focus on growing her hair and addressing the real problem as opposed to sending me into battle to fight against an unfortunate truth.
Just different approaches.
GET MY WIFE'S NAME OUT YOUR MOUTH!
Everyone has a breaking point.
One? I have several thousands of them.
(Is that "several thousands of them" or "several thousand of them"?)
It's the latter, but I'm not sure why.
I don't recall having seen either of them in a movie or TV show. Isn't Will Smith a kind of Bruce Willis B--movie type but with a functional memory?
I thought he was good in Six Degrees of Separation but forgettable in everything else.
I don't have a wife. I have a short bald man who I dress up in female clothes and take around with me though in order to tempt people to insult him/her, so I can beat them up.
What does it mean to "have" a short bald man? Sounds kidnappy.
I had a special bald man, but he kept sticking his fingerlings into my soft eggs.
No he is not a kidnappy! GET MY SHORT BALD MAN OUT OF YOUR FUCKIN' MOUTH!
Worth quoting.
Quoting Baden
When you have so many cribs, you eventually have to start naming wines after them I guess.
Btw, I've had good CdP, but they're rare. :groan:
Edit: ah, an oscars joke, nvm.
My wife and three children are, as Snagglepuss used to say, con-noisy-ers. Food, wine, beer, whiskey. I'm... not. Robust but not too much. Fills the mouth nicely. Nice grapey flavor. Easy on the tanin.
A man walks into a bar owned by horses and one asks "why the short face?"
To each their own. I think of myself as a jack of all trades and master of none. I love to ball out on a $100 omakase when I can, and I also love Taco Bell.
I joined a wine club and got 15 bottles of wine for like $50 and they said they'd send me a new selection at full price every month and I could cancel at any time.
Got the wine, filled my cabinet, canceled immediately.
Hanover 1, Wine Club Suckers 0.
Did any of the wines have the words "Boones," "Farm," or "apple," in their appelations?
A horse trots into a bar owned by men and one shouts "what the fuck??"
You seem to have been not only misled as to these pronunciations, but also continued to pronounce them awry into adulthood. I can relate.
In case you're wondering, this is pronounced "orey."
You may want to let @jamalrob know.
Ahh, who's being overly sincere now, eh?
More like "awrye" -- rhymes with rye bread. lol.
.
:rage:
Uh, I forget what I deleted.
Armenian brandy for breakfast today.
Time to bring in another external philosopher... likes of Massimo Pigliucci and David Pierce. To add some spice to the old and beaten-to-death topics of the forums.
Other than the ShoutBox, the forums deal with the same old, same old... what is god, is there one, isn't there one, what are its properties. Is there a consciousness and how it attaches to the body. Is god scientific or not. God, god, god, no god, no god, god, that's all the forum has got reduced to. And consciousness. What does "cause" mean? What is mysticism? Oh, yes, and morality and free will.
Maybe it's just me. Maybe I've become jaded. Maybe I've become too wise or too stupid. But I find things outside the wit of @Hanover all... kind of boring on these forums.
Yeah, I noticed that, things seem to be getting a little boring around here.
Quoting god must be atheist
How about a philosopher of mathematics? Some one who can really teach me a thing or two, rather than the mathemagicians we get around here, who are so self-deceived by their own sophistry.
Fortunately my wit alone is sufficient to sustain the entire internet.
There will be those critical of your early morning alcohol consumption. Don't let then steal your joy. You be you.
They were actually good quality wines because they wanted to entice me to stay in their wine club, but I was way too clever to fall for that.
Speaking of Boones Farm, I once had a contest with Kurt that I could drink a quart of orange flavored Boones Farm quicker than he could. I drank mine faster than him.
While it appears I won that contest, it's hard to say things went all that well for me.
Kurt 1, Hanover 0.
Quoting jamalrob
@Noble Dust and I have been goofing around with mispronouncing words. You were just collateral damage.
Serious comment - I have found going away for a month or two makes a big difference.
Story of my life :roll:
We have your brain in a vat and we do experiments on you.
We're going to publish the results in Nature.
Thank god something is promised to be happening.
Good idea. Can't all of you just go away for a couple of months?
I might follow suit, if only I garnered some spine and willpower.
Atlas. At last.
I'd also like to have a well-stacked speaker teach us about the philosophy of sophisticated bawd and debauch. Math? Not so much.
I'm not interested in participating. It's important to me no one ever finds out I'm actually Donald Trump Jr.
Joe BIden.
Joe Biden.
Joe Biden.
Sounds interesting, but everyone will have to sign a non disclosure agreement and take an oath never to make fun of anything we see,
Quoting Hanover
for instance Hanover's missus's noggin. :lol:
This idea was enough to lure me back in. I am in the middle of school and my weekly firefigther classes....so I had to give up Facebook, Reddit and a shit ton of fools on Match but I am reading you guys and obviously keeping an eye on you.
So....it is with BOLD, almost divorced, finding myself where i abandoned myself so many years ago to be okay with being given scraps of time, attitudes too many neg to balance out the positive.
I am not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but Cosmic Wanker is not the same since his Aortic Dissection. Which brings me to tears fffffffffffffffffuckl......
Anyway, I am down for this Hanover! Please make it happen and let me know what I can do to help.
I really need to sponsor the forums so I can post pictures.
He's lost his capability of empathy, sympathy, love, dedication, valueness, a whole lot of symptoms point to a sustained brain injury in the sense that they had to cool his body down to some low ffing temp to keep the blood from damaging any more of his aorta and when they are in that cold mode, there are times when the brain doesn't get enough blood.
It doesn't matter to me because his habits haven't changed but what does kill me is that my eldest is the only one who still speaks to Cosmic Wanker. I text him and work through the attorneys but what he is doing to our son is unfair for him to have to shoulder. I am built for this shit but man this armor gets heavy and living in Warrior Mode is soul taxing.....
A zoom call would be fine by me, assuming the topic was interesting -- or the call could be purely social. Why not?
Where I come from, we call 40-year-olds - "youngsters."
[Deleted]
[Deleted]
[Deleted]
I have become more drawn here cause I have a stressful job. :shade:
And I hate it when my mind is full of ugly things cause of stress as I could not think of fond things about this person I'm very fond of, it ruins my thoughts. :(
You've only been here a few months. @god must be atheist and I have been around for years. Sometimes I feel like I've said everything I have to say five times and I've run out of ideas. A month or so off lets me get the dust out of my gears.
I love the forum, so I keep coming back. What would you all do without me? [Deleted] and [deleted] would run the place into the ground without me uphold standards.
Would the rest of us be allowed to observe? Would there be big words I don't understand? As it is, I can bluff by not posting. :worry:
Laying it on thick there, T-Bone.
I had envisioned only watching myself talk, but I can see merit to your suggestion in allowing others to participate. Thank you for that input!
It is doubtful we'll use words larger than "hippopotamus," so you can use that as a complexity guage.
Pro tip: It will be broadcast in Southern American English, so have your Google translate loaded in if you're from somewhere strange.
They speak Spanish and Portuguese in South America.
I said Southern, not South, but, you are correct, Spanish is heavily spoken here. My county is about 25% Hispanic, so my kids became really good soccer players.
Like George Costanza, I've always wanted to be called "T-Bone."
Actually, I heard @Bitter Crank loves a good T-bone for lunch... T-Bone! T-Bone! T-Bone!
Let's ask him. @Bitter Crank - would you like a T-bone steak for lunch? Would you like to be called "T-Bone?"
Even more than T-Bone, I'd like to be called "Blue Wing," "Wing" for short.
I think we’ll call you Coco The Monkey.
We both know you'll mostly call me "Clarky."
:lol:
Below is a picture of "T. Bone [Pickens]" himself, Texass Tycoon, with his lawyer ? wife ? secretary ? mistress ? maid ? persona care attendant ? PR flak ? whatever.
"Oddly, "tea bag" has the same slang meaning as T bone. Tea bags and T bones both involve sleeping recipients, it says. Kinsey's ghost said he had never heard of anyone actually doing either thing. Apparently this odd behavior is more presumed than practiced. Or, maybe, it's wishful thinking among some philosophers.
Sorry BC, it was just a Seinfeld reference involving a real T-bone steak. I don’t think sex jokes are really in Clarky’s wheelhouse.
I thought I had seen all the Seinfeld episodes there were at least twice. Don't remember the George T bone bit. Were the Seinfeld writers innocent, or were they fielding a double entendre, do you think?
Too bad about Clark's wheelhouse, but a lot of great jokes are no longer allowable, sadly. What with our new and higher consciousness of myriad inequities, former or current oppressions, this/that/and the other liberations movements many topics are off limits (in hyper-polite society). Some topics, like non-binary celibacy and incellism are so weird, I wouldn't know how to begin joking about them.
I periodically require some refreshingly inappropriate jokes.
What are your thoughts about format? Is it a social hour or a panel discussion?
Hey, I been drinking sodas and eating burgers at the Varsity long time ago. No need to translate.
I feel it's my responsibility to be dignified. I don't want to damage the deep respect, almost reverence, that members of the forum feel for me.
My only request is that it be considerate. On Valentines Day, everyone gets a card. If you don't plan to make it open to all, make the arrangements by PM.
It does not matter. Tonight she's my dream lover. She's about 16 years younger than I, in her early fifties... perfect age gap for a heterosexual couple for pipe dreams. They say the average 70-some-olds on dating sites wish to meet energetic 58-65 year old women. Whatever for, is beyond me.
I have fixed pictures in my mind of what you all look like. There is no doubt that those pictures are not accurate, except for @Bitter Crank. He looks just like me. All old white men look the same. I have no desire to know what you really look like. I've always pictured you as a cross between Danny DeVito and Joseph Stalin. I wouldn't want to be disillusioned.
When we would drive through downtown, I'd always stop at the Varsity for the kids to eat. Then one day it happened. Like the kid who proclaimed the emperor wore no clothes, my son said "this food sucks."
Yep.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I don't see it in the bit.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I would cautiously agree with you to an extent... I think one thing humor does is address societal taboos; things people think about but are afraid to mention. It took me a long time to realize this, being raised in a very conservative environment where "dirty" humor was utterly unacceptable. The notion I grew up with was that people who made dirty jokes were exactly that; dirty; uncouth. But I don't think that's right, and if anything there is a sort of bizarre role-reversal with what you describe as our "new and higher consciousness", one that I'm not sure is completely healthy. On the other hand, an off-handed joke in casual company can hit a sore spot for someone, which I've been the blunt of myself. The ideal is being sensitive to the people around you, while also being able to entertain dark or dirty humor for it's weirdly freeing effects. Tough balance I guess.
You guys should do a podcast. So audio only.
Woaaahhhh
:up:
And yet an artist with a wide range can also garner reverence.
H.R.6833 - Affordable Insulin Now Act (Library of Congress)
Seems clear enough who cares and who doesn't? It's not like such bills are unheard of; they've already been implemented in many a first world country. Weird.
It's not a tough balance: if "sensitive" people are present, it's a no go. It's not just the "sensitive people"; it's also the knights in plastic armor who will step in to help suppress behavior that offends.
The thing about humor is that it is, fundamentally, not 'nice'. Yes, there are jokes that do not offend that are funny, but the ones that get the greatest laughter and that we remember belittle, satirize, demean, and so on to some degree. A good joke has a sharp edge, not a jagged pme.
Mel Brooks: "If you are walking down the street, fall into a sewer and die, that's hilarious. If I get a paper cut on my finger, that's a tragedy." Compare Garrison Keillor with John Waters. Keillor: Man to penguin: "It looks like you are wearing a tuxedo." Penguin: "Who says I am not?" Waters -- Pink Flamingos, a great movie-length joke in profoundly bad taste about a contest to find the filthiest people in the world."
Here's a presentation about Pink Flamingos. Waters' POV towards suburban (or generally, proper Methodist taste) good manners is the same as the POV of "offensive" jokes.
So, must we wallow in bad taste all the time to be "authentic"? Not at all. It's the contrast we need.
Hey, this discussion of Pink Flamingos is serious -- they use the word weltanschauung. Can't get more serious than that.
I hate to do this, but life experience has lead me to label myself a "sensitive person", almost to the nth degree. But I can and still do appreciate a risque joke. Maybe I'm self-sabotaging here, but not sure if your sentiment checks out. I suppose there's sensitive people who can't handle jokes or hard truths, and sensitive people who can. I dunno. I'd rather not say too much. (I'm certainly not offended).
Quoting Bitter Crank
:fire:
Quoting Bitter Crank
I watched a bit of it, but couldn't get on. I chock it up to being highly sensitive.
I don't think it's all that tough. All you have to do is wink and stick out your tongue immediately after you make the joke.
Quoting T Clark
That does annoy me.
I take it you're not a fan of risque humor.
I like humour that is spontaneous and I can be pretty ribald myself, but I generally hate stand up comedy, 'funny movies' or anything overly contrived for laughs.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I think that's right - humor is essentially a form of criticism.
I think you could equally say that it's an alternative to criticism. It's a laughing off of the problem. Or if it is criticism, it's of the mild variety that turns anger, sadness, misfortune, and angst into something else.
Peter Cook, talking about satire, mentioned "those wonderful Berlin cabarets which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War".
Satire is highbrow populism.
Quoting jamalrob
That's passive-aggressive criticism, I'd say.
It isn't just sensitivity. Various people are trapped in literalism and are rule bound. Some unfortunates can't tell a joke from a statement. Some seem suspicious of hidden meanings, so they don't like word play, like somebody might be putting one over on them. Borderline jokes (might be sarcasm or just sharply clever) make some feel insecure, or they were insecure to start with.
That rings truthy.
Quoting Tom Storm
I don't think so. I don't demand that we postpone humour till after the revolution.
That would be Del Monte Python, yes?
You're just jealous because I said Hanover looks like Joseph Stalin. I see you more as a typical Scot, you know, like Groundskeeper Willy from the Simpsons.
Humor is important to me. It cuts directly to the heart. It's a good way to get through to people with whom you are in conflict. I had a good interchange with a rabid Trump supporter on a political forum. We talked about Mystery Science Theater 3000 and agreed that Mike sucks and Joel is the only one worth watching. After that we got along much better, although neither changed our minds. That was back before I gave up politics.
Most of all, humor is personal. Making someone laugh is a gift to them. I am always grateful when someone does that for me. Good comedians are like good disk jockeys, restaurant critics, poets.... They open things up. Make the world bigger.
There you go - the philosophy of humor.
Just right, but where are the kilts?
Which Crimean War, the one from the 1850s or the one going on now?
A heartwarming story that completely failed to raise a chuckle, which left me disappointed but with warm feelings for humanity.
Quoting T Clark
1850s. I wouldn't get involved these days.
But, most importantly, do you agree Mike sucks?
I have never seen MST3K, though I've noticed it being mentioned by several funny people, and you.
@god must be atheist started a philosophy of humour thread earlier today that you might be interested in: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12767/the-origin-of-humour
Calling it MST3K is the same as calling Wittgenstein "Witty." Anyway, this will give you a sense of the humor...
Only @Noble Dust is authorized to call me "Clarky." Use by any other person constitutes a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Section VIII, Part 4 - Nicknames. Meet you at Den Haag.
So, B+. That's a good grade, because a lot of humor hereabouts fails to rise much above a C-.
If it has to be explained, it's not funny.
Dr. Watson asks "Where did you get those lemons, Holmes?"
Holmes says:
[hide="Reveal"]"A lemon tree, my dear Watson, a lemon tree."[/hide]
That's true, but I wasn't explaining it. I was merely rating your joke telling ability, which is eminently satisfactory.
Only Holmes joke I know is this:
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson went on a camping trip. After a good meal and a bottle of wine they lay down for the night, and went to sleep. Some hours later, Holmes awoke and nudged his friend.
"Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see."
Watson replied, "I see millions of stars."
"What does that tell you?"
Watson pondered for a bit. "Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you?”
Holmes was silent for a minute, then spoke. "Watson, it tells me someone has stolen our tent!"
I shall call you Clark Bar, a fun treat even older than you are.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/netherlands/dutch-unbelievably-rude/
Thoughts?
I've paused the movie while awaiting replies.
Clark Bar facts:
Almonds distinguish the Almond Joy from Mounds, both of coconut base. Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don't
Also, Mounds has dark chocolate and AJ has milk chocolate.
Your confectionery knowledge is godlike and your "Clark Bar" moniker well earned.
Respect.
Clarification please - Are you looking for our nicknames for you or for ourselves?
It’s a contest to come up with a nickname for me.
Noble Thrust. A play on your offensively provocative ego.
Just kidding. I intentionally avoid reading/associating names and avatars when responding to posts here.
Interesting technique, meaning you try to not notice who you're responding to?
Btw I just creeped on your profile and found this under "location":
"Mental prison of my own design - fortified by impenetrable walls of ingrained core belief, vigilantly and omnisciently patrolled by guards of arrogance and self-virtue."
:clap: :clap: :clap:
If only a minuscule percentage of the population here were as self-aware.
Dickhead (because of your love of PKD)
Shit head
ND (I use this one sometimes)
Dusty
Dusty Bin
Sweetbuns
Noble Hipster
Coffee twat
I'm honored.
Quoting jamalrob
I assume used in mod threads about whether or not to ban me.
The rest are boring, although I don't understand Sweetbuns.
Btw, you should be PMing this list to @Baden. It's awkward to have it here.
The oddest sentence I’ve read today.
A simple mistake. Flagged, but shouldn't result in a ban.
As will I
Dirty Nob?
Yes, that happens to all the truly great philosophers. We are misunderstood until long after our deaths.
Princely Particulate
But a nickname needs to be short so howbout:
Princely Parts
But that makes me think:
Private Parts
And if you’re going there it might as well be:
Dick & Balls
But a nickname needs to be short so:
Dick
Tweezer
Speaking of nicknames, I've always thought of you as TV's Frank. Is that correct?
I would try a hybrid. I would run a poll for the top 10 folks that the forum members might like to listen to and ask questions of. Like if @Banno @jamalrob were chosen to be on the panel: they would have to agree to the two-way conversations that they would have top avail themselves to in accepting the nomination to sit on that panel. We are really looking to fill 5 positions on the panel but if we find 10 in the poll, we won't have to run another in the event that those chosen do not wish to participate on the panel. And yes I fully anticipate that reaction from some forum members so I will just toss these names out and the more names the better, to make sure it is as inclusive as everyone wants it to be.
180 Proof, Hanover, Tobias, Benkei, jamalrob, Baden, GMA, Michael, frdake, Maw, TClark, Noble Dust, BitterCrank, Sir2U, frank, Tom Storm, streetlightx, I know I have forgotten a bunch but it's a start...add more please:
Then once we establish the panel, we will need an MC and a sidekick to help the flow of the social hour aspect of it.
Not likely to be without assistance of a wall or a hidden shelf. Then again it is the movies so I am just speaking from a non magical side of reality.
Was it too adults or very young adults? Maybe....if the male was 18....he might be able to manage it but anything much older than 23, the bending of appendages, while still remaining in the act of intercourse would be unlikely.
I feel confident that I will be corrected if I am off target.
I strongly endorse @Hanover as sidekick/lickspittle. Where have you gone Ed McMahon? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
I don't know who that is.
If you come up with an agenda and proposed format, I'll scrounge up the participants. Then we'll just need a Zoom link and time. Those wishing to protect anonymity can turn off their video or even audio if they'd like.
It needn't be a perfect format. I can wing it. I've made a career of bullshiting.
It was that summer Betty Penrose's house was destroyed by lightning, and she sued Lord Yahweh accordingly, for $100,000 in general and punitive damages.
The Remarkable True Story of the Woman Who Sued God… And Won
I suppose she might have sued Lord Thor, but He didn't have an address in the region at the time.
Dust Bunny!!!! :lol:
I love animals, but rabbits were always weird to me. They seem really socially awkward. Or it's just like they're always nervous.
[quote=Scruton]Rabbits are gregarious animals, for whom there is only one mental torture greater than solitary confinement, which is that of being cuddled by a member of a large rabbit-eating species. The pet rabbit learns to adapt to its conditions, much as human beings learned to adapt to Stalin’s gulag. Being unable to shift its eyes, the rabbit maintains its generous stare even when held by a smelly omnivore emitting vile drooling noises and smiling down on it with a mouth full of teeth. Correct behavior is rewarded, after all, with a piece of lettuce. In this way the rabbit teeters from terror to terror and from day to day.
In the wild, however, in the teeming burrow where he mates promiscuously with his kind, where the only smell is the smell of rabbit, and where every intruder is regarded with abhorrence, the rabbit takes his revenge: eating crops, destroying saplings, and undermining paths and fields.[/quote]
I've almost gotten to the point where I think having pets is inhumane, as much as I love animals. Maybe a cat, and one that can go in and out, but I'd have to be working from home or something.
Right. As a kid I grew up with birds (budgerigars), and I love birds, but I didn't realize at the time how needy they are. As an adult I would love nothing more than to adopt a few birds, but you need to be basically at home all the time, and giving them regular attention. I would love nothing more, but it's extremely unrealistic.
Yew wot m8
Well, we did have a few condors growing up. I lost my sister to one.
I always get those mixed up.
A group of guinea pigs is called a herd. https://peteducate.com/what-is-a-group-of-guinea-pigs-called/
By some people perhaps, probably the same buffoons who insist on calling flocks of crows and starlings "murders" and "murmurations", respectively.
Either a box or a fun pack.
Know what an empty box of condoms is called?
A whoopsie baby.
Dust Bunnies are not rabbits.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_bunny
I totally know how the little fella feels.
I have 5 dogs, there were seven but 2 died at the end of last year. 2 cats. We used to have a small flock of chickens and I am planning on getting some more when I retire.
But there is no way in hell do I want goats. I am thinking about a couple of sheep so that I can stop cutting the grass though.
Goats are friendly little guys. They eat the grass and jump on everything and require little work. Depending on the breed, you might need to shear the sheep. Might be fun, but it's and work I think.
If I get more land one day, I'd like to get a bunch of sheep and a dog to herd them. I want to retire to what I'm thinking some want to retire from.
I think you should pay attention to what you read.
Your Feelings Are No Excuse
[i]Margaret Atwood
The Atlantic
Apr 1, 2022[/i]
Exactly.
As soon as God has been located, he will be brought to justice for the genocide of the dinosaurs; the evidence is now incontrovertible.
This will have a deeply calming effect on the zeitgeist and help prepare the collective for the mass extinction to come. You are welcome, but thank me afterwards.
Fuck the dinosaurs - ugly mothers... look at the godawful mess this verkakte deity made of human beings - all those blatant design flaws and diseases. A class action must be taken against this Almighty Screwup for poor manufacturing standards endangering life!
The anti-joke. https://www.keeplaughingforever.com/anti-jokes
Completely different! That is poking fun at humour, in a mere extension of self parody. There's no real philosophy, and the goal is the same as any other joke. That's not going to solve the Ukraine crisis, is it?
I do see the distinction, but you've created a complicated construct. If I understand, you want a purposefully not funny joke that represents itself as a joke, but then it's not really funny, but it's not unfunny enough to evoke laughter at its unfunniness. It's just a bad joke, with only you knowing it was intentionally bad, so you can knowingly laugh to yourself at their disappointment, but you can't reveal your intent, else they might laugh at your novel cleverness.
With this understanding, I do think there is a possibility of a cease fire and a possibility of complete normalization of US/Russian relations, although sometimes my optimism gets ahead of me.
It's like when you tell a joke that's funny to some people but too edgy to others, so you mumble it so only some can hear, but you don't repeat it to those who say "huh?" because that may trigger their listening closer, and then Covid is eradicated in Africa.
See what I did there? The application of this joke form is limitless.
Fascinating. Where on Earth did you get the idea? Is the Latin essential?
Quoting Hanover
No, of course not. If it was a bad joke, people would laugh. Like this:
A mile high penis! Ha, ha, ha.
No, good jokes, but not funny. Like in today's UK news, the government published a new energy policy that includes building 8 new nuclear reactors. The plan is that they will get the go-ahead in 10 years, and then in another 10- 15 years they will start to be commissioned. It's a great joke, but not remotely funny.
I'm starting to see I think. It's the joke that would be funny if someone were writing satire, but that it's actually true makes it a tragedy. Like if we sold the Irish children as food to ease their poverty, that would be a great joke, but not funny if actually true.
Maybe that's a bad example because that would be funny either way, but you get my drift.
Am I getting closer to your vision?
An seven minute anti-joke monologue:
Yes, you have roughly found one way to do it. I think there are many ways.
I'm sorry, I'm monolingual English, apart from some French, Catalan, German and Welsh. I don't understand whatever that language is; but I think I detected laughter, so that would rule it out anyway. What makes this form of humour so refreshing is that it is more or less immune from any commercial exploitation, although I dare say it might be used as part of some inhumane torture or punishment.
It is my understanding there is a laugh track.
This came to mind:
TV laugh tracks were recorded decades ago. It is understood that most of the people laughing in those recordings are dead. Orson Welles once described these tracks as ghostly peels of laugher echoing out of the graveyard.
Well, since you explain it that way, I won't find them as annoying as I usually do. I mean, dead people have to find pleasure wherever they can.
Well, what about Australian shows like "The Almighty Johnsons?"
Why did the chicken cross the road?
??? ??? ???? ??? ???
Hahaha! It's so much funnier that way
Key particle weighs in a bit heavy, confounding physicists
[i]Seth Borenstein
AP News
Apr 7, 2022[/i]
Quoting Ashutosh Kotwal
This way, unless the reader knows Sindhi, they can’t accuse you of not being funny.
Okay Hanny, I just have to know...who the hell is your boss that lets you get away with this EPIC level off enjoying happy hour banter during the day? Hmm?
OMG you're encouraging this!!! :lol:
Quoting Tom Storm
Australia is totally ludicrous, and has been since it was first discovered in the Dreamtime.
My name's on the door.
The world is ludicrous. What is it about Australia that is totally so?
The Law Firm of Dewey, Cheetham, & Hanover.
Is this an appeal to authority? :razz:
Dewey, Cheetham, and Howe was not just used by the Magliozzi brothers. It's a pretty common satirical name for a non-specific law firm.
Maybe I'll change my forum name to T Magliozzi.
It's well-accepted that if the dinosaurs hadn't become extinct, humans never would have evolved. If the jury is made up of humans, you would probably have trouble getting a conviction. You probably couldn't even find an unbiased jury.
I didn't see any goats in France, but I did once go to a French market for goat's cheese. I mistakenly asked for "fromage de cheval" (horse cheese) instead of "fromage de chèvre". Similarly in Spain I asked a fishmonger for "un caballo" (one horse) instead of "una caballa" (one mackerel).
Incidentally, both the French and Spanish words for knight or gentleman relate to horses: chevalier and caballero. Nowadays, as with "gentlemen" in Britain, you mostly just see "caballeros" on men's toilets.
Sorry, any baseball fans? Just want to double check.
Also...
ANY BASEBALL FANS?
Ichiro is the G.O.A.T. but that's pretty cringy. I'm confused. Also...
Quoting jamalrob
I don't know what this means but I'm ok with that.
My guess is you googled "baseball goat", and the machine spat out a cringy overlay photo of Ichiro Suzuki, one of the best players of the modern age, with a photo of a goat. GOAT stands for Greatest Of All Time.
Precisely.
Quoting Noble Dust
I see. Good to know.
*Greatest, as I edited. Important stuff.
His team, yes.
I'm here to teach and advise.
Quoting Hanover
I think this is just a form of the joke that I pioneered here:
Quoting jamalrob
1. It looks like a cat's head.
2. It burns and floods on alternate years except when it does both at once.
3. @StreetlightX and @Banno.
4. It has only ever been invaded by British criminals.
There are plenty of antinatalists on this site that have no survivalist bias.
Quoting jamalrob
Is that some Russian trial of strength against the gag reflex, or can you not get fresh milk on a Friday?
Ok. In that case you left out: Most famous Australians are not actually Australian - Russell Crowe, Mel Gibson, Naomi Watts, Olivia Newton John, Guy Pearce, Keith Urban, the band ACDC...
What twaddle. It was ludicrous before the dream time.
"The Almighty Johnsons" is from New Zealand, so you can add it to 's list.
That is just the nature of fame. eg, most famous tigers are not tigers; most famous bears are not bears; most famous musicians are not musicians; etc.
Quoting Banno
That is a metaphysical claim; I'll have to check with Wittgenstein if there can be a game without players.
Can there be players without a Wittgenstein?
I thought of that, but I think they would be biased in favor of dinosaurs in the battle of dinosaurs vs. humans.
Yes, I know. I like to pretend I don't know the difference between Australia and New Zealand. I was disappointed Tom Storm didn't get my incorrect reference. I usually use "The Flight of the Conchords" as my reference but I decided to do a changeup.
Step back slowly away from the door where I can see your hands.
Catch a Serbian baseball game. The Belgrade Cabbage Rolls should be playing the Kraljevo Longstockings at Danube stadium. A real battle of the Balkans
His name was Jeff. He was on holiday from the Alps, was an avid skier, enjoyed sudoku, and had a pleasant, if not homely, wife. A good bloke all around. We continue to exchange postcards at Christmas.
If you accidentally end up in Turkey, maybe you could visit Gobekli Tepe and take pictures.
Ok.
He went missing for a few months previously and I was wondering where he was then and he resurfaced, so I suspect he may do so again. However, some people on the site do seem to vanish without trace...
A lot of us are at the point in life where death is just not going to be a big surprise.
That may be a bit too reminiscent of Ritchey of the Manic Street Preachers who was declared dead after he was missing for so long. One person who I was concerned about was someone who wrote a few threads, some of which were focused on suicide and he just stopped, so he may have really killed himself.
With some people, including Kenosha Kid it may be that they had a lot of spare time due to lockdown and are working now or busy.
I take the opposite approach and assume if you've gone a long time without dying in the past, it's less likely you will die in the future.
Joe Biden
Tim and I exchanged PMs. He's feeling pretty burned out about the forum right now. Feels like a lot of discussions turn into, in his words, mud wrestling with pigs. I told him I hope his enthusiasm will come back with time. We'll see.
Sounds like you have your own personal fine-tuning argument.
Following Gravity's Rainbow I suspect. An (ex)professional physicist, he once told me he had left the profession and was concentrating on his guitar. Something about a pot of gold.
Unfortunate. I’m aware when members that I develop a kind of connection with go AWOL, and I haven’t developed that with Mr. Wood, but nevertheless I noticed him missing the other day for some reason.
Knock, knock!
I know, right?
Yeah, yeah, Kenosha apparently knows how to reverse time, so I would think that he has an infinite amount of spare time, back and forth, to deal with right now. How do you ever get out of that one?
Quoting T Clark
I guess, hanging with the pigs for too long, and you sort of become one of them. He might never get out of that new skin.
Who's there?
Having an affair with Cary Grant.
Google chrome.
Google chrome who.
If you want to know the latest with the pandemic google chroma virus.
I just said it. Pay attention, human.
I don't understand the joke. You were supposed to be backing away from my door slowly.
It's sad, but folks get evicted everyday. Pay the rent or get put out.
Well, that's the thing. It's not even like rent. A tree is like water to koalas.
So I researched this and what was happening was that the young male was going up the tree to shack up with a honey, but the older male was protecting his turf and he tossed his creeping ass to the ground.
What you were seeing was a mating game.
Is mating like water? Depends on how thirsty you are I suppose.
https://www.sciencealert.com/watch-koala-gets-kicked-out-of-a-tree-and-throws-a-tantrum
Grumpy, solitary tree huggers.
My research reveals the Koala appendix is actually 6 feet (200 cm).
https://www.savethekoala.com/about-koalas/koalas-diet-digestion/
I make it my aim to fact check every claim made in the Shoutbox because this is the primary source of most people's news.
:lol:
There's only one?
That "thirty" should have been "thirteen".
Hey, it was a long time ago, but definitely more than a couple of metres long. It was during an investigation of unexplained koala mortality in what is now the Wild Rivers National Park, amongst large and apparently otherwise healthy animals. They were being found at the base of their trees. Nothing came out of the post mortems, as I recall, but this was twenty years before the discovery of Koala Retrovirus.
Very interesting phenomenon. So, there was a koala retrovirus?
How tall, generally, would a person with a 14 inch appendix come out to?
Dr. Heather F. Smith of Midwestern University and colleagues explained:
Recently ... improved understanding of gut immunity has merged with current thinking in biological and medical science, pointing to an apparent function of the mammalian cecal appendix as a safe-house for symbiotic gut microbes, preserving the flora during times of gastrointestinal infection in societies without modern medicine. This function is potentially a selective force for the evolution and maintenance of the appendix. Three morphotypes of cecal-appendices can be described among mammals based primarily on the shape of the cecum: a distinct appendix branching from a rounded or sac-like cecum (as in many primate species), an appendix located at the apex of a long and voluminous cecum (as in the rabbit, greater glider and Cape dune mole rat), and an appendix in the absence of a pronounced cecum (as in the wombat). In addition, long narrow appendix-like structures are found in mammals that either lack an apparent cecum (as in monotremes) or lack a distinct junction between the cecum and appendix-like structure (as in the koala). A cecal appendix has evolved independently at least twice, and apparently represents yet another example of convergence in morphology between Australian marsupials and placentals in the rest of the world. Although the appendix has apparently been lost by numerous species, it has also been maintained for more than 80 million years in at least one clade.[29]
In a 2013 paper, the appendix was found to have evolved at least 32 times (and perhaps as many as 38 times) and to have been lost no more than six times.[30] A more recent study using similar methods on an updated database yielded similar, though less spectacular results, with at least 29 gains and at the most 12 losses (all of which were ambiguous), and this is still significantly asymmetrical.[31] This suggests that the cecal appendix has a selective advantage in many situations and argues strongly against its vestigial nature. This complex evolutionary history of the appendix, along with a great heterogeneity in its evolutionary rate in various taxa, suggests that it is a recurrent trait.[32]
Such a function may be useful in a culture lacking modern sanitation and healthcare practice, where diarrhea may be prevalent. Current epidemiological data on the cause of death in developed countries collected by the World Health Organization in 2001 show that acute diarrhea is now the fourth leading cause of disease-related death in developing countries (data summarized by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). Two of the other leading causes of death are expected to have exerted limited or no selection pressure.[33][/quote]
The science is a little bit sketchy when the fourth leading cause of death is supposed to be related to significant "selective advantage", while two of the other leading causes of death exert no selection pressure. Maybe the researchers exert a little selective bias, in their conclusion. Possible solution: the digestive system has a mind of its own.
How tall is Michael Phelps? :yum:
OH Frank, now the FDA has a map to make sure BIG Pharma can 'fix' an unhuman like digestive system.
Then a year from that release, they can pursue a search for the cure of what the 'fix' caused.
And then come the Nationwide Attorneys who specialize in the injuries sustained by the Koalas as a result of using the product for its intended purpose.
Capice?
There's a gigantic oak tree in my neighbor's yard. I sit and stare at it sometimes because it's so beautiful, but at the same time I worry that my neighbors will cut it down.
I guess it means I'm trying to control the world and it's not in my control.
All I have is the way the tree is now. I'm trying to let go of the need to control it. Does that make sense?
I'm not sure there is any correlation between appendix size and body size. I think my best guess would be greater than 14 inches tall.
I stand corrected. This is what they call "logic," right? Finally it all starts to make sense to me.
Yes, yes, yes. It makes all too much sense now. :shade:
My Mom has been telling me as long as I can remember: you cannot control others, all you can do is control how you respond; always be kind to everyone you meet; never pass judgement on another person because you never know what they are dealing with behind closed doors; if all you can do is smile? Smile as brightly as you know how and be genuine in your interactions. :flower:
Not bad considering she let touch a wall socket with a wet diaper on when I was 2 years old. :rofl:
Good lord my kids still fear me and they better if they know what is good for them.
Poor things, anytime, anyone their age or males in general BLOW me away with their lack of compassion, sympathy, empathy or just being a good and decent human being?
They get their asses chewed and told I had better not find out that they behaved in such a way,
Now as long as there is a breath in my body... No, Sir. :brow:
Having said that: both of my boys know I would fight to the death for them and neither have a single doubt in their minds whether or not I have their backs. :100:
Interesting background story. Thanks!
So I guess it's official -- sit and stare at tree, worried neighbor will cut down.
I'd done this. In fact, there's a back patio at the house, I placed a couch on the patio, I'd lie there or sit there and watch the trees (yeah, more than 5 huge trees).
Have a read of the famous Jazz review. If Queen is fascist rock, Freddy is its Fuhrer.
:lol:
Missing for 7 years [math]\to[/math] presumed dead (US law).
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/liberal-education?fbclid=IwAR12NXxphT_wTxJ-iFB7nftKPdanU6pGGGQJjSeVqKBJEw1U8xNNHoF_W20
You left out half-baked discussions on philosophy forums.
Only compleat questions are allowed.
But then we cannot mock people. Booo.
What about lymerics?
One over-thinking dilettante a day
Won't keep confusion away
But one too-terse Witty-boy a day
Won't enlighten anyone or enrich anyone's life
There once was a thinker named Dust
Who thought philo-limericks a must.
Sadly, we found
when we dug deeply down
his limericks were mostly a bust.
But but but... half-baked ideas are all I have.
Saosin- Follow and Feel
She's watching me, I could be from a distance. Should I care? Is there something more I should have known? I know that I wonder.
Circa Survive- Sleep Well
A vengeful God, who will come and save the grateful one?! The faithless take the Sun again...
Ok, ok. Philosophy can be taught with comics and half-baked discussions on philosophy forums.
Replying to you because I can never manage to tag you outright.
Clarky and @jamalrob, my Ballantine Fantasy copy of Titus Groan hath arriveth today. I haven’t started it yet but I’m super amped to get into it. Looks wild.
Does that edition contain his illustrations?
Yup! So cool; I love authors who make illustrations of their own works; Tolkien did this, especially his maps. It makes the whole experience so much more intimate.
Have fun.
Someone please explain to me how I am too nice?
Is the general population not used to their ideas being genuinely entertained so when I come along and ask, does that make me appear to be a wolf in sheep's clothing?
Okay look, for the second time I am being told that I deserve better than the person who I am choosing, by the person I am choosing.
I don't get it.
It's not a long term relationship, defined early, friends with benefits, and nothing but good times.
I'm utterly confused because I have said that I don't want a commitment.
Alternatively, I don't sleep around or with more than one person at a time.
Help me you males!
Is it possible that it is a projection onto me that he sees in himself?
I don't understand y'all
Perhaps it has nothing to do with the relationship in general and he’s merely insecure about his sexual prowess. Should he be? Curious minds want to know.
Not at all. Very secure and has reason to be.
His further explanation makes sense so it's all good
I just wonder what energy I am projecting because I am standing taller than I ever have, I feel appreciated and I am rocking school.
This is my only internet hangout right now with school as heavy as it is.
He's not into you. He's saying it politely.
Maybe he’s just misreading small signs, like you accidentally leaving your toothbrush in his bathroom, little things like that.
I am very secure in my erectile dysfunction. I can always count on it. Never fails, 100% reliable. Tried and true. No woman left satisfied, that's my golden guarantee.
I generally slept with only one guy at a time, unless more were available.
An aside on cats and dogs: All cats are females; all dogs are males. Cats are fussy. Dogs have lower standards. A dog will enthusiastically hump your leg. Cats might sit on your lap for a minute or two. Cats and dogs are what they are; they can't help it. Women are more catlike (not catty, mind you), and men are more dog like. Some men, at least, are a lot more dog like.
I've been out of the relationship business for quite a while, but A LOT of what I hear from others who are -- males, females, gay, straight, younger, older -- indicates that relationships are just more difficult to establish now than in the past, and once established are more difficult to maintain. I can name some possible factors for this, but the list is not going to help.
#1: Older people (like middle aged and up) arrive at the bar, coffee shop, restaurant, bedroom, car--wherever -- with a wagon load of baggage. Once upon a time, relationships, falling in love, first sex, etc. was new and exciting. That ship left port a long time ago.
#2: when we were young, our expectations were simpler. [see the Beach Boys: She'll have fun fun fun 'Til her daddy takes the T-bird away.]. Fun Fun Fun just isn't as easy to achieve now. We have a car, a house, a mortgage, children. Now we are the daddy who takes the T-bird away.
#3: We are more complicated than we used to be. Wear and tear have left some damage in their wake. When we were young, the 'give a shit indicator' tended to be on the way down most of the time. Now it is on the way up from day to day, year to year.
The older I get, the lower my expectations. Like I said, I'm not dating these days, but I still meet new people every now and then. A clinical approach seems to work as well as any other. Rather than take offense, I try to think, "That's strange; how did they get that way? Doesn't matter--not taking him/her/them home anyway."
So, what about loneliness and unfulfilled desires? Life is what we do while making other plans; finding substitutions for what's missing, and the like. Life is a bitch, and then we die.
The guy rejects you, "you are too nice for the human race, go away", that's all. If a guy says "you are too nice" he means "I can't stand you any more." He can't pretty well say that, and he knows that, so he says "you're too nice for me." Everything else said is meaningless. Just decoration on the speech-tree.
But don't worry, it works both ways. I have been rejected two ways by women: "You are too nice" and "get away from me, creep."
I live in a small town now, and everyone is in a relationship. Those who are not, are trying to be.
There are no swinging singles, there are no swinging couples. At least not in my circles, and if I am wrong, then they don't flaunt it because it's socially unacceptable.
It's easy to get into a relationship in small towns. You just need to roll up your sleeves, grit your teeth, and be patient, and compromise, compromise, compromise. Those who are incapable of it, or unwilling, or have no clue what it even means, are single and I daresay lonely.
The first line means "I'm embarrassed to be seen with you" to the women. The second line is just really a feeling of fear or grossed out, but the dude might still be hot.
I read that the hippie generation didn't give a fuck. Now we have the social media, and fake lives are more fun than authenticity and real. So, people now give a fuck if only to boost their ego online.
My thought about today's dating is that the impediment is too much choice, it's too easy, and it's too anonymous. You log on and you're instantly bombarded with choice in a hyper-competive race. The way you succeed is to accept it's a numbers game and to hang in there. The way to fail is to take it personally and give up.
Pre-internet, your choices were limited to those in your proximity, you likely knew them or someone close to them, and you couldn't just give them a try and then move on to the next swipe right when you grew restless. You'd run through your choices pretty quick and you'd be known as "that guy."
I joke with my wife that I found her just playing around on my phone. While there were hundreds of misses and hundreds of hours in that search, that's an insanely convenient way to find a spouse.
Florida Rejects Dozens of Math Textbooks Over Alleged References to CRT (Apr 16, 2022)
Oh wait, DeSantis. :D
[sup](Popular with certains sorts of people, 2022-02-13, 2022-03-29, 2022-04-12.)[/sup]
I wouldn't particularly want my children to learn about critical race theory in elementary or high school. It's political philosophy, not history or sociology. It doesn't outrage me if other parents feel the same or if school boards respond to that opinion. Of course my youngest is 32, so I don't have to worry about it.
So the math problems are something like…
A back man is put on trial for a traffic violation. The jury consists of 18 white men and two black women. How many years of imprisonment is the defendant sentenced to?
Btw, it is very suspect that they won’t say which books were banned.
Agreed.
Another thought - I spoke up because, in the ongoing conversation on the forum, one particular side of this story is told more often then the other.
That is, it's entirely a question of free speech and allowing professors to decide.
Once the 6th Circuit reversed and sent it back for trial, the university settled for $400k. Whether a jury would have actually awarded that, who knows. It seems excessive to me, considering that amount is over 4x the average family's income and he got it by just having to deal with an unfair employment review.
I find this unconvincing, something is wrong. Although, I'm glad for the professor -- the permanent record would derail or ruin his career for many years, affecting his ability to earn a living at that level.
But going back to the above, it is not a "vice versa" because the new thing is the one that's holding hostage the traditional or customary practice, if you will, of addressing people. But they're the ones who know the law, so I defer to their wisdom.
My thoughts on CRT.
CRT is an abstract theory that argues that racial inequities are embedded into the fabric of American society such that white people will receive an advantage often unknowingly and despite their best intentions to be racially sensitive.
That theory, as a theory, is doubtfully taught at the high school level, but maybe perhaps it is in an advanced placement sociology class.
It seems CRT is extrapolated beyond race as well, making the same arguments for heterosexuality and male-ness, claiming those attributes provide similar unfair advantages as whiteness.
Again, that theory as a theory is not taught.
What I think the CRT objectors reference would be the characterization of non-traditional behaviors as acceptable, while the CRT proponents would only see that normalization as a refusal to accept the embedded inequities.
Less abstractly and more concretely, we all watched Leave it to Beaver, and in no episode were we told fathers were to wear suits and go to work, were to be the moral backbone of the family, that men were to marry only women, that children were to be born within a marriage, that boys had only crushes on girls, that mothers baked cookies and kept a clean home, and that clean cut America was all white, etc., but that is precisely the image provided. That is what we were being told.
So, if the examples in my child's math textbook showed two women with a transsexual child, the objection by parents wouldn't be to CRT as an abstract theory, but it would be to the notion that this family dynamic violated their ethical standards. That is, the very fact one objects to the lesbian family in the math book is proof he advantages heterosexual relationships, even though he likely never even thought he weighed into this debate. You might be an oppressor and not know it.
My point here is that I think CRT is probably true insofar as societal norms are so pervasive we overlook they are being enforced and are negatively impacting those outside the majority population.
What this means is that if we don't want our children to be presented non-traditional examples of relationships, for example, we need to do it with a justification that the traditional system is superior, as opposed to arguing that children are too young to even think about what constitutes a proper relationship. The point is that children are being bombarded with what are to be considered normal relationships regardless of whether we intend it.
If CRT is true, it is true, regardless of whether it's taught.
Quoting Hanover
I don't buy it. From what I've seen, there's more to CRT than that. It preaches contempt for white people and blames each of us personally for how black people are treated. Perhaps you believe that we deserve that, but I don't. I think the thing that bothers me most is that it is not good strategy.
CRT is an interpretation of historical, sociological, and political fact. It's a caricature, a cartoon. Whatever the merits of the approach as applied to black people, it's different for transgender people. They make up less than half a percent of the population. I can see some argument perhaps for trying to show representative samples of gay people in text books, but I can't see it for transgender people.
Here's the solution, especially for educational materials that have nothing to do with social issues - just don't show anyone where I have to care what sexual identity they have. No married couples. No romantic situations. Show mechanics and their customers. Teachers and students. Doctors and patients.
There are more than two sides of the particular issue. At the surface it may seem only as two. Well, by typology, there ARE two: "us" and "them". But to a Hungarian nationalist, Hungarian is the super race; to a Bulgarian nationalist, Bulgarian is; and to a Zimbabwean nationalist, naturally, Zimbabwean is the super race. There is the simple typology of "super race" and "non-super race", but put the three in a room and all of a sudden a coin will have three heads, no tail, and no telling where it would end.
Which CRT paper or book - or maybe more than one - did you read for you to come to this conclusion? Just curious.
In my opinion it's not that us, white folks, DESERVE that. It is just the status quo, and CRT's aim is that bigotry has to be annulled, and the races have to be made virtually equal, each person to be judged on his or her own merit.
The contempt for white folks is a balancing measure; it is needed to to bring the scales of social justice back to level. It is just as wrong as contempt for Black people, but that is there already, deeply seeped into the mind of the American. (And now due to the international cultural influence of the USA, now that attitude is omnipresent.) To KNOCK this incorrect and false idea out from the cultural codification, a revolution is needed, of sorts; not necessarily fought with guns. Revolutions are full of unpleasantness; this one has the unpleasantness of necessarily needing to kneed and thrash white people.
But the dark forces of evil are also a Christian thing. And America loves a polarized world. To them balance is equal hatred, not pervasive love.
I hate this shit.
via Charles Mills: "By recognizing [racial domination] as a political system, [CRT] voluntarizes race in the same way that the social contract voluntarizes the creation of society and the state. It distinguishes between whiteness as phenotype/genealogy and Whiteness as a political commitment to white supremacy, thus making conceptual room for "white renegades" and "race traitors." ... Correspondingly, the "Racial Contract" demystifies the uniqueness of white racism (for those who, understandably, see Europeans as intrinsically White) by locating it as the contingent outcome of a particular set of circumstances ... In a sense, the "Racial Contract" decolorizes Whiteness by detaching it from whiteness, thereby demonstrating that in a parallel universe it could have been Yellowness, Redness, Brownness, or Blackness. Or, alternatively phrased, we could have had a yellow, red, brown, or black Whiteness: Whiteness is not really a color at all, but a set of power relations."
This is why it's always funny when white people actively identify themselves with the critique of whiteness advanced by CRT. They [s]read about[/s] learn fifth-hand about all this horrible shit associated with whiteness and they go 'oh yes that's me! Now I'm being told to feel bad about that' rather than 'oh no that isn't me at all and it would be really good to put an end to all that shit'. Of course it's exactly like white people to make a critique of racial domination all about their feelings instead (who oh who will identify themselves - volunteer themselves as representative of - this last statement? Can't wait to see).
I see CRT as an academic theory that if truly debated would be debated like any other social science theory. It's truth would lie in empirical data, including comparisons to other cultural groups (with discussions about the applicability of those comparisons) and determining which disadvantages resulted from covert racism and which were from other factors.
CRT is not being treated as an academic discussion right now. It's being used as a basis for social policy and the motivations are not to decipher the extent to which CRT is correct, but in how effective it might be to either protect or disrupt the status quo.
What we hear about it from the right is that CRT is reverse racism disguised as science. From the left we hear that it is a scientific claim being weaponized by white supremacists to protect a racist system. Judging from recent political outcomes, it has been used as an effective buzzword to sway people toward the Republican perspective.
I read several articles about Robin Diangelo, both critical and more approving plus one or two about CRT and freedom of speech, which were critical. Can't remember the names. Beyond that, I've seen what has been on the TV news.
I think it is a pseudo-academic theory that is really a polemic political statement. It's like Marxism. I don't mean that as a disparagement. It doesn't make any predictions based on facts. There have been plenty of studies on the effects of being black in a hostile white society.
Quoting Hanover
I agree with the first part of this, but I don't think people really care about how effective it is. It's a statement of resentment from minorities and a little token to make white liberals feel like they are doing something. As I said, I don't think it is an effective method to improve the lives of minorities.
Quoting Hanover
I think that's right.
Reminds me of a song:
Anyway, here, if you want more than this media think pieces and corporate trash, try just the introduction of this [PDF] on for size. From the horses' mouth at least.
For better or worse, Diangelo and her ilk are the public face of CRT here in the US. I agree with you and Mills. I'll read at least the introduction of the article you linked. Thanks.
In the US there are minorities other than blacks that are treated with disrespect and discrimination, but I think white/black racial discrimination is the biggest, most intractable problem.
Sure, I can see how white racial antipathy hurts black people, Hispanics, and other minorities. I don't know how to change that. I don't think CRT is the way.
Quoting god must be atheist
No. Won't work. It will make things worse for all of us.
Kind of like saying that climate change science is designed to make us feel that we’re bad stewards of the world and is poor strategy because it’s been successfully politicized.
CRT is bad strategy because it won't work.
I try not to get involved in discussions of racial issues. I've been attacked for my opinions before. I only responded to Jorndoe's original post because this is the Shoutbox and I don't like knee-jerk opinions. So, I'm done with this particular conversation.
It's not that it hurts our feelings, it's that it won't work.
What does this even mean?
And again it's incredible how quickly you elect to identify yourself with the anonymous 'white person' mentioned in my post.
You didn't say "white person," you said "white people," of which I am one.
I'm done with this conversation.
Are you the white people that CRT refers to? Or do you define yourself so fixedly by the color of your skin? Jesus, it's 2022, you'd think people would be over this 18th century racial essentialism by now.
Diangelo is largely bullshit but she is right about one thing: the absolute yawning terror white people have about being called, in any way, shape, or form, white people.
Or maybe just bind the splitting GOP against encroaching Marxism.
CRT is really an economic theory?
Apparently. :grin:
It's encroaching Marxism that is splitting the Democrats. The Republicans were unified behind Trump, but now slowly splintering.
Just reporting the news.
That an intellectual movement will not change the nation's political direction.
I knew somebody was splitting.
And what is this supposed to mean? Has an intellectual movement (qua intellectual movement) ever "changed a nation's political direction"? Does CRT harbour such ambitions? Much of it provides ways of thinking about social problems, coupled occasionally with suggestions as to how to ease them. Surely there are those who will use such efforts to inform their own social or political practices. But what kind of nonsense standard is "will this intellectual movement change the nation's political direction?", by which to judge it? Complete garbage question. As if a cotiere of ivory tower analysis published largely in obscure journals and taken up as a boogey man by cultural war morons has ever met, or even attempted to meet, such a standard.
How about: do the analyses offered ring true? Are the suggestions they offer - where in fact they are offered - plausable? What do such analyses obscure, if anything? But - "will it change the nation's political direction?" Come on. My God if anyone is going to panic over intellectual movements that have 'changed a nation's political direction' maybe consider Qanon which has actually gotten people murdered and continues to make America more fascist than it already is. Now there's something with an infinitely greater degree of social pertinance - unsurprisingly, not formulated behind paywalled journals.
T Clark said it was bad strategy. You asked what that meant. I think he meant it won't do anything even if it's correct. Some ideas sway people. This isn't one of them.
If you want to bridge the black/white gap, ascribing blame, even if entirely justified, will not result in change.
This is a marketing question. They're not going to buy what you're selling. Sucks. Pearls before swine and all that.
Hold on, you've just changed the goalposts to an entirely different suburb. It's one thing to "change the political direction of a nation". It's quite another to "sway people". And if the latter is at stake then you are rather straightforwardly wrong, insofar as CRT has quite obviously "swayed people", without which we would not be here having this conversation.
lmao
:up:
We're the peculiar breed of us that doesn't count. We philosophize for its own sake like we matter.
CRT articles might sway the 5 or 6 people who actually read them to another point of view, or more likely might just make them think "hmmm" in that dispassionate way readers of journals say.
Mostly I expect CRT will do as the marketers market it, which is to make white people think they are being canceled, so they run out and vote to stop that from happening. You'd have almost thought CRT was created by the right just for the backlash. I like to imagine there's that sort of illuminati.
I'm not arguing against the merits of CRT. It, as I said earlier, probably has some truth to it, but it's not changing any hearts. Minds maybe 5 or 6. Hearts, none.
As it is understood by the wider non-academic community, it literally was. Like, these people groped around for an issue to light the match of a cultural war over, and latched on to CRT, precisely because it was obscure and they could project all sorts of racial anxieties into it so that dupes like Clark could passively absorb it from the environment and think they have any clue whatsoever what they are talking about.
https://www.salon.com/2022/04/08/the-guy-brought-us-crt-panic-offers-a-new-far-right-agenda-destroy-public-education/
You're right that CRT will do 'as the marketers market it', and it just so happens that almost the entitreity of that marketing cohort are right wing culture war types. These people don't give a shit what CRT is, or says. They use it as a brand-name to impugn any discussion on race that happens to come up in any scholarly or quasi-academic setting whatsoever. These people admit as much in public and still passive receptacles like Clark eat it right up:
"In this context, Rufo’s role is clear. He takes critical-race theory as a concept, strips it of all meaning, and repurposes it as a catchall for white grievances. “The goal,” he tweeted, “is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory.’ We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.” In an interview with the Post, he said the tweet described an “obvious” approach: “If you want to see public policy outcomes you have to run a public persuasion campaign.”"
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/07/christopher-rufo-and-the-critical-race-theory-moral-panic.html
At any rate people don't like it when someone says "You don't know anything about this topic, or if you know something, it is very little, and your opinions therefore necessarily and CATEGORICALLY must be wrong." You do that in this post, and I don't like that, to be honest.
Quoting StreetlightX
This patently does not make sense to those who are not familiar with the topic, and it does not make sense to anyone who has less education than a Ph.D. in sociology.
To wit:
What does it mean to "demystify the uniqueness of white racism"? What's the original mystery?
What does it mean to "demystify (anything) by locating it [whiteness] as the contingent outcome of a particular set of circumstances"?? You understand these things, StreetlightX? You must, otherwise you would not publish this.
There is no insight in this: "Or, alternatively phrased, we could have had a yellow, red, brown, or black Whiteness: Whiteness is not really a color at all, but a set of power relations." This is obvious.
Gross misstatement: "By recognizing [racial domination] as a political system, [CRT] voluntarizes race in the same way that the social contract voluntarizes the creation of society and the state." You don't voluntarize your race. That's stupid. "I'm white, but from tomorrow on I shall be Black." There is nothing voluntary about race ... one of the most solidly "given" characteristic, that can't be changed. This was phrased tragically falsely. You don't "voluntarize" yourself into a race; but you accept the consequences of being part of a particular race. That's not voluntary, either. It is forced on you. This writer just does not know the meaning of words and how to use them, so he or she hides his or her inaptitude to express himself or herself behind impossible-to-understand phrases, like "demystifying whiteness", which is total bullshit. Little wonder it did not make sense to me, because I know language. I can always spot someone who does not. And this writer does not.
Quoting StreetlightX
Why is it funny, considering that it has nothing to do with the gibberish quote you invoked to show it is funny?
Quoting StreetlightX
This SO true!! So VERY VERY TRUE. Also true is that every last person on Earth makes everything they learn in their lives a topic of relation to their own beings and feelings, including their "raceness" (FCOL) whether it's whiteness, blackness, yellowness, or brownness. It's like saying "bad bad white people, they see with their eyes". Everyone sees with their eyes. Everyone relates to everything in judging how it affects them.
That's why most kids hate school. They have to learn stuff they don't know how to relate to their lives. There may be things that are of relevance, but the 9-year-old kid does not have the insight, experience and knowledge to see that. So most kids hate school.
I did not know you were this stupid, this bigoted about who can understand what, and this blind to criticism. In fact, all my previous respect for you evaporated all of a sudden.
Hey... I resemble that remark.
Quoting StreetlightX
Here's the link:
https://uniteyouthdublin.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/richard_delgado_jean_stefancic_critical_race_thbookfi-org-1.pdf
Leftover brisket for every meal.
What kind of mustard?
Quoting StreetlightX
Whatever is ailing StreetlightX seems to have gotten worse. A sedative, perhaps? More exercise and fresh fruits and vegetables? Gotta be something to help that guy,
I don't find CRT (which sadly no longer stands for Cathode Ray Tube) all that difficult to understand. It isn't all that objectionable either, on its own--separated out from the peculiar rhetoric of the academic left, and the perpetually pissed-off affect of a particular set of True Believers. I can't fault True Belief: I've been a True Believer at times. It's bracing to be the one man more right than everybody else who is not a member of the small circle of other True Believers.
Racism is a strand in the Gordion Knot of interlocking injustices that constitute life as we know it. All we have to do to untie this knot is unravel every form of racism, sexism, classism, capitalism, heterosexism, binaryism, militarism, Americanism, Europeanism, imperialism, organism, and every other "-ism" there is.
But then, how do you propose this ever gets solved?
Looks to me like an infinite task. Not that is shouldn't be fought, but there's a lot of sensitivity these days, a little too much, I think.
Then again, I'm a straight white privileged male. :meh:
Mustard doesn't go on my brisket. Mine is a Jewish brisket that slow cooks in the oven with carrots and onions. You describe a smoked Texas brisket, a far better solution to large cheap cuts of fatty beef.
Happy birthday Javi.
Unfortunately, my birthday is on December 71st this year.
Delusions of grandeur and messiah complexes abound.
I actually am Jesus Christ, tho.
If you are, you would be able to answer a few questions for me:
How did your mom describe her divine pounding from our Heavenly Father?
Did the crucifixion hurt like a son of a bitch?
All things considered, had you known then what you know now, would you still die for my sins?
Are you related to Jim Morrison, and if not, why does he look like you?
Who talks about that with their mom?
Quoting Hanover
I wouldn't phrase it that way, but yea, it was annoying.
Quoting Hanover
Probably not.
Quoting Hanover
I'm also Jim Morrison.
Just a case of being minimally literate, nothing too bad.
Quoting T Clark
I am not at all sure that it does ever get solved.
Quoting Manuel
There are, indeed, many people who cultivate feelings of being oppressed. They hope it gives them "street cred" among the other actual and alleged oppressed groups. Even better is stacking several layers of oppression to join the aristocracy of suffering. Some of these people deserve some ridicule; some deserve sympathy.
We must never forget that we are primate animals--somewhat evolved, but not so evolved that we can be considered godlike. We have the capacity to think rationally some of the time, but we can't count on it whenever clear thinking is in order. Often enough when faced with challenges, we will resort first to a time-tested response--battle, literal or figurative.
Despite all the turmoil, sturm and drang of a crowded world, most people go about their lives in the manner suited to short-term survival which often enough adds up to long-term survival. We work every day; we mate and raise a family; we cooperate with one another to improve life together. We "carry on".
Quoting Manuel
Straight white privileged males, along with many other types of people, are the necessary strands in the grand warp and weft of society. No group is inferior; no group is superior, despite some having more and some having less. In the aggregate, people are pretty much alike in strengths and deficiencies (which is why we are totally screwed).
I will be 28 years old in 2025 not 25, so the only real magic happens this year.
25 years old in the 25th of April. :rofl:
Yay! Jism. Now we are talking.
What a coincidence! So am I. And so is apparently my mother.
You're telling me that you wouldn't talk to your mom about the night our Creator found his way into her inner sanctum?
As the messiah, I'm wondering what sort of dad your dad was. Did he buy you Christmas presents?
If your mother was Jesus and you're Jesus, then that means that God impregnated you and you gave birth to yourself. There's a gender fluidity issue at play here we have to work through, but I think we can make sense of this. It's sort of like the Trinity I think.
I know in the mountains sometimes uncles and fathers are the same person, so it could be like that, but, again, it a complex theology we need to think about.
The idea that a person can't have sex with God and give birth to themselves is just an old social construct that Republicans use to try to keep us in the Dark Ages.
Socks usually.
That's pretty reasonable.
The difficulty is in finding out which people deserve ridicule and which do not. To some extent, everyone has legitimate grievances in terms of belonging to a certain group. Not all of them are equally valid, say, billionaires who complain about "class war".
Fringe cases like this aside, it's a fairly complex problem.
You've got to question whether there is a God. What kind of entity would have you born on Christmas so you only get one day of gifts?
It's not as bad as having a global flood, though.
When you see Pops, tell him the flood was a total dick move.
FALSE! I was born every day of the year. It's the Baptists who reduced getting born again to just one day of your life.
You can imagine my resistance to being stuffed inside myself over and over again to make this happen. Butt, the Spanish Inquisition was worse, I guess.
It also proves that reincarnation does not necessitate a unit's prior death. You can live several lives all at the same time.
(I got this idea from having dated a nymphomaniac for over 26 years. She was addicted because her O's lasted a half hour each time. I figured later, that her orgasms were only the usual 8 seconds long, but she was having multiple o-s, and interestingly one started before the other finished, in a very long string.)
Of all the things nymphomaniacs suffer from, is monogamy one of them?
Poor Athena has only recently recovered from her cosmically bad case of osteoporosis--all those marble columns.
Heck, no. Not this one. She was cheating on me with anything that had a pair of pants on. (Except women.) It was still worth it for me, for her, because we never turned the other down. And she was dynamite-looking beautiful. She knew that that was her ticket to an abundance of sex. And, interestingly, she was brilliant. We were a good fit intellectually as well. Emotionally... not so good. She was flamboyant and socially over-enthusiastic; I was shy, a recluse and overly sensitive. We kept on writing poetry to each other the first two years.
That's precisely how and what it is. The more incomprehensible, the more unintuitive, the more self-contradictory a religious dogma or tenet is, the more the flock is ready to believe it.
In this sense, "the uneducated wife of a peasant in Bretagne" and a super-brainy quantum mechanic are totally alike.
It is on the back of the ignorance of the masses that religious leaders, scientists, and clever politicians ride to succeed.
That is what the laugh was for, it would have been magic if he could have waited.
But at least his birthday and the year will be the same.
Thanks!!
Is arguing all you want in philosophy?
Take 99% away from 10 000 000 000 000$. You are left with 100 000 000 000$. Take 99% away from 10 000$ and you're left with 10$.
Since the moment we no longer find happiness through it, I guess yes :rofl:
Jesus Christ had his 0th birthday in 00-00-00! Difficult to top that... :starstruck:
Being 25 on the 25th is magic though!
Ha! Sharp observation! Owch! :lol:
Waited for what? Waited until 2025 before he turned 25? That would have been real magic if he could do that, kind of like being born on Feb 29, real magic.
At least I waited until 4:20 PM on 4/20 before I let the magic begin, unlike some people I know who start at 4:20 AM, and get the real magic.
Our PM was born on Feb 29 :lol: :rofl: I guess thanks to the magic is the ruler of Spanish government!
Wiki says he was born between 4 and 6 BCE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_of_birth_of_Jesus
Somebody explain that to me.
Jesus, who we can be certain was conceived by the usual method, was born in obscurity and lived most of his life in obscurity. There is no reason the we would know any of the details of his birth. (He was less obscure when he died and, many would assert, stayed dead.)
Don't waste your time explaining shit to someone who's his own sister-in-law.
GET MY SISTER IN LAW OUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH!
And stop interfering with me learning about Jesus. He's a fascinating being. I learned that @frank is the Prince of Peace and that his mother rode our Heavenly Father, blessed be his name, into the wee hours of the morning until her cervix was a soupy fucking mess. Nine months later, the Lord's head crowned just past the labia and out emerged Jim Morrison.
Following that, Mary Magdalene continued to use her three holy of holies: one for the son, one for the father, and one for the holy ghost. A most entertaining lady she was. Her stripper name was Trinity.
You know so little about Christianity.
Just give me a second ... :blush:
Quoting Hanover
Not any more. :pray: :up:
Damned! He was born even before his own birth? Suspicious... He secretely fertilized mamma Maria? Is the first coming actually the second one? Is our waiting in vain?
My dear god... :lol:
And in 1945 was a bomb! She definitely livened up Alamogordo, NM, otherwise voted "most boring shit hole E of Bakersfield, CA. But I thought the Alamo was in Texas?
I had twin students that were born on Feb 29.
They claimed to be too young to do homework as they had only had 4 birthdays. That was one of the best excuse I have ever heard.
Never believe anything you see on the internet and even less if it is in a Wiki.
And thank you for the enlightenment, I think. :worry:
God damnit! Every time I turn my back.
If that's their childish attitudes, I'd tell them they'll have to wait a long time before they'll be old enough to have a drink. Some people will never grow up!
Quoting Hanover
BCE stands for “before the common era” so there’s no contradiction in saying Jesus was born in 4 BCE.
Latest news from Moscow: I haven’t seen anyone wearing a Z t-shirt, but I did see an old woman wearing a sweater with “I am a cat” in English on the front.
Towards our previous discussion of mispronunciation after long years of spending time alone and reading a lot, another byproduct of this environment is getting senses of words close but slightly off. Ah well. I won't ruminate further.
Are you sure your trackball functions linearly? Which way is up and which is down?
:grin:
Quoting Noble Dust
No idea.
Quoting Noble Dust
Rolling up garners me some on-screen upness. Same for rolling down, mutatis mutandis.
Linear you are. I think it was Apple who initiated this bass ackwards normalization of the opposite direction. In my system preferences, under trackpad - scroll/zoom, it lists "scroll direction: neutral" as the default, and gives the description "content tracks finger movement". This is their description of the non-linear movement in which scrolling down with two fingers warrants the opposite effect: the screen moves up, as if in a pulling motion. Le sigh.
My problem is my work computer and home computer were set differently, but apparently I've used both for so long that I just seamlessly switched between, and now that I have a new home computer I'm completely lost at sea, and I don't know why.
Quoting jamalrob
u wot m8
You were talking about scrolling with a trackpad, I mentioned I didn’t know what you were talking about cos I don’t use one, and you asked if my trackball functions linearly, which I took as a reasonable question but now realise was based on a misunderstanding, cos a trackball is for moving the pointer, not for scrolling. And that’s all I will ever say again on the topic.
Ah yes, I now remember that from the ice age in which I used a Windows computer. I was thinking of an antiquated mouse that has a little scroller in the middle. How do you scroll, anyway? I kant imagine life without a trackpad :blush:
Quoting Baden
Welcome to TPF, what's your name? What are your aspirations in joining this forum? Do you have a degree or anything?
Pernicious in a "fuck this shit" sense, sure.
That's exactly what I'm imagining. But I guess it has both... the scrolly-ball (trademark) and the scrolly-thing (not trademark). Do you use a device like that now?
Yes.
And how do you like it?
Btw, in the past hour, I've become convinced that my old computer was set up with a linear scroll setting. @Baden please take note. Thank you.
Wonderful. :party:
My wife has a “taco cat” t-shirt. Yup, it’s a palindrome. :snicker:
I used to have this one:
As you can see, it has a big scroll wheel surrounding a central ball. I configured it for clockwise = down. I liked it a lot but then it broke and I couldn't get a wireless version so I got the Logitech.
I know I said I'd say no more about this subject but, well, it's just so interesting.
In Hebrew school we were taught it stood for "before the common error."
The trackpad is a terrible invention. It's designed to make you inadvertently click on all sorts of things which you otherwise would not click on, when your fingers get clumsy. The clickbait wasn't enough for them, so they moved on to the next level. Don't use the trackpad! It's an extremely bad habit and will end up getting you into God knows what sort of trouble.
You been working on that for the past 8 hours? Time well spent!
I don't know what "sevil" is though.
Dad lives on No's evil dad
Milk and cookies kept me up all night. Nice improvement!
Thanks, but it might be orthographically inadmissible.
One of my favorite words is "erstwhile." Most people don't know what it means. I used it, incorrectly, for a long time before I looked it up. It means nothing like what I thought it did.
Joe Biden.
:razz:
But what if they had to do it naked?
In the mangrove swamps
Where the python romps
There is peace from twelve till two.
Even caribous
Lie around and snooze;
For there's nothing else to do.
In Bengal
To move at all
Is seldom, if ever done.
But mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun.
The custom is give away a rose and a book. :flower:
This is the book I give you:
Anyway, nuts and egg: classic :chin:
I was concerned with my growing pig intake, so I substituted bacon for the sausage I had been eating because bacon tastes better but that didn't resolve my pig problem but just my taste problem, so once the adhd wore off, I then revisited the initial problem and bought some nuts to replace the bacon.
Now I'm contending with ridicule from my nuts and eggs breakfast from a guy who eats barbecued vodka sandwiches. Maybe I'll go back to my pig diet.
They do produce giant farts, though. That's the only downside.
How's that a downside?
Does this have something to do with Tucker Carlson tanning his scrotum?
Thank you for the book, but all the words are spelled wrong. I can't even figure out what they say.
It is book with three classic Spanish novels of XVI century. I did a quick research on internet and the English translations are these ones:
The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes and of His Fortunes and Adversities.
Paul the Sharper or The Scavenger
The Lame Devil