Taking into consideration that god is the source of all suffering, knowing he exists doesn't make the suffering he imposes any easier on those who happen to be under His heel. Rather, it seems to be a way for God-believers to convince themselves that their suffering is only temporary and has meaning. It's difficult to admit to a child cancer patient that the reason he or she is suffering is completely random or out of anyone's control, and that their suffering is pointless (well, ok, it gives you character if you happen to survive).
Just because god is love doesn't mean he's not cruel.
You mentioned cooking. I would say that the art of cooking is one of the trades that has not been duly changed by technology, bar one invention. That was the electric mixer/food processor.
Sure, you can go buy a Sara Lee cheesecake from the freezer section. You can go buy a boxed/frozen apple pie. But I guarantee that if you had my apple pie first, you would find the frozen one rather unappealing.
While frozen phyllo dough and cookie/biscuit dough like Pillsbury has helped bring at least some semblance of proper food to the masses (I'm probably excommunicated for saying that), the modern household really lost something when the people (usually Mom or Grandma) who spent a huge part of their lives in the kitchen now go out and find careers. The art of cooking, as handed down through families through the generations, has dwindled to only a facet of what it once was.
Usually, the family doesn't know how, what or why dinner is being made and served. They just want it to taste oh so good... and they know Grandma has been in the kitchen since seven that morning... but they have no idea the amount of work that was involved when making an apple pie, or the labor of love that is scratch buttermilk biscuits slathered with butter and dipped in white gravy (they don't realize that the almost hidden bite of the biscuit is the pinch of cayenne pepper, and that the palate-filling wholeness is sharp cheddar secretly dropped into the batter). They totally take for granted how the crust of the pie is flaky beyond belief and melts in the mouth, and the apples have just the right amount of butter and cinnamon and chopped to just the right size.
They love it, but they only know that Grandma is a kitchen witch. Cooking in the kitchen is like casting spells: poof, banana bread appears because you feel like having banana bread... and it's the good kind where the bananas were almost black before you use them, to spread that lovely pungent flavor through the bread and form that amazingly delicate texture. No one else knows what's involved except another kitchen witch.. er, cook.
Many cooks disdain anything but a paring knife, a butcher/chef knife, a wooden spoon, proper measuring spoons and cups, and a mixer. Who wants me to make cheesecake?
I've had chronic constipation for years now, although it's been especially bad in the last sixth months - like not going for a couple of weeks at a time, not going when using stimulant laxatives, and requiring frequent enemas to stay unplugged. I take docusate sodium, a stool softener, every day. I eat fiber, exercise, drink lots of water (30+ oz a day), drink prune juice on a daily basis, and take magnesium supplements. I've also tried regular mineral oil (before sleep) and it didn't help, either. I've also tried minimizing my amitriptyline dose and that hasn't helped as I need some minimum amount of it to go to sleep at night.
The main culprit is amitriptyline, which I am prescribed to control my sleeping patterns and as an anti-depressant (along with Bupropion). It has anticholinergic activity.
I went to see a doctor last week about it. I explained all of my issues and what I've tried so far. I suggested lactulose, because a friend of mine's father is also on amitriptyline and has the same constipation issues, and that's what he was prescribed. I went and looked it up at the time (I know, shouldn't be an armchair physician) and was surprised to read about how effective it was, how it's not a stimulant laxative so there's no concern about laxative dependency. It's a sugar alcohol and apparently extremely effective.
Wikipedia says of Lactulose, "Lactulose is sold over the counter (without prescription) in most countries in the world. In the United States and Austria, it requires a prescription over unfounded fears that it could be dangerous to diabetics. However, it is an indigestible sugar and has been proved to be safe even for them."
So when I talked to the doctor (a GP that I had never met before; I have no family doctor), she refused to prescribe it to me, saying that it can lead to vitamin deficiency and she didn't want to put someone on Lactulose without them being in a serious medical condition. She told me to just keep taking stimulant laxatives whenever I need them and didn't seem to be aware that laxative dependency even exists at all. I had to walk out afterwards with nothing, looking at the long weeks and months ahead where I'm going to be very uncomfortable on a regular basis and it's a considerable source of anxiety for me.
If they would sell Lactulose OTC I would be very grateful. I'm not looking forward to having to continue to deal with this problem, but I have no choice.
You say this like you expect the world to have conformed. We don't. I'm left-handed and my hand drags right through all the stuff I write. All of my life I have dealt with ink drops or pencil smudges along the side of my left palm. I still write frequently and have been unable to adjust to any other style. I understand that it's completely my fault for having ink or pencil on my hand all the time.
I also write in print instead of cursive (which looks more alien by the day).
Was it ever different? Sure, in the 40's. but in the 50's, teens were using the hula hoop and cruising around drive-thrus, drinking and drag-racing. In the 60's they hung out at parties smoking pot, went to concerts and learned to tie-dye, read the Tarot and Mad magazine. They said that changes were coming, but when they grew up, they became the same businessmen and golf-players that their fathers were. The once-promised ideals in their hearts grew into a giant wave, but eventually that wave crested and fell back (to paraphrase Hunter). In the 70's... disco. nuff said.
I was near the trailing edge of gen x (born in '77). I was the last generation to not grow up with computers (although we had atari 2600s and eventually commodores and tandys). It didn't take long until everyone became born, lived and died in the era of the Internet, and it's changed everything, just as the American Dream has finally been unable to disguise its cracked and crumbling remains, including many rights that we assumed would never be breached. Generation Y and beyond have been exposed to media and advertising in levels never seen before, and as a result, their view of the world is even more askew than ours was growing up. But human teenagers and early 20somethings will always have the same basic characteristics as each generation before them. They will have pie-in-the-sky dreams, they may think they are invincible.
Every generation has its cult of the mainstream. Every generation has people on the fringe who are considered outcasts. Each generation wants to change things for the better. Each generation repeats the same mistakes.
I agree with you that the modern consensus in America is that money and image is everything, love is considered a weakness, intelligence is scorned and sports players make a hundred times more than special ed teachers. But American society is what feeds this perception to our kids, and in turn most of them adopt it. While there are a few anti-establishment disenfranchised individuals, they have always been there.
I finally feel like I'm seeing some of the populace come out of their daydreams and look around them. I could be imagining it, but it seems that resentment of our current society is slowly growing among the citizens, but it has never changed anything in America in the past, not since the Civil War. Will it ever?
You sound angry, frustrated and intensely dislocated. I can understand that sometimes we lash out at others that aren't related to whatever problem we're dealing with, but your demeanor in this message says volumes about who you consider to be "socially fucked up morons," and what you consider to be weird. I don't want to be your friend. Okay, maybe for some Oreos.
OTOH, I'm one of those special snowflakes that doesn't have a FB account. The reason would probably be because I didn't have any high school friends to get re-acquainted with, nor college friends (not having gone to college probably has something to do with it). I freely admit that I am the aberration. I haven't had an employer ask me about it, because I haven't been employed in a long time.
I'm a very dysfunctional person, but you sound like you need to get laid.
It probably helps to clarify things when I mention that I was talking specifically about conversations with people in the real world, where I don't have a dictionary.
The other culprit is memory. Yes, sometimes people are unable to remember. Personally, it's intimidating when I continue making the same mistakes with words, especially when it happens many times. Some words I think I may only be able to get right if I went over them every single morning for months until I have memorized them by rote, which implies that it's not negligence or carelessness, but an inability to remember the correction the first time, or the fifth time. It doesn't mean I'm not trying to remember. It's one thing if I can remember when I am corrected, but it's really discouraging to not remember even after being corrected multiple times. I guess that makes me stupid... (which I understand that I am. It doesn't help my self-confidence when I can't ever get certain things correct.)
I think you would have gone insane long before you become super-intelligent, mainly due to lack of structure and social interaction. When people are put into a situation where "time is virtually frozen" like a deprivation chamber, they begin to hallucinate within an hour. This is especially true if you have essentially copied a living person's brain and put it into a void, because that brain will have already developed the essential need for socialization and intense stimulation.
Unless you have developed a virtual reality similar to The Matrix, where a human brain's evolutionary development (which included certain requirements like human bonding) is completely simulated like the real world, the problem of sanity may very well be a dead end.
I've been using it as a blog, so I usually post a really long post every two or three days.
I started when I began exploring Wicca and going through a book called A Year and A Day. I always thought Wicca was childish, immature and a fad for teenage emo rich kids who liked to wear cloaks and robes. There are people out there like that, obviously, which is where the public perception came from, but I was astonished at the difference in my personal exploration of the Craft. It has led to a lot of inner growth, helped me meditate on a daily basis, learn how to create personal sacred space when I need it, to really have an introduction to many old gods, to inner searching and self-improvement, to seeing a vastly different viewpoint from a nature religion on a daily level.
It's been very little like I had imagined. And no, I don't believe in the goddess and god as actual literal beings... but as personifications of nature. Nature is so interconnected that it it is a whole system, just not self-aware or intelligent. I don't worship the goddess or see her as malevolent or benevolent or conscious; I respect Mother Nature. So in many ways I am still an agnostic, and using the religion as a platform for psychological cohesion and growth. I've been doing it for seven months now, and I'm a solitary practitioner. Anyway, I'm on Google+ posting about my adventures.
I agree, it is fucked up. I haven't looked at the case at all, but I also don't think it was intended as a hate crime and I don't think that charge will stick. I imagine, though, that for the privacy violation he would get a slap on the wrist and that's all. I'm not sure how I feel about that (for example, say he got 60 days probation with no jail time or fine. Is that excessive? I don't know, and, like most court cases, no one but the jury will ever know all the details (and they probably won't know about the suicide until the trial is over). I'm gay, too, by the way.
That reminds me of a recent case here in Texas. A 12 (?) year old girl shot her father in the back of his head while he was asleep and killed him. It was ruled self-defense, but if you intentionally shoot someone while they are asleep... sounds kinda like murder. Of course, if they had been molesting you for years, then it's not murder. Even if they're asleep. It's self-defense. I wonder if she'll collect on his life insurance?
Forgot to mention.... the case left me wondering if the girl would, when she reaches 18, benefit from her father's life insurance policy? It seems wrong to shoot someone in the back of the head while they are sleeping, and then to collect on their life insurance.
Actually, what these posts remind me of is a recent case down here in Texas where a 12 year old girl shot her father in the back of his head while he was sleeping and killed him - and was then found not guilty of anything, including even manslaughter, because she claimed that she had been sexually abused by him. There was apparently little evidence for the abuse (not that I'm saying it didn't happen). Apparently the incident that left her fearing for her life was when her father walked in on her while she was taking a bath and made a pass at her. She told him to leave the bathroom and he did, saying she would 'regret it.' She then waited until he was asleep before shooting him in the back of the head. It was ruled self-defense.
This has troubled me. Apparently the reason the jury found her killing in self-defense was because there had been a previous incident where the man had choked a woman (although I don't believe he was found guilty in court of anything, I believe there was only a police report), and this showed a history of past violent behavior. Everyone seems to believe that the girl was justified in what she did, except for her grandmother, who says it was an injustice and that "her claim of abuse was the perfect excuse to get away with what she did because no one would believe a 12 year old girl would kill her father for no reason."
Everyone else seems to be applauding her. It makes me uncomfortable because I see VERY few situations where it would be morally justified to shoot a civilian in the back of the head and murder them while they are asleep. I think what bothers me is that this girl may go through the rest of her life feeling justified in doing what she did, perhaps even proud. I personally believe that if you kill someone, especially while they are sleeping, the death should bother or even haunt you for the rest of your days. I obviously wasn't on the jury for this case and so defer it to those who had the most information, but everyone seems to just assume that she was okay to do this. Even in "temporary insanity" cases where someone has shot and killed their lover for cheating, the person usually is found guilty of at least manslaughter, even if they just put them on probation, to show that what they did was wrong.
Looks like it was more than that.
"Among the investigation's key findings is that the Fed unilaterally
provided trillions of dollars in financial assistance to foreign banks
and corporations from South Korea to Scotland, according to the GAO
report. "No agency of the United States government should be allowed
to bailout a foreign bank or corporation without the direct approval
of Congress and the president," Sanders said."
You mentioned the supposed dozens of bodies in Texas. The police didn't know the woman claimed to be psychic when she tipped them. Supposedly she had detailed knowledge of the home and property even though she was not a local. When the police arrived they found blood all over the porch and the stench of rotting meat.
The blood supposedly came from the homeowner's daughter's boyfriend who was suicidal and cut his wrist a few days prior, and the rotting meat was from (non-human) meat rotting in an unplugged deep freezer.
One of the things the psychic said when interviewed by the Chronicle was that she tipped the police about two missing children, not about murders, and she believed the two were "still alive, but hungry and thirsty. There's still time." Kinda creepy.
"They are weak people, even when they are our friends and family members, and they get what they deserve.
Maybe it's in their character;"
I must inform you that addiction is a disease. It is not a moral failing, but an incurable, progressive, and eventually deadly disease that can only be arrested, kind of like cancer.
Shame on you for judging an entire class of people.
Drug addiction is a brain disease that is recurring and devastating on the afflicted as well as their families and loved ones. I don't wish it on anyone.
I don't disavow the blame on addicts for the damage that they do; only they are responsible. But they suffer from a disease, and it is not a moral failing as you claim.
Not to mention the novel. Peter Benchley, the author of Jaws, has stated that he regrets the perception that his work created of great white sharks.
Apparently, he didn't really know anything about sharks back then. Did anybody, even scientists? No. Mr. Benchley has offered the opinion that he wouldn't have written the book if he had known anything near what we know today, 'at least not in good conscience.'
Peter Benchley became an ocean conservationist later in life. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2006.
According to Wikipedia, "Benchley was a member of the National Council of Environmental Defense and a spokesman for its Oceans Program: "[T]he shark in an updated Jaws could not be the villain; it would have to be written as the victim; for, worldwide, sharks are much more the oppressed than the oppressors."
I'm also in my early 30s and wouldn't have replied if you hadn't brought up social disorders (it's 7am here and I've been up all night again dealing with a problem related to this).
I also have Avoidant Personality Disorder (along with the usual tag-alongs: generalized anxiety disorder, substance abuse disorder, generalized depression, drug dependence) and have known (as I bet you did also) since I was young (~13 years old).
I'm only affected in certain situations; I'm fine in a gaming store, or any store, or the mall, or baseball games or something. I mean, mostly fine. I mainly have problems now like if any friends come to visit, relatives visit, if I have to use the phone for ANYTHING, if I have an appointment (dentist, etc), going on any sort of trip away, and of course I don't have a job partly because of it. It makes things very stressful; anytime I'm with anyone I'm constantly monitoring them and myself and making sure everything is "perfect" or, rather, I feel like the slightest thing will humiliate me, you know.
Just curious if you are similar. If a well-known friend (known for 17 years) comes over, I really need to self-medicate with something (joint, opiates, something) or it's fucking hard, and it shouldn't be hard at all, it should be really easy and friendly.
Alcohol hasn't helped me much; long-term use of opiates has only left me with dependency and PAWS (post-acute withdrawal syndrome) and every day is sheer agony. every hour, really, but that's just picking nits.
I'm basically a social outcast who doesn't do anything that can't be done at home. Things have been really difficult for me this year.
Seriously, though, I grew up playing video games. Renouncing them would be like renouncing a part of my childhood...one that brought me a lot of joy. So I'm really not likely to do that.
Heh. Try picking up a narcotics habit. Seriously, go take oxycontin, fentanyl or heroin for a few years. You'll find out (after the agonizing, suicidal withdrawal) that you will basically never have fun with anything else ever again (anhedonia) even from stuff you grew up with, games and people that you know you should enjoy. Not that I'm talking from bitterly personal experience, or anything.
Link is normally left-handed, but most players are right-handed and would want to use the sword (Wii-remote) with their dominant hand. It's somewhat less confusing if the game character also uses that chirality.
Not that I own a Wii (or Gamecube), but what if you ARE left-handed? You just get to be confused because the on-screen Link is now right-handed (even if in all previous games it was the opposite), or does the game on the Wii allow you to change this and make Link left-handed again?
Oi, the many annoyances of being left-handed..........
Slashdot Mirror
Taking into consideration that god is the source of all suffering, knowing he exists doesn't make the suffering he imposes any easier on those who happen to be under His heel. Rather, it seems to be a way for God-believers to convince themselves that their suffering is only temporary and has meaning. It's difficult to admit to a child cancer patient that the reason he or she is suffering is completely random or out of anyone's control, and that their suffering is pointless (well, ok, it gives you character if you happen to survive).
Just because god is love doesn't mean he's not cruel.
You mentioned cooking. I would say that the art of cooking is one of the trades that has not been duly changed by technology, bar one invention. That was the electric mixer/food processor.
Sure, you can go buy a Sara Lee cheesecake from the freezer section. You can go buy a boxed/frozen apple pie. But I guarantee that if you had my apple pie first, you would find the frozen one rather unappealing.
While frozen phyllo dough and cookie/biscuit dough like Pillsbury has helped bring at least some semblance of proper food to the masses (I'm probably excommunicated for saying that), the modern household really lost something when the people (usually Mom or Grandma) who spent a huge part of their lives in the kitchen now go out and find careers. The art of cooking, as handed down through families through the generations, has dwindled to only a facet of what it once was.
Usually, the family doesn't know how, what or why dinner is being made and served. They just want it to taste oh so good... and they know Grandma has been in the kitchen since seven that morning... but they have no idea the amount of work that was involved when making an apple pie, or the labor of love that is scratch buttermilk biscuits slathered with butter and dipped in white gravy (they don't realize that the almost hidden bite of the biscuit is the pinch of cayenne pepper, and that the palate-filling wholeness is sharp cheddar secretly dropped into the batter). They totally take for granted how the crust of the pie is flaky beyond belief and melts in the mouth, and the apples have just the right amount of butter and cinnamon and chopped to just the right size.
They love it, but they only know that Grandma is a kitchen witch. Cooking in the kitchen is like casting spells: poof, banana bread appears because you feel like having banana bread... and it's the good kind where the bananas were almost black before you use them, to spread that lovely pungent flavor through the bread and form that amazingly delicate texture. No one else knows what's involved except another kitchen witch.. er, cook.
Many cooks disdain anything but a paring knife, a butcher/chef knife, a wooden spoon, proper measuring spoons and cups, and a mixer. Who wants me to make cheesecake?
I've had chronic constipation for years now, although it's been especially bad in the last sixth months - like not going for a couple of weeks at a time, not going when using stimulant laxatives, and requiring frequent enemas to stay unplugged. I take docusate sodium, a stool softener, every day. I eat fiber, exercise, drink lots of water (30+ oz a day), drink prune juice on a daily basis, and take magnesium supplements. I've also tried regular mineral oil (before sleep) and it didn't help, either. I've also tried minimizing my amitriptyline dose and that hasn't helped as I need some minimum amount of it to go to sleep at night.
The main culprit is amitriptyline, which I am prescribed to control my sleeping patterns and as an anti-depressant (along with Bupropion). It has anticholinergic activity.
I went to see a doctor last week about it. I explained all of my issues and what I've tried so far. I suggested lactulose, because a friend of mine's father is also on amitriptyline and has the same constipation issues, and that's what he was prescribed. I went and looked it up at the time (I know, shouldn't be an armchair physician) and was surprised to read about how effective it was, how it's not a stimulant laxative so there's no concern about laxative dependency. It's a sugar alcohol and apparently extremely effective.
Wikipedia says of Lactulose, "Lactulose is sold over the counter (without prescription) in most countries in the world. In the United States and Austria, it requires a prescription over unfounded fears that it could be dangerous to diabetics. However, it is an indigestible sugar and has been proved to be safe even for them."
So when I talked to the doctor (a GP that I had never met before; I have no family doctor), she refused to prescribe it to me, saying that it can lead to vitamin deficiency and she didn't want to put someone on Lactulose without them being in a serious medical condition. She told me to just keep taking stimulant laxatives whenever I need them and didn't seem to be aware that laxative dependency even exists at all. I had to walk out afterwards with nothing, looking at the long weeks and months ahead where I'm going to be very uncomfortable on a regular basis and it's a considerable source of anxiety for me.
If they would sell Lactulose OTC I would be very grateful. I'm not looking forward to having to continue to deal with this problem, but I have no choice.
You say this like you expect the world to have conformed. We don't. I'm left-handed and my hand drags right through all the stuff I write. All of my life I have dealt with ink drops or pencil smudges along the side of my left palm. I still write frequently and have been unable to adjust to any other style. I understand that it's completely my fault for having ink or pencil on my hand all the time.
I also write in print instead of cursive (which looks more alien by the day).
Was it ever different? Sure, in the 40's. but in the 50's, teens were using the hula hoop and cruising around drive-thrus, drinking and drag-racing. In the 60's they hung out at parties smoking pot, went to concerts and learned to tie-dye, read the Tarot and Mad magazine. They said that changes were coming, but when they grew up, they became the same businessmen and golf-players that their fathers were. The once-promised ideals in their hearts grew into a giant wave, but eventually that wave crested and fell back (to paraphrase Hunter). In the 70's... disco. nuff said.
I was near the trailing edge of gen x (born in '77). I was the last generation to not grow up with computers (although we had atari 2600s and eventually commodores and tandys). It didn't take long until everyone became born, lived and died in the era of the Internet, and it's changed everything, just as the American Dream has finally been unable to disguise its cracked and crumbling remains, including many rights that we assumed would never be breached. Generation Y and beyond have been exposed to media and advertising in levels never seen before, and as a result, their view of the world is even more askew than ours was growing up. But human teenagers and early 20somethings will always have the same basic characteristics as each generation before them. They will have pie-in-the-sky dreams, they may think they are invincible.
Every generation has its cult of the mainstream. Every generation has people on the fringe who are considered outcasts. Each generation wants to change things for the better. Each generation repeats the same mistakes.
I agree with you that the modern consensus in America is that money and image is everything, love is considered a weakness, intelligence is scorned and sports players make a hundred times more than special ed teachers. But American society is what feeds this perception to our kids, and in turn most of them adopt it. While there are a few anti-establishment disenfranchised individuals, they have always been there.
I finally feel like I'm seeing some of the populace come out of their daydreams and look around them. I could be imagining it, but it seems that resentment of our current society is slowly growing among the citizens, but it has never changed anything in America in the past, not since the Civil War. Will it ever?
You sound angry, frustrated and intensely dislocated. I can understand that sometimes we lash out at others that aren't related to whatever problem we're dealing with, but your demeanor in this message says volumes about who you consider to be "socially fucked up morons," and what you consider to be weird. I don't want to be your friend. Okay, maybe for some Oreos.
OTOH, I'm one of those special snowflakes that doesn't have a FB account. The reason would probably be because I didn't have any high school friends to get re-acquainted with, nor college friends (not having gone to college probably has something to do with it). I freely admit that I am the aberration. I haven't had an employer ask me about it, because I haven't been employed in a long time.
I'm a very dysfunctional person, but you sound like you need to get laid.
It probably helps to clarify things when I mention that I was talking specifically about conversations with people in the real world, where I don't have a dictionary.
The other culprit is memory. Yes, sometimes people are unable to remember. Personally, it's intimidating when I continue making the same mistakes with words, especially when it happens many times. Some words I think I may only be able to get right if I went over them every single morning for months until I have memorized them by rote, which implies that it's not negligence or carelessness, but an inability to remember the correction the first time, or the fifth time. It doesn't mean I'm not trying to remember. It's one thing if I can remember when I am corrected, but it's really discouraging to not remember even after being corrected multiple times. I guess that makes me stupid... (which I understand that I am. It doesn't help my self-confidence when I can't ever get certain things correct.)
I think you would have gone insane long before you become super-intelligent, mainly due to lack of structure and social interaction. When people are put into a situation where "time is virtually frozen" like a deprivation chamber, they begin to hallucinate within an hour. This is especially true if you have essentially copied a living person's brain and put it into a void, because that brain will have already developed the essential need for socialization and intense stimulation.
Unless you have developed a virtual reality similar to The Matrix, where a human brain's evolutionary development (which included certain requirements like human bonding) is completely simulated like the real world, the problem of sanity may very well be a dead end.
I've been using it as a blog, so I usually post a really long post every two or three days.
I started when I began exploring Wicca and going through a book called A Year and A Day. I always thought Wicca was childish, immature and a fad for teenage emo rich kids who liked to wear cloaks and robes. There are people out there like that, obviously, which is where the public perception came from, but I was astonished at the difference in my personal exploration of the Craft. It has led to a lot of inner growth, helped me meditate on a daily basis, learn how to create personal sacred space when I need it, to really have an introduction to many old gods, to inner searching and self-improvement, to seeing a vastly different viewpoint from a nature religion on a daily level.
It's been very little like I had imagined. And no, I don't believe in the goddess and god as actual literal beings... but as personifications of nature. Nature is so interconnected that it it is a whole system, just not self-aware or intelligent. I don't worship the goddess or see her as malevolent or benevolent or conscious; I respect Mother Nature. So in many ways I am still an agnostic, and using the religion as a platform for psychological cohesion and growth. I've been doing it for seven months now, and I'm a solitary practitioner. Anyway, I'm on Google+ posting about my adventures.
https://plus.google.com/107740000198110230235/posts
I agree, it is fucked up. I haven't looked at the case at all, but I also don't think it was intended as a hate crime and I don't think that charge will stick. I imagine, though, that for the privacy violation he would get a slap on the wrist and that's all. I'm not sure how I feel about that (for example, say he got 60 days probation with no jail time or fine. Is that excessive? I don't know, and, like most court cases, no one but the jury will ever know all the details (and they probably won't know about the suicide until the trial is over). I'm gay, too, by the way.
Oh. You think homosexuality is a choice. That's all I needed to know.
That reminds me of a recent case here in Texas. A 12 (?) year old girl shot her father in the back of his head while he was asleep and killed him. It was ruled self-defense, but if you intentionally shoot someone while they are asleep... sounds kinda like murder. Of course, if they had been molesting you for years, then it's not murder. Even if they're asleep. It's self-defense. I wonder if she'll collect on his life insurance?
Forgot to mention.... the case left me wondering if the girl would, when she reaches 18, benefit from her father's life insurance policy? It seems wrong to shoot someone in the back of the head while they are sleeping, and then to collect on their life insurance.
Actually, what these posts remind me of is a recent case down here in Texas where a 12 year old girl shot her father in the back of his head while he was sleeping and killed him - and was then found not guilty of anything, including even manslaughter, because she claimed that she had been sexually abused by him. There was apparently little evidence for the abuse (not that I'm saying it didn't happen). Apparently the incident that left her fearing for her life was when her father walked in on her while she was taking a bath and made a pass at her. She told him to leave the bathroom and he did, saying she would 'regret it.' She then waited until he was asleep before shooting him in the back of the head. It was ruled self-defense.
This has troubled me. Apparently the reason the jury found her killing in self-defense was because there had been a previous incident where the man had choked a woman (although I don't believe he was found guilty in court of anything, I believe there was only a police report), and this showed a history of past violent behavior. Everyone seems to believe that the girl was justified in what she did, except for her grandmother, who says it was an injustice and that "her claim of abuse was the perfect excuse to get away with what she did because no one would believe a 12 year old girl would kill her father for no reason."
Everyone else seems to be applauding her. It makes me uncomfortable because I see VERY few situations where it would be morally justified to shoot a civilian in the back of the head and murder them while they are asleep. I think what bothers me is that this girl may go through the rest of her life feeling justified in doing what she did, perhaps even proud. I personally believe that if you kill someone, especially while they are sleeping, the death should bother or even haunt you for the rest of your days. I obviously wasn't on the jury for this case and so defer it to those who had the most information, but everyone seems to just assume that she was okay to do this. Even in "temporary insanity" cases where someone has shot and killed their lover for cheating, the person usually is found guilty of at least manslaughter, even if they just put them on probation, to show that what they did was wrong.
.... he wasn't the only influence; there's also Woden. He was also was called "Old Nick."
"Woden is thought to be the precursor of the English Father Christmas, or Father Winter, and the American Santa Claus.[39][40][41][42][43][44][45]"
Looks like it was more than that. "Among the investigation's key findings is that the Fed unilaterally provided trillions of dollars in financial assistance to foreign banks and corporations from South Korea to Scotland, according to the GAO report. "No agency of the United States government should be allowed to bailout a foreign bank or corporation without the direct approval of Congress and the president," Sanders said."
So I clicked on the wikipedia link for supersymmetric extension and tried to read the first three paragraphs.
I encountered these: "supersymmetric partners, the weak scale, the hierarchy problem, quantum corrections, a fermionic superpartner, superparticles, squarks, gluinos, neutralinos, sleptons, R-parity, explicit soft supersymmetry breaking operators, large flavor changing neutral currents and electric dipole moments."
I always knew I wanted to be diagonal in flavor space to make the new CP violating phases vanish.
There is something deeply disturbing in the heads of physicists...
You mentioned the supposed dozens of bodies in Texas. The police didn't know the woman claimed to be psychic when she tipped them. Supposedly she had detailed knowledge of the home and property even though she was not a local. When the police arrived they found blood all over the porch and the stench of rotting meat.
The blood supposedly came from the homeowner's daughter's boyfriend who was suicidal and cut his wrist a few days prior, and the rotting meat was from (non-human) meat rotting in an unplugged deep freezer.
One of the things the psychic said when interviewed by the Chronicle was that she tipped the police about two missing children, not about murders, and she believed the two were "still alive, but hungry and thirsty. There's still time." Kinda creepy.
"They are weak people, even when they are our friends and family members, and they get what they deserve.
Maybe it's in their character;"
I must inform you that addiction is a disease. It is not a moral failing, but an incurable, progressive, and eventually deadly disease that can only be arrested, kind of like cancer.
Shame on you for judging an entire class of people.
Drug addiction is a brain disease that is recurring and devastating on the afflicted as well as their families and loved ones. I don't wish it on anyone.
I don't disavow the blame on addicts for the damage that they do; only they are responsible. But they suffer from a disease, and it is not a moral failing as you claim.
Not to mention the novel. Peter Benchley, the author of Jaws, has stated that he regrets the perception that his work created of great white sharks.
Apparently, he didn't really know anything about sharks back then. Did anybody, even scientists? No. Mr. Benchley has offered the opinion that he wouldn't have written the book if he had known anything near what we know today, 'at least not in good conscience.'
Peter Benchley became an ocean conservationist later in life. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2006.
According to Wikipedia, "Benchley was a member of the National Council of Environmental Defense and a spokesman for its Oceans Program: "[T]he shark in an updated Jaws could not be the villain; it would have to be written as the victim; for, worldwide, sharks are much more the oppressed than the oppressors."
Just so you know.
I'm also in my early 30s and wouldn't have replied if you hadn't brought up social disorders (it's 7am here and I've been up all night again dealing with a problem related to this).
I also have Avoidant Personality Disorder (along with the usual tag-alongs: generalized anxiety disorder, substance abuse disorder, generalized depression, drug dependence) and have known (as I bet you did also) since I was young (~13 years old).
I'm only affected in certain situations; I'm fine in a gaming store, or any store, or the mall, or baseball games or something. I mean, mostly fine. I mainly have problems now like if any friends come to visit, relatives visit, if I have to use the phone for ANYTHING, if I have an appointment (dentist, etc), going on any sort of trip away, and of course I don't have a job partly because of it. It makes things very stressful; anytime I'm with anyone I'm constantly monitoring them and myself and making sure everything is "perfect" or, rather, I feel like the slightest thing will humiliate me, you know.
Just curious if you are similar. If a well-known friend (known for 17 years) comes over, I really need to self-medicate with something (joint, opiates, something) or it's fucking hard, and it shouldn't be hard at all, it should be really easy and friendly.
Alcohol hasn't helped me much; long-term use of opiates has only left me with dependency and PAWS (post-acute withdrawal syndrome) and every day is sheer agony. every hour, really, but that's just picking nits.
I'm basically a social outcast who doesn't do anything that can't be done at home. Things have been really difficult for me this year.
Maybe you might reply?
Seriously, though, I grew up playing video games. Renouncing them would be like renouncing a part of my childhood...one that brought me a lot of joy. So I'm really not likely to do that.
Heh. Try picking up a narcotics habit. Seriously, go take oxycontin, fentanyl or heroin for a few years. You'll find out (after the agonizing, suicidal withdrawal) that you will basically never have fun with anything else ever again (anhedonia) even from stuff you grew up with, games and people that you know you should enjoy. Not that I'm talking from bitterly personal experience, or anything.
Off-topic, I know, but I thought it was the NHK targeting us to turn us into hikikomori. To believe in anything is a step forward, I suppose...
Link is normally left-handed, but most players are right-handed and would want to use the sword (Wii-remote) with their dominant hand. It's somewhat less confusing if the game character also uses that chirality.
Not that I own a Wii (or Gamecube), but what if you ARE left-handed? You just get to be confused because the on-screen Link is now right-handed (even if in all previous games it was the opposite), or does the game on the Wii allow you to change this and make Link left-handed again?
Oi, the many annoyances of being left-handed..........