I think it was in Viruses of the Mind that Richard Dawkins proposed that it is the christian meme's way of defending its life and the lives of its offspring. Rational thought and knowledge is to the christian virus as holy water is to the demonically possessed.;-)
Many christians have a lot riding on their beliefs. Facing reality means facing the liklihood that they will cease to exist when they die. Generally, even all memory of their existance will die a few generations after them. It means coming to terms with the fact that they wasted 1/7th+ of their limited days and perhaps 1/10th of their income in church. Although psychology wrongly,imo, exempts religion as something other than insanity, the recovering christian must face that he was effectivly insane for a portion of his life. All the good and all the bad in life was a combination of luck and effects of his actions rather than the intervention of God. It may mean being rejected by one's family and friends. It's a lot of depressing stuff to face in the name of honesty.
Comparing religious Americans to the Afghan Taliban just doesn't fly. Get back to me when mainstream American christians applaud murder in their god's name.
Mainstream American Christians do not applaud murder in God's name, but I think current trends may lead in that direction. Here in the Southeast, I know quite a few fundementalists including my parents. None seem highly in favor of murder, but a sizeable portion seem hazy on the subject when associated with certain pop issues such as abortion and homosexuality. Watch Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell talk about gays sometime, you can see pleasure in their eyes as they spout their accusations. They almost seem to get off on God killing the Sodomites in the Bible myth. Watch their video clips of protesting gays and, Godwin be damned, see if it doesn't remind you of Hitler's anti-jewish propaganda films.
When I told a family member that my ex-boyfriend had his jaw broken in several places and suffered other injuries as part of a gay bashing, the reaction was along the lines of "Oh isn't that ashame, but really he was wrong to flaunt it. People shouldn't have to see that stuff. What will they tell their children." In highschool, I vividly remember watching teachers watch me get bullyed about being gay. They did nothing or even egged on the bullying. These teachers were sure to let everyone know they were good christians.
The same sickness that lead to the Taliban is here in the USA. It only needs time and continued favorable conditions and a sleepy immune system to incubate and fully manifest itself as Fundie Fever.
New
"continuing investigation that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena"
This more or less explicitely lays out the Scientific Method (thus neatly ruling out faith-based beliefs).
In normal every day English, I think you are right. However, lawyers probably wrote this which means the new definition is in anything but English.
Interesting to hear more specifics. The books I have on the subject say it is a more complicated process. Sugar(s) (mycogen?) in the muscle convert to acids which drop the pH of the meat. IIRC, that has something to do with rigor mortis. (Excessive running just before slaughter supposidly burns up these sugars and prevents the pH drop and results in bad tasting tough meat.) Enzymes present in the meat begin breaking it down, possibly triggered by the pH drop. The acidity, lack of immune response, and cool temperature create an environment which favors desirable microorganisms which also release enzymes that break down the tissues. Having looked at a sample of juice from the raw meat, I can say it is teaming with life. However, I can't identify exactly what I'm looking at so the lifeforms could be irrelevant.
Perhaps my books aren't as up to date as your link. Another possiblity is that, at least in my area of the USA, grocery store meat is usually only aged for less than a week (economics? USDA?). Perhaps the extra two weeks for my meat has allowed the microorganism factor to play a bigger role? I can say it is much more tender and flavorful than grocery store beef. There are other factors that may have played a role, for instance I made sure he lived a happy life (lots of petting and scratching and cow treats etc) and died on a good day while eating his favorite things. Maybe that mattered maybe it didn't but it made it more ethical imo.
Ugh, yeah, they'll turn on you. I've got a steer ageing in the cooler at 35F. After 3 weeks, the beef is now very tender from having been pre-chewed by micoorganisms. Even tough cuts are now fork tender. Also, the fat seems to have a lower melting point since it no longer freezes on the roof of my mouth as it did the first day. It sounds gross (looks gross too, think black scab covered meat), but tastes great. Unless you want to be eaten, you probably don't want to chill for several weeks since, among other things, when you tried to stand, you'd fall apart. As I understand it, even at 0F the same process occurs, though more slowly, and there is ice damage.
Currently the Bible says nothing one way or the other. However, once extraterrestrial life is found, confirming verses will be found and prove the Bible is infalible.
I would post a list of anti-democratic and self serving actions by the US over the last 100 yrs... I do actually admire the ideals America was built on...they just won't admit they make mistakes:(
It is like coming to terms with the facts that there is no Santa Claus, no Easter bunny, and Jesus was just some dude nailed to a tree. The better the myth the harder the fall and pain of facing the truth. From the time we are little children we are indoctrinated to think the USA is even better than mom's apple pie. I think this was our own propaganda effort to cause the democratic cohesion (herd mentality) thought necessary to defeat those "commie bastards" during the Cold War. Few of us seemed to realize our government was lying about itself just as the USSR's was lying to the Soviet people. The Cold War is over, but the government still roils in its cesspool of filthy tactics because they bring it great power and the people are still programmed to not only put up with it, but misidentify it as good.
So you see, what we have here is something like the "Matrix." Those on the inside have very little reason to believe their reality is false. It may seem the global nature of the Internet should be more effective in helping us see outside of the Matrix but the main flaw is that we have been programmed with a persecution complex.
In some versions of Christianity, the evil "World System" is against God and his people and does everything it can to tear the faithful from their beliefs. You are faith full if you continue to disbelieve what the World System says despite all evidence to the contrary. If you have faith you are good and earn brownie points with God and etc. The better one withstands the assault of reality against your faith, the better you are. One may even seek to have his faith tested and hope to die a martyr. In the American political religion, the World is out to destroy freedom (Freedom equals American Government) and all we hold sacred, never mind that we are actually rapidly losing true freedom and most of us have no idea exactly what it is we hold sacred, but if you defend the faith your American brothers and sisters will love you as will God and all will be roses.
Anyway, the more Americans perceive the World as attacking us, the more our delusional faith will be strengthened. You that care about the plight of Americans or sense we are a 1500 kg bull in your home, would do better to come in under our radar defenses as it were--avoid language that appears bitter, mean and nasty. Be our friends and kindly kill our delusions while we aren't looking.
I'd also like to point out, as you alluded to, Americans are not the only people to have lived in the Matrix--others have, do, or will. In fact, I sometimes wonder if much of the current anti-american talk is intentionally provoked by the American government itself for the reasons cited above.
Someone is paying for it, most likely a bunch of someone's who will never use the service but have no choice but to pay taxes. If all money for this come form voluntary sources, then forgive me for not RTFA.
Bush sucks -- he sucks really hard. Just because Clinton was every bit as big an asshole, doesn't make Bush any less an asshole.
If one were to put a paper bag over Bush's face, would he still suck as hard? I mean really, really hard? I'm not sure I'm into the big assholes though...sounds kinda icky. So does the cigar thing.
In any event, there is a key difference: the EU subsidizes its citizen farmers, while the US subsidizes agribusiness corporations (which have taken over the "traditional American farmer families" a looooooong time ago).
I realize you aren't here so you may have no way of knowing this, but all our (USA) food doesn't come from big agribusiness corporations. Many people don't like the cardboard taste of corporate food or want their food organically grown. There are many small time farmers, like me, who produce a few of tons of food a year for roadside sales, organic grocery stores, barter or farmer's markets. I don't think it is possible to get rich doing this, but it is possible to make a living and be satisfied with life if you don't mind mostly being paid in lifestyle benefits. Also, I'm totally un-subsidized.
In many parts of the country, it is common to grow one's food in the backyard.
As for GM food, I think the cross-pollination issue is overblown . Farmers have long had to contend with cross-pollination issues such as feed corn (maize) crossing with sweet corn and making the sweet corn starchy. Furthermore, many (most?) vegetables don't readily cross pollenate across distances of more than a few meters. Even with the two bee hives here, I haven't seen a cross yet.
However, when a cross does happen, being able to be sued for allowing your corn to cross with a patented crop is, of course, insane. This is a flaw of government, not GM tech.
I'm failing 5 out of 6 of my classes right now, basically assuring that any hopes of a successful life is ruined. It's a great feeling.
I went through a similar thing. In class, I had trouble with the professors' foreign accents and soon the pressure to understand their words made it impossible to understand anything they said. Our Thermodynamics textbooks were late to arrive but the professor started throwing exams at us and aggressively questioning us in class. If you were wrong or not entirely right, he'd really humiliate and dress you down in front of 200 others for being stupid and lazy. I choked and never unchoked. The pressure spread to test taking, which had never been a problem for me. My fear of failure got to the point I stopped attending classes and taking exams. I even got to the point that I'd get all wound up worrying that I'd fail to understand the textbook which resulted in me obsessively reading the same paragraph for hours on end while not comprehending a word of it. In short, I made myself a wee bit mad. Eventually, I gave up on college and became a loser.
If you find a fix, please let me know. I suspect if you have only recently gotten into the pattern of actually failing classes from the perfectionism thing, it may be a good idea to take off a year from college. I kept forcing myself not to give up and I only managed to reinforce the behavior to the point it seems to be impossible to undo. (Well that, and eventually used up all my second chances with the administration.) Go bum around in another country for a while, have a lot of sex, find yourself and that kind of thing. It is what I wish I would have done.
I'd suggest staying away from shrinks since they only made my problem much worse. Still, I hear they seem to help some people .
I think maybe I'm more convinced that humans play a bigger role than you are, but Global warming aside, I'd just like to say, you strike me as the kind of liberal democrat I'd enjoy talking to over some beer/tea/coffee. I really wish more democrats would, like you, get back to what I thought were the roots of your party--open mindedness, intellectualism, and rational idealism. I could vote for them then.
Could it be that most of the reporters covering the story were white from mostly white countries looking for people to interview in white languages so that the whites at home had some clue what was being said? Perhaps I'm an evil self-absorbed American for not knowing how to speak several asian languages? Or finding sub-titles less intimate?
Can't we assume that since we are all human we'd share the experience in a similar way and then use our minds to project how the experience would vary according to the differences? (Rich vacationer who lost his wife vs. poor fisherman who lost his entire family, house and business) I don't know anyone who doesn't know that non-whites experienced the worst of it and feel horror over it all. It's probably why I see donation boxes in every store I go to for tsunami relief.
On a different but related subject, there is only so much our little human brains can absorb in our short lives. Last I heard, there were over 200 wars going on in the world. How many of us follow every single one of them? Yet, I've heard Englishmen yell at us Americans for being too self-absorbed to pay attention to X-war in X country while they ignore 190 other wars. Even if it were possible to take in the sum of all human suffering, who could survive the knowledge with their sanity intact?
You people in those mysterious realms outside the USA are making more and more sense to me.
When I was a boy I always wondered at how the good German people could let the Nazis take over. I'm beginning to understand. I just wish I knew how to stop it.
I'm hopeing Marvin's cuteness is just a consequence of him having a head bigger than a planet. Kid's have big heads compared to their bodies too and since kids are generally cute it triggers us into thinking Marvin is a cute kid. Actually, the discord of a cute looking robot spouting intelligent paranoid and depressing stuff could be funny. I hope that's all it is because I'd really hate to see such a good story screwed up.
You must remember the correct spelling of your candidates' names, or at least write them down on a slip of paper beforehand. If you can't spell "John Kerry and John Edwards" or "George Bush and Dick Cheney", perhaps your vote is better off uncounted.
Thanks, you've just inspired me to never use a spell checker when posting to/. I know many intelligent people who cannot spell. I know many idiots who can spell. If English spelling were based on a logically consistant set of rules maybe you'd have a point, but spelling is almost arbitrary. The ability to remember random strings is a relatively insignificant aspect of intelligence.
Perhaps an obsessive desire to remember random strings and insistance that others do the same should be a disqualification for voting!-)
I used to be able to walk to the grocery store in 30 seconds, but only if my crack head neighbors were too stoned to hit me up for money. The lack of privacy was dehumanizing; why not just invite the neighborhood to come watch you take a dump or whatever, they'll know anyway. As you say, differnet strokes for different folks, but I prefer to stoke in private.
Now I love living in the sticks. I can play my mp3s as loudly as I want and no one gives a damn. I can throw 50 pounds of KNO3 on the BBQ and again, no one gives a damn. I'm building an ugly old robot which can be seen from the road, but no one complains. I suspect I could strip off all my clothes and go apeshit in the front yard and no one would call the cops or say a word. Yet, I could go to any neighbor's house and get help if I needed it. Many here poke fun at all the "redneck's" pickup trucks and gun racks, but they are mostly damn fine people. And they actually use their freaking pickup trucks unlike the city idiots who drive those stupid gas guzzling 4x4's with 4 square feet of bed space to impress the Joneses, goddamn that is moronic.
Still, if you can stand the perpetual anal probe that is suburban life then more power to you if you want to move to the big city. Here in Florida, the burbs fill what used to be lovely cattle ranches and woodlands. Each person has this stupid ass postage stamp of a yard with the next pink cookie cutter house maybe 10 feet away. They aren't allowed to *do* anything with their yard except make it look pretty with a bunch of useless plants. Heaven forbid anyone raise a chicken or grow a squash. No, they just make what was useful land useless. They usually can't even put up a fense for privacy. Why they don't simply buy a condo downtown is beyond me.
I just did this last week after my cows ate everything in the garden but the weeds. Round-up is great stuff in the garden because you can replant as soon as it dries.
When I was a little kid (1970's) nuclear power, the Alaskan Oil Pipeline, and microwave ovens were all opposed by the left, at least in my area of NJ. (My family was pretty left wing at the time so we knew a lot of others on the left) Now I don't hear as much protest about any of it. Today, those who do protest nuclear power and especially microwave ovens often seem to have a general dislike of science rather than any particular political affiliation. In fact, one of the most pro-nuke people I've met was a decidedly left leaning nuclear engineering professor.
I think rather than protest nuclear energy out of use, it would be better to organize efforts to make it safer and more secure against terrorist attacks while keeping the economics sound. Fund some engineers and business people to hammer out real solutions. Also, get the French involved. I think France is something like 70%-90% nuclear powered. (note that they aren't all exactly republicans either)
Perhaps we are witnessing America's death throes. There seems to be no good outcome possible this election. Perhaps we will eventually learn from our mistakes and come back all the stronger and better; I certainly hope so. But, frankly, I think we are past the beginning of the end of America. The rotting corpse will remain, but not the spirit that gave her life.
In any case, I hope others continue to pick up the torch of the Enlightenment and shine its light upon the world. Freedom isn't slave to any country, place or thing. It is something we are born with and must fight to keep from governments, religions, and other oppressors. Freedom is yours; assert it while you can.
You may wish to have a looks at: http://www.europeanfreestate.org/ http://fre ewest.org http://freestateproject.org
BTW, I live in Florida. Tonight I plan to continue getting really drunk, cry in my Guinness, and not think about the weeks of lawsuits that will probably follow the vote.
Law enforcement is a bitch. When I was a kid, one morning, a neighbor built a fence across our driveway. We called the cops on the guy rather than deal with him face to face because he was a drunk and liked to point guns at people. The cops refused to stop him and told my father he would be arrested if he took down the fence. It didn't matter that the driveway had been there for several decades nor that we showed the cop our land survey which clearely showed we were in the right. It didn't matter one bit that we had to cut through another neighbor's yard to get to our house. Nope, dumbass cop just doin' his job.
IIRC it cost well over $5,000 to resolve the issue in court despite having title insurance. Despite half a dozen re-surveys of the land that showed the driveway was ours, we never did get back the land our neighbor stole. Instead, we were forced to purchase about 1/4 acre of our neighbor's land. Why? It's called the good old boy network--the criminal was friends with those in power.
This is just one of many reasons I don't like to give government power.
At first I couldn't figure out why so many people seemed to feel threatened by the suggestion that SS1 did it cheaper than X-15. Now I know. Ssssh! on'tday stageupay hetay overnmentgay roay heytay illway avesay acefay ybay akingmay rivatepay paceflightpay legalilpay.
Seriously, it is an unfair comparison, but really, does anyone think NASA could do it for less today? I suspect drafting the budget proposal would cost more.
The game works something like this. Some time back group A took over the media so it could promote its views. Recently group B decided to retaliate and created a few outlets for its POV's. Neither A nor B care much about getting out the truth, it is all about seeing that their favored views are widely accepted and the 'proper' people get into office. Freedom of the press is potentially the most powerful tool for keeping politicians in line but I think it works less well when its goal is to support a particular political agenda rather than make money by telling the truth. Still the system requires money. Consumers could fix the problem if they wanted by simply not buying dishonest news. However, people love to find "facts" to support their pre-existing beliefs and will pay (see/hear ads) for these "facts" even if their beliefs were originally formulated by older "facts" meant to advance another's political agenda.
I'll admit up front to only having watched about 30 hours of UK news. It appears more professional (not talking about the tabloids here) but I'd assert it either belongs to group A or possibly C. Not enough info to judge what their motives may be, but the lack of presenting facts on both sides of an issue suggests ulterior motives. Fortunately, it appears not to have gone as far downhill as US press.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it was in Viruses of the Mind that Richard Dawkins proposed that it is the christian meme's way of defending its life and the lives of its offspring. Rational thought and knowledge is to the christian virus as holy water is to the demonically possessed.;-)
Many christians have a lot riding on their beliefs. Facing reality means facing the liklihood that they will cease to exist when they die. Generally, even all memory of their existance will die a few generations after them. It means coming to terms with the fact that they wasted 1/7th+ of their limited days and perhaps 1/10th of their income in church. Although psychology wrongly,imo, exempts religion as something other than insanity, the recovering christian must face that he was effectivly insane for a portion of his life. All the good and all the bad in life was a combination of luck and effects of his actions rather than the intervention of God. It may mean being rejected by one's family and friends. It's a lot of depressing stuff to face in the name of honesty.
Mainstream American Christians do not applaud murder in God's name, but I think current trends may lead in that direction. Here in the Southeast, I know quite a few fundementalists including my parents. None seem highly in favor of murder, but a sizeable portion seem hazy on the subject when associated with certain pop issues such as abortion and homosexuality. Watch Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell talk about gays sometime, you can see pleasure in their eyes as they spout their accusations. They almost seem to get off on God killing the Sodomites in the Bible myth. Watch their video clips of protesting gays and, Godwin be damned, see if it doesn't remind you of Hitler's anti-jewish propaganda films.
When I told a family member that my ex-boyfriend had his jaw broken in several places and suffered other injuries as part of a gay bashing, the reaction was along the lines of "Oh isn't that ashame, but really he was wrong to flaunt it. People shouldn't have to see that stuff. What will they tell their children." In highschool, I vividly remember watching teachers watch me get bullyed about being gay. They did nothing or even egged on the bullying. These teachers were sure to let everyone know they were good christians.
The same sickness that lead to the Taliban is here in the USA. It only needs time and continued favorable conditions and a sleepy immune system to incubate and fully manifest itself as Fundie Fever.
In normal every day English, I think you are right. However, lawyers probably wrote this which means the new definition is in anything but English.
Interesting to hear more specifics. The books I have on the subject say it is a more complicated process. Sugar(s) (mycogen?) in the muscle convert to acids which drop the pH of the meat. IIRC, that has something to do with rigor mortis. (Excessive running just before slaughter supposidly burns up these sugars and prevents the pH drop and results in bad tasting tough meat.) Enzymes present in the meat begin breaking it down, possibly triggered by the pH drop. The acidity, lack of immune response, and cool temperature create an environment which favors desirable microorganisms which also release enzymes that break down the tissues. Having looked at a sample of juice from the raw meat, I can say it is teaming with life. However, I can't identify exactly what I'm looking at so the lifeforms could be irrelevant.
Perhaps my books aren't as up to date as your link. Another possiblity is that, at least in my area of the USA, grocery store meat is usually only aged for less than a week (economics? USDA?). Perhaps the extra two weeks for my meat has allowed the microorganism factor to play a bigger role? I can say it is much more tender and flavorful than grocery store beef. There are other factors that may have played a role, for instance I made sure he lived a happy life (lots of petting and scratching and cow treats etc) and died on a good day while eating his favorite things. Maybe that mattered maybe it didn't but it made it more ethical imo.
Ugh, yeah, they'll turn on you. I've got a steer ageing in the cooler at 35F. After 3 weeks, the beef is now very tender from having been pre-chewed by micoorganisms. Even tough cuts are now fork tender. Also, the fat seems to have a lower melting point since it no longer freezes on the roof of my mouth as it did the first day. It sounds gross (looks gross too, think black scab covered meat), but tastes great. Unless you want to be eaten, you probably don't want to chill for several weeks since, among other things, when you tried to stand, you'd fall apart. As I understand it, even at 0F the same process occurs, though more slowly, and there is ice damage.
Currently the Bible says nothing one way or the other. However, once extraterrestrial life is found, confirming verses will be found and prove the Bible is infalible.
It is like coming to terms with the facts that there is no Santa Claus, no Easter bunny, and Jesus was just some dude nailed to a tree. The better the myth the harder the fall and pain of facing the truth. From the time we are little children we are indoctrinated to think the USA is even better than mom's apple pie. I think this was our own propaganda effort to cause the democratic cohesion (herd mentality) thought necessary to defeat those "commie bastards" during the Cold War. Few of us seemed to realize our government was lying about itself just as the USSR's was lying to the Soviet people. The Cold War is over, but the government still roils in its cesspool of filthy tactics because they bring it great power and the people are still programmed to not only put up with it, but misidentify it as good.
So you see, what we have here is something like the "Matrix." Those on the inside have very little reason to believe their reality is false. It may seem the global nature of the Internet should be more effective in helping us see outside of the Matrix but the main flaw is that we have been programmed with a persecution complex.
In some versions of Christianity, the evil "World System" is against God and his people and does everything it can to tear the faithful from their beliefs. You are faith full if you continue to disbelieve what the World System says despite all evidence to the contrary. If you have faith you are good and earn brownie points with God and etc. The better one withstands the assault of reality against your faith, the better you are. One may even seek to have his faith tested and hope to die a martyr. In the American political religion, the World is out to destroy freedom (Freedom equals American Government) and all we hold sacred, never mind that we are actually rapidly losing true freedom and most of us have no idea exactly what it is we hold sacred, but if you defend the faith your American brothers and sisters will love you as will God and all will be roses.
Anyway, the more Americans perceive the World as attacking us, the more our delusional faith will be strengthened. You that care about the plight of Americans or sense we are a 1500 kg bull in your home, would do better to come in under our radar defenses as it were--avoid language that appears bitter, mean and nasty. Be our friends and kindly kill our delusions while we aren't looking.
I'd also like to point out, as you alluded to, Americans are not the only people to have lived in the Matrix--others have, do, or will. In fact, I sometimes wonder if much of the current anti-american talk is intentionally provoked by the American government itself for the reasons cited above.
Someone is paying for it, most likely a bunch of someone's who will never use the service but have no choice but to pay taxes. If all money for this come form voluntary sources, then forgive me for not RTFA.
If one were to put a paper bag over Bush's face, would he still suck as hard? I mean really, really hard? I'm not sure I'm into the big assholes though...sounds kinda icky. So does the cigar thing.
I realize you aren't here so you may have no way of knowing this, but all our (USA) food doesn't come from big agribusiness corporations. Many people don't like the cardboard taste of corporate food or want their food organically grown. There are many small time farmers, like me, who produce a few of tons of food a year for roadside sales, organic grocery stores, barter or farmer's markets. I don't think it is possible to get rich doing this, but it is possible to make a living and be satisfied with life if you don't mind mostly being paid in lifestyle benefits. Also, I'm totally un-subsidized.
In many parts of the country, it is common to grow one's food in the backyard.
As for GM food, I think the cross-pollination issue is overblown . Farmers have long had to contend with cross-pollination issues such as feed corn (maize) crossing with sweet corn and making the sweet corn starchy. Furthermore, many (most?) vegetables don't readily cross pollenate across distances of more than a few meters. Even with the two bee hives here, I haven't seen a cross yet.
However, when a cross does happen, being able to be sued for allowing your corn to cross with a patented crop is, of course, insane. This is a flaw of government, not GM tech.
I went through a similar thing. In class, I had trouble with the professors' foreign accents and soon the pressure to understand their words made it impossible to understand anything they said. Our Thermodynamics textbooks were late to arrive but the professor started throwing exams at us and aggressively questioning us in class. If you were wrong or not entirely right, he'd really humiliate and dress you down in front of 200 others for being stupid and lazy. I choked and never unchoked. The pressure spread to test taking, which had never been a problem for me. My fear of failure got to the point I stopped attending classes and taking exams. I even got to the point that I'd get all wound up worrying that I'd fail to understand the textbook which resulted in me obsessively reading the same paragraph for hours on end while not comprehending a word of it. In short, I made myself a wee bit mad. Eventually, I gave up on college and became a loser.
If you find a fix, please let me know. I suspect if you have only recently gotten into the pattern of actually failing classes from the perfectionism thing, it may be a good idea to take off a year from college. I kept forcing myself not to give up and I only managed to reinforce the behavior to the point it seems to be impossible to undo. (Well that, and eventually used up all my second chances with the administration.) Go bum around in another country for a while, have a lot of sex, find yourself and that kind of thing. It is what I wish I would have done.
I'd suggest staying away from shrinks since they only made my problem much worse. Still, I hear they seem to help some people .
will Chandrayan 1 make a decent slurpee?
Sorry, I couldn't resist, nothing mean meant by it. Some of the nicest and brightest people I've met were from India.
I think maybe I'm more convinced that humans play a bigger role than you are, but Global warming aside, I'd just like to say, you strike me as the kind of liberal democrat I'd enjoy talking to over some beer/tea/coffee. I really wish more democrats would, like you, get back to what I thought were the roots of your party--open mindedness, intellectualism, and rational idealism. I could vote for them then.
Could it be that most of the reporters covering the story were white from mostly white countries looking for people to interview in white languages so that the whites at home had some clue what was being said? Perhaps I'm an evil self-absorbed American for not knowing how to speak several asian languages? Or finding sub-titles less intimate?
Can't we assume that since we are all human we'd share the experience in a similar way and then use our minds to project how the experience would vary according to the differences? (Rich vacationer who lost his wife vs. poor fisherman who lost his entire family, house and business) I don't know anyone who doesn't know that non-whites experienced the worst of it and feel horror over it all. It's probably why I see donation boxes in every store I go to for tsunami relief.
On a different but related subject, there is only so much our little human brains can absorb in our short lives. Last I heard, there were over 200 wars going on in the world. How many of us follow every single one of them? Yet, I've heard Englishmen yell at us Americans for being too self-absorbed to pay attention to X-war in X country while they ignore 190 other wars. Even if it were possible to take in the sum of all human suffering, who could survive the knowledge with their sanity intact?
You people in those mysterious realms outside the USA are making more and more sense to me.
When I was a boy I always wondered at how the good German people could let the Nazis take over. I'm beginning to understand. I just wish I knew how to stop it.
I'm hopeing Marvin's cuteness is just a consequence of him having a head bigger than a planet. Kid's have big heads compared to their bodies too and since kids are generally cute it triggers us into thinking Marvin is a cute kid. Actually, the discord of a cute looking robot spouting intelligent paranoid and depressing stuff could be funny. I hope that's all it is because I'd really hate to see such a good story screwed up.
Thanks, you've just inspired me to never use a spell checker when posting to /. I know many intelligent people who cannot spell. I know many idiots who can spell. If English spelling were based on a logically consistant set of rules maybe you'd have a point, but spelling is almost arbitrary. The ability to remember random strings is a relatively insignificant aspect of intelligence.
Perhaps an obsessive desire to remember random strings and insistance that others do the same should be a disqualification for voting!-)
Dyslexics of the world unite!
I used to be able to walk to the grocery store in 30 seconds, but only if my crack head neighbors were too stoned to hit me up for money. The lack of privacy was dehumanizing; why not just invite the neighborhood to come watch you take a dump or whatever, they'll know anyway. As you say, differnet strokes for different folks, but I prefer to stoke in private.
Now I love living in the sticks. I can play my mp3s as loudly as I want and no one gives a damn. I can throw 50 pounds of KNO3 on the BBQ and again, no one gives a damn. I'm building an ugly old robot which can be seen from the road, but no one complains. I suspect I could strip off all my clothes and go apeshit in the front yard and no one would call the cops or say a word. Yet, I could go to any neighbor's house and get help if I needed it. Many here poke fun at all the "redneck's" pickup trucks and gun racks, but they are mostly damn fine people. And they actually use their freaking pickup trucks unlike the city idiots who drive those stupid gas guzzling 4x4's with 4 square feet of bed space to impress the Joneses, goddamn that is moronic.
Still, if you can stand the perpetual anal probe that is suburban life then more power to you if you want to move to the big city. Here in Florida, the burbs fill what used to be lovely cattle ranches and woodlands. Each person has this stupid ass postage stamp of a yard with the next pink cookie cutter house maybe 10 feet away. They aren't allowed to *do* anything with their yard except make it look pretty with a bunch of useless plants. Heaven forbid anyone raise a chicken or grow a squash. No, they just make what was useful land useless. They usually can't even put up a fense for privacy. Why they don't simply buy a condo downtown is beyond me.
I just did this last week after my cows ate everything in the garden but the weeds. Round-up is great stuff in the garden because you can replant as soon as it dries.
When I was a little kid (1970's) nuclear power, the Alaskan Oil Pipeline, and microwave ovens were all opposed by the left, at least in my area of NJ. (My family was pretty left wing at the time so we knew a lot of others on the left) Now I don't hear as much protest about any of it. Today, those who do protest nuclear power and especially microwave ovens often seem to have a general dislike of science rather than any particular political affiliation. In fact, one of the most pro-nuke people I've met was a decidedly left leaning nuclear engineering professor.
I think rather than protest nuclear energy out of use, it would be better to organize efforts to make it safer and more secure against terrorist attacks while keeping the economics sound. Fund some engineers and business people to hammer out real solutions. Also, get the French involved. I think France is something like 70%-90% nuclear powered. (note that they aren't all exactly republicans either)
I think it's how that new KY jelly works. You know, the stuff with the warming action.
:)
Perhaps we are witnessing America's death throes. There seems to be no good outcome possible this election. Perhaps we will eventually learn from our mistakes and come back all the stronger and better; I certainly hope so. But, frankly, I think we are past the beginning of the end of America. The rotting corpse will remain, but not the spirit that gave her life.
e ewest.org
In any case, I hope others continue to pick up the torch of the Enlightenment and shine its light upon the world. Freedom isn't slave to any country, place or thing. It is something we are born with and must fight to keep from governments, religions, and other oppressors. Freedom is yours; assert it while you can.
You may wish to have a looks at:
http://www.europeanfreestate.org/
http://fr
http://freestateproject.org
BTW, I live in Florida. Tonight I plan to continue getting really drunk, cry in my Guinness, and not think about the weeks of lawsuits that will probably follow the vote.
Law enforcement is a bitch. When I was a kid, one morning, a neighbor built a fence across our driveway. We called the cops on the guy rather than deal with him face to face because he was a drunk and liked to point guns at people. The cops refused to stop him and told my father he would be arrested if he took down the fence. It didn't matter that the driveway had been there for several decades nor that we showed the cop our land survey which clearely showed we were in the right. It didn't matter one bit that we had to cut through another neighbor's yard to get to our house. Nope, dumbass cop just doin' his job.
IIRC it cost well over $5,000 to resolve the issue in court despite having title insurance. Despite half a dozen re-surveys of the land that showed the driveway was ours, we never did get back the land our neighbor stole. Instead, we were forced to purchase about 1/4 acre of our neighbor's land. Why? It's called the good old boy network--the criminal was friends with those in power.
This is just one of many reasons I don't like to give government power.
At first I couldn't figure out why so many people seemed to feel threatened by the suggestion that SS1 did it cheaper than X-15. Now I know. Ssssh! on'tday stageupay hetay overnmentgay roay heytay illway avesay acefay ybay akingmay rivatepay paceflightpay legalilpay. Seriously, it is an unfair comparison, but really, does anyone think NASA could do it for less today? I suspect drafting the budget proposal would cost more.
The game works something like this. Some time back group A took over the media so it could promote its views. Recently group B decided to retaliate and created a few outlets for its POV's. Neither A nor B care much about getting out the truth, it is all about seeing that their favored views are widely accepted and the 'proper' people get into office. Freedom of the press is potentially the most powerful tool for keeping politicians in line but I think it works less well when its goal is to support a particular political agenda rather than make money by telling the truth. Still the system requires money. Consumers could fix the problem if they wanted by simply not buying dishonest news. However, people love to find "facts" to support their pre-existing beliefs and will pay (see/hear ads) for these "facts" even if their beliefs were originally formulated by older "facts" meant to advance another's political agenda. I'll admit up front to only having watched about 30 hours of UK news. It appears more professional (not talking about the tabloids here) but I'd assert it either belongs to group A or possibly C. Not enough info to judge what their motives may be, but the lack of presenting facts on both sides of an issue suggests ulterior motives. Fortunately, it appears not to have gone as far downhill as US press.