If thou gazest long into the Pit, the Pit will also gaze into thee

Exactly. I can own a gun. I just can't shoot someone (with exceptions for self defense). I can own a machete.... I just can't cut someone's hand off with it. I have teeth... I just can't bite off part of your ear! (unless I am Mike Tyson). Please...please...please.... start making sense. You can ow...

decius, why don't you just admit you're suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect? It's obvious you don't know the slightest bit about the subject you're claiming some kind of knowledge on and you're doing so in the face of ex-military "gun nuts" who know this subject 1,000 times better than you. Th...

What a fucking shit-assed argument. You "don't see why a civilian should have access to that... (insert thing here)". You can make this argument about anything. I don't see why people should have access to bungee jumping, or tentacle porn, or popcorn drenched in fake butter. What kind of stupid shi...

I don't lose arguments by fiat, particularly to factoids and distortions rebranded as facts by an ideologue.

So, at best, you are making a trivial point. There are so few killings with assault weapons that removing this from the crime stats in the US hardly even show up. The banning of a specific type of semi-auto weapon would have precious little effect on crime and murder rates. Are you starting to figu...

I completely agree with the prohibition point, by the way.

Look, I don't give a shit if trench warfare has evolved or basic NATO training has changed over the past 26 years. I also don't want to be dragged into a pointless "I know more about guns than you, therefore guns are good" non-sequitur. If your argument amounts to denying assault rifles are deadlie...

So, you are unaware or denying that pistol grips help stabilise the weapon and that the rate of fire is affected by ergonomic factors and that effective rate of fire keeps into account the time spent reloading and aiming. Under all the chest-thumping and irrelevant information thrown around, gun nut...

Isn't it amazing how real, but unarmed, men such as NatGeo reporters never succumb to nature in the wildest of places, whereas rednecks fall prey to all sort of ferocious beasts in the primitive American countryside? Rednecks also don't have camera crews and various support staff, and you don't kno...

Look, I don't give a shit if trench warfare has evolved or basic NATO training has changed over the past 26 years. I also don't want to be dragged into a pointless "I know more about guns than you, therefore guns are good" non-sequitur. If your argument amounts to denying assault rifles are deadlier...

Isn't it amazing how real, but unarmed, men such as NatGeo reporters never succumb to nature in the wildest of places, whereas rednecks fall prey to all sort of ferocious beasts in the primitive American countryside?

Guest, those who oppose assault weapons do so because they are a boon to massacrists. Your reason for wanting them are "peccaries". I haven't misrepresented the moronity of the gist of your argument, because that's precisely what it implies. I was an infantry medic, I got specific training about tre...

James, I think you misread my comment or you equate assault rifles with automatic fire capability. Automatic fire an assault rifle makes not. It is the design that makes it the deadly weapon that it is. It makes it very easy to aim at targets without eye collimation - that is while shooting from the...

I agree with whomever pointed out that the gun debate is often boring and sterile, plus I don't have a dog in the fight since I'm no citizen and unlikely to set foot there again. However, a nation where no restrictions on guns are in place will inevitably end up looking like the tribal regions of Pa...

Nice touch of absence of moderation in Thunderdome, according to Myers. Imagine if he moderated it.

You can't even parse a sentence longer than five words conveying any sort of abstract concept, can you?

Any original content that can be shared with, and enjoyed by, others. Other than haughty, moronic, inarticulate criticism, that is.

cunt wrote: He's such an insufferable vagina. Lets be honest.

Have you ever created anything during the course of your entire existence, you lifeless wanker?

Move over Bjarte, there's a new contender for worst comedian ever. [youtube]fLEqQuEO67Q[/youtube] I understand that this is probably an attempt at making something so not funny that it becomes funny - but I think he's gone too far - it's so unfunny it's just not funny. :bjarte: The comments. Look a...

Tony Parsehole wrote: As if the shame and humiliation over being banned from Pharyngula wasn't enough Myers takes a steel-toed kick to Konrad's teeth by using a large red font. Oh, PZ. You are a cruel, cruel man.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

(I will say, note how they make the beginning and end of this story makes it all about AVFM and Paul Elam once more, when what this is really about is an ex-wife abusing copyright to silence her husband even once he is dead.) In a case like this, both MRAs and feminists make an issue of either vict...

PZ used to be a feminist blastocyst floating inside his mother's uterus.

James Caruthers wrote: Even in translation, Caesar was a fucking great writer.

I agree, fantastic stuff with a great deal of honest anthropological curiosity throughout.

It is fascinating how the Roman redesign of the plough turns it into a scientific instrument as well as into a more efficient agricultural tool. When it comes to the study of Ancient History the Roman plough never appears to get much attention. It often is easier and more romantic to focus on the ba...

I should have said base-ten abacus, but you get the point.

I don't think there was anything in my original assertion regarding sentiment, intent or sympathy. "Vandalism" may have been a loaded term - but the facts seem pretty clear to me that the Greeks had attained a degree of social and scientific sophistication that wasn't seen in Europe again until the...

Actually, the view that Roman historians were mostly propagandists is being consistently overturned by archaeological evidence. Some certainly were, but on average political rulers need reliable information to act upon. Case in point, the most controversial allegation and seemingly unbelievable of a...

So it seems Caesar's part in the destruction is a matter of significant historical consensus (though I would cede that he had no real intent to burn it) whilst Theodosius did intend the destruction of Paganism, but whether or not a portion of the surviving library was a part of that is a matter of ...

The story that Theophilus destroyed a library is clearly a fiction that we can very precisely lay at the door of Edward Gibbon. It is in his monumental Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that we first find the allegation made. Gibbon seems mainly concerned to clear the Arabs of the responsibility...

Apologies, I read Archimedes and thought about Pythagoras.

Yes, you are right about that one.

There's little doubt that some tribes built in stone, especially in Kent where Caesar landed and commissioned a detailed description. But the leap from Iron-Age living conditions (read shite) coincides with, and is brought by, the Roman conquest. I hope that we are in agreement about that, for it i...

That seems to have reached an eirenicon - now let's argue about whether or not the Picts built in stone! http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Mousa_Broch_20080821_02.jpg There's little doubt that some tribes built in stone, especially in Kent where Caesar landed and commissioned a det...

http://www.umn.edu/lookup?SET_INSTITUTI ... UID=myersp

Well you have conveniently snipped off my "plenty of" qualifier, which should have allowed for a deal of exception. Given that, I'm quite happy that historical sites calling wholly w&d buildings villas, and others citing it as a significant element of villas with stone supporting walls or timber fr...

Shit, sorry. I'll try again. That's like saying because cramped modern terraces are made using bricks you can't make a stately home using bricks. Google's throwing me up lots of results for "roman villa wattle and daub" - for example: http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=410045 "The site is p...

[quote="Dave2" That's like saying because cramped modern terraces are made using bricks you can't make a stately home using bricks. Google's throwing me up lots of results for "roman villa wattle and daub" - for example: http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=410045 "The site is particularly im...

Well, Britain and Caledonia were stuck in the Iron Age until, and in parts beyond, Roman conquest. Until then, dung was a prime construction material. Urine and dung were primary ingredients to turn woad indigo on your skin, if you were a Pict or a Celt. Anyway, the dickwaving is in jest. Weren't p...

My ancestors invented Western civilisation many centuries prior to yours ceasing to decorate their faces, and building their dwellings, with dung. What my ancestors looked like, historically speaking: http://www.crystalinks.com/RomanSociety.jpg http://www.scotlandinfo.eu/images/traditional-kilt.jpg...

It isn't about me, Mykeru. My ancestors invented Western civilisation many centuries prior to yours ceasing to decorate their faces, and building their dwellings, with dung. But going nuclear on mild Aneris over a minor disagreement seems uncalled for to me. Then again, it could retroactively explai...

I would ascribe that to an attempt at being humorous, the sort of Teutonic sensibility that also thinks "energy efficiency" means stoking the boiler with some Jews. I wouldn't recommend pursuing that particular venue. As far as trite stereotypes go, you won't find anything suitable more current tha...

In this age where we are obligated to accept everyone's self-reported bullshit otherwise their feelings might be hurt, there's apparently no place for using an old-fashioned word like malingerer. Exactly. Malingering is widespread, fits better with the observed behaviour and constitutes a more pars...

yes you can get PTSD on twitter

Amen.

Right. It isn't entirely inconceivable, but seems unlikely to me as well.

Like I said, I respect your viewpoint. Do you think there is a way to get people like Laden and Svan and PZ and RW and MH and Benson and Oolon to stop cunting? They clearly don't give two fucks about skepticism. Why the fuck don't they just go to the "feminist community?" I would be happy to donate...

A uniformed recruiter won't respond to civilian provocations, so a coward like Myers could do his chihuahua schtick without fear of retribution.

On top of everyone ending up blind, it likely precipitates a race to the bottom.

People like Laden and Zvan can't be outcunted and will stop at nothing.

London (CNN) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's hair is no laughing matter. Not for the country's embassy employees in London, at least. Chalk it up to British humor when London barbers hung a poster in their shop of Kim and his signature hairstyle: a longer top, with the sides of his head shaved...

deLurch wrote: I would like to formally apologize for decius's last comment.

Doesn't work out, mate. You don't represent me. :romance-kisscheek:

Heddle, out of curiosity, why do you seek the company of atheists? I find that I learn more and am more stimulated when I am around and listen to people I disagree with. But faith is intrinsically incompatible with an open-ended pursuit of knowledge. That's why your side is represented by apologist...

Heddle, out of curiosity, why do you seek the company of atheists?

Mykeru, to clarify I wasn't using false analogy and cat error interchangeably. But that particular false analogy was predicated on a category error, AFAICS.

Cheers, Mykeru. :)

If I was a serving Marine, and one of my platoon was harassing somebody on Twitter, I would be the first to make a beeline for my commanding officer to have him kick the guy into touch ... at the minimum he would be making my platoon look bad, would be making the marines look bad, and would be disr...

FTR, Melody doesn't have PTSD. She was diagnosed with something like "near PTSD-like symptoms", said so herself. Check her old twits. Which is a diagnosis anyone can get by simply declaring to suffer from that specific set of symptoms. Perhaps the resident physicians can confirm or correct me on th...

Cuntajus, I will donate to Radford's fund as well (I already tried and was bugged out, actually). There's no doubt about the wrong he's being subjected to. We're in full agreement also about the ethical obligation of responding to injustice when we see it. I guess our difference boils down to the fa...

Mykeru, you describe a particular type of category error, perhaps the epitome of category error, but the definition is quite broader than that.

It includes ascribing properties to anything that does not possess that property by definition.

But I'm not engaging in the same behavior that I am taking issue with. Behavior I am taking issue with = calling an employer over an internet squabble Behavior I am engaging in = calling an employer over real life interference with someone's career Again, I understand and accept that some people do...

Selenite, stealing money from the till falls in the crime category. What Melody did doesn't. Apples, oranges and all that.

[quote="CuntajusRationality" Nah, I call bullshit right here. My call to contact CFI had nothing to do with "internet squabbles" and everything to do with Melody taking an internet squabble into real life with calls to commanding officers. If you cannot see the distinction, or if you don't think the...

CuntajusRationality wrote:
decius wrote:I nowhere conceded any such thing. That would warrant a separate debate.

Jeez.
Sorry, my mistake, then. Maybe we should just agree to disagree.

Sorry, I hadn't reached down here when I posted my previous comment.

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