The Refuge of the Toads

[Kirbmarc]

I think you're missing the nature of voting required in several Western states. Australia, the United Kingdom and most extremely, the United States, are effectively two party states. The voting systems of the United Kingdom, first past the post, mean that the voting choice there has to be tactical. It's all well and good to have someone running who believes the right things and has the courage to defend it, but not if a vote for them risks a regressive leftist coming to power. I think Labour in the United Kingdom is presently unfit to govern. Not just because of Corbyn, but also because they pander to muslims, and are quite happy to attend gender segregated meetings. If I lived in the UK, risking Labour getting to power would be unacceptable, and I'd have to tactically vote for whoever was most likely to defeat them, despite how terrible Cameron is.

Cameron's policies on Islam are actually pretty sensible and not Steersman-like. It's when it comes to porn or the Internet where he goes insane. Cameron isn't a right wing extremist: that would be the BNP and the UKIP (to a lesser degree).

I think that the UK Labour is pretty much screwed when it comes to the next elections. They simply don't live in the real world anymore. Even leaving aside the Islam issue their program is simply insane. Corbyn seems to think that more government spending and nationalizations are the best answer to the crisis in the UK, when the UK welfare system is already completely screwed and has created a generation of welfare queens who don't contribute to society in any meaningful way (the so called chavs).

Sweden is in a far worse shape than England when it comes to Islam, though.

It is, as a result, somewhat unofficial policy to accept non-muslims in preference to muslims if possible.

I'm not against quotas on immigration and official or non-official preferences for certain groups over others. But there's, again, a huge difference between "give a priority to groups which are easier to integrate" and "deport all of them, except those that we judge to be worthy".

Immigration is a complex problem, and it requires a nuanced approach. It's not bad to give preference to people which are easier to integrate for whatever reason, and to regulate immigration through quotas, timed visas, requirements for immigrants, separating the channels between immigrants for economic reasons and refugees, etc.

It's very bad to lump together different groups who have already been allowed in the country and deport them all except those with the "right" qualities.

[comhcinc]

Twitter has been a minefield for several years, Mykeru stomps through it in oversized snow shoes.

Twitter was never intended as the to be the back and forth thing it's become. I am not throw shade on any one that uses it that way but I get Jack being frustrated by all of this that is happening with his simple little platform.

Correct me if I am wrong but I think Mykeru only used twitter to shit talk about other people on twitter. I think that is has in the past been apart of their decision making. Like this person is just here to fuck up the party.

Pro Tip make at least three tweets about how awesome Beyonce is a day and you should be alright. :)

[VickyCaramel]

Correct me if I am wrong but I think Mykeru only used twitter to shit talk about other people on twitter.

Yes, he searched out people saying stupid things and pointed out their stupidity in colourful language.

[comhcinc]

Correct me if I am wrong but I think Mykeru only used twitter to shit talk about other people on twitter.

Yes, he searched out people saying stupid things and pointed out their stupidity in colourful language.

Honestly I can't fault them for banning him. If all you are going to do is troll and not even talk about how awesome Beyonce is then what do you expect?

His butthurt is uncalled for.

[jet_lagg]

As for Mary Sues, nah I don't really believe they exist in any meaningful way. It's a term that gets brought out when a person doesn't like a character. Name a protagonist in a film and I will tell you why they are a Mary Sue.

Ah. That's what I was looking for. Your hypothesis is non-falsifiable. I agree there's no sense in continuing if, by definition, you think Mary Sues don't exist (you could have saved us the time by stating that outright).

Don't feel bad though. Not everyone can have my sophisticated taste in film. This is why No Holds Barred and Tiger's Wood are not appreciated as the masterpieces I know them to be.

My issue with your take on the movie was never whether you thought Rey was a Mary Sue or not. It was that you were wrong about certain facts of the film. Get your facts straight then you can not like the film all you want.

Yes I agree that the version of the film you are presenting doesn't sound that great. We as a world are fortunate that your version wasn't the one shown in theaters.

Nonsense. You wanted to quibble over whether or not a sith lord is the same thing as a dark jedi (from a film criticism standpoint, nobody gives a shit). And like I mentioned, if you can't remember the fact that Rey pulled off her piloting feats without having been trained to do so even though they literally shouted at eachother about it immediately after the action sequence ended, I'm just going to laugh off the assertion I'm getting facts wrong about the film.

[InfraRedBucket]

If Rebecca thought her dig at Dawkins wouldn't draw comments, it didn't work. I doubt she's happy about it, since this is an uncommon instance she's fucked up her victim narrative.

http://imgur.com/1T0HGNS.png

The obviously non-Watsonian but diplomatic thing to write, would have been something like "We have our differences but...etc..etc" and live to fight another day
but she had to stir the shit again and is getting called on it.

[Sulman]

The obviously non-Watsonian but diplomatic thing to write, would have been something like "We have our differences but...etc..etc" and live to fight another day
but she had to stir the shit again and is getting called on it.

I think it's just spooling-up the hamster wheel.

She's a wretched little shit, directing traffic to her site where she dresses up a crack at Dawkins as sympathy. Next step? Another post about the abuse she gets from 'Dawkbros' for her apology.

It's a game; she keeps playing it, and getting away with it.

[InfraRedBucket]

I hold NECSS and Watson almost entirely responsible.

Get well soon you big Dick.

The usual baboons should be hooting and flinging poo. Want to bet that they blame his mocking tweets on an early sign of impending CVA? Watson is probably dancing a jig.

First comment on Watson's blog post,
Apols if I've been ninja ed on this.

John the Drunkard
February 11, 2016 at 8:59 pm —
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he’d had several unnoticed ones already. The quality of his public statements has gotten so bizarre, so careless, that I’ve suspected some neurological component.

[VickyCaramel]

Correct me if I am wrong but I think Mykeru only used twitter to shit talk about other people on twitter.

Yes, he searched out people saying stupid things and pointed out their stupidity in colourful language.

Honestly I can't fault them for banning him. If all you are going to do is troll and not even talk about how awesome Beyonce is then what do you expect?

His butthurt is uncalled for.

In all seriousness, the secret is just to stay off the radar. I know several people who post nothing but offensive porn, they have no problems because nobody is flagging them. I think if they were tweeting it at Ophelia Benson just once, their feet would not touch the ground.

tinfoil.jpg

(51.99 KiB) Downloaded 388 times

My last suspension was about 3 years ago, since then I have been posting stuff like the image above. They know who I am, because sometimes when I post stuff like this I get messages from google saying somebody has tried to access my account and I should change my passwords. But I get nothing from twitter even though I may be shooping Jessica Valencia or Anita Sarkeesian and using their names in the text. If they are trying to hack my accounts, I have no doubt I get flagged but so far no suspensions or bans.

[comhcinc]

Nonsense. You wanted to quibble over whether or not a sith lord is the same thing as a dark jedi (from a film criticism standpoint, nobody gives a shit). And like I mentioned, if you can't remember the fact that Rey pulled off her piloting feats without having been trained to do so even though they literally shouted at eachother about it immediately after the action sequence ended, I'm just going to laugh off the assertion I'm getting facts wrong about the film.

So I just watched the flight scene again. The one that you have such a problem with. It's starts about 30 minutes in. After they fly in to space the comment made is something like.

Finn: How you do that?

Rey: I don't know. I have flown it around but never left the planet before.


So again you are just wrong. Don't believe me look it up yourself.

[InfraRedBucket]

Sadly not so but what if Dawkins had originally mistaken Big Red for Watson (as some suspected Novella might have) when posting his tweet and video. That would have been hilarious.

[Aneris]

Since Richard has reduced his reading workload most likely to “light” for now, he's surely only reading the Slymepit at the moment. Hence, Dear Richard…

“Get well soon!” (and don't get on with gardening just yet.)

[Aneris]

I am sure somebody already linked to some news article about the LIGO announcement already. Below is the paper which came out in Physical Review Letters, the top journal for physics (its open access):

http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10 ... 116.061102

For such a highly technical subject, this paper is very readable. The essential point is that now our detectors and data analysis techniques are sensitive enough to tease out tiny perturbations in the structure of space-time. Many newspapers have the headlines "Einstein was correct" or something like that. In reality, however, we knew about gravitational waves for a long time, in fact, they were worked out by Einstein himself using linearized version of his equations. Also, the observations of pulsar binaries already has confirmed, a while ago, the existence of these waves. What it spectacular now is the direct detection of such waves, and also the solution of the inverse problem, i.e. of determining the nature of the event (merger of two black holes) and some estimates of the masses of the objects involved.

Some of the numbers are pretty mind-boggling. The black holes which merged were 39 and 26 solar masses. Turns out that the post-merger spinning black hole was only 62 solar masses, the 3 solar masses radiated out as gravitational waves. To put this in perspective: think of an object three times as massive as our sun converted into energy (via E = mc^2) and radiated away. This is mind boggling amount of energy released in a single event.

An interesting aspect of black hole mergers is that the late time oscillations of the merged black hole are essentially independent of the details of the formation. An analog here is that when a bell is struck the sound (after the initial vibrations die out) eventually will be pure modes which only depends on the properties of the bell and not on how it was struck. Its amazing that we can now tease out such signals and back out properties of the black hole which produced them,

Another aside: the numerical simulations of black hole mergers were a major component of the analysis. For the uninitiated, solving Einstein's equations of gravity is a highly non-trivial task: there are 10 nonlinear coupled equations for the metric tensor which evolve in a space-time background which itself changes. Interestingly (at least to me) such simulations were not possible till recently. The reason: in addition to the ten equations were constraints on the solution (called the Bianchi Identities) which the numerical folks did not initially account for. Once they did, the simulations just worked! (Of course, there were many other issues too. And, there are still major challenges in the field, specially when coupling in the effects of fluids and magnetic fields, and even a causal formulation of heat transfer, for example, remains unknown).

In any case, a great day for astrophysics and perhaps something which will open up a completely new window from which to see our universe.

(I must admit that I :cdc: when I read the sentence in the paper: "Our observations provide unique access to the properties of space-time in the strong-field, high-velocity regime and confirm predictions of general relativity for the nonlinear dynamics of highly disturbed black holes.")

Thanks for that! Appreciate the explanations and context!

[Shatterface]

I suspect Dawkins will turn the experience into another excellent book from which I'll learn a great deal about strokes.

[HunnyBunny]

The Independent is to close. Hopefully The Guardian will be next. We need a liberal left-leaning newspaper and The Guardian is currently hogging the market for that among people too deluded to see it for what it really is.

Not closing, but stopping the printed format. It will continue as a digital paper - will be interesting to see if they survive. Personally, I much prefer The Independent to any of the UK papers, to the extent that I turned off my adblocker some time ago on the site.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media ... 69736.html

[HunnyBunny]

Dawkins' stroke hasn't kept him off twitter. This is a good sign.

[Billie from Ockham]

Expressing the wish that someone "get well soon" has the same actual effect as praying for them. Most people know this, but do it anyway, as a way to signal to others that they have positive feelings about the ill person (who is almost always a person in good standing within the community) and that they're a nice person because they don't want the ill person to suffer. But using someone else's illness as an opportunity to make yourself look good is, IMO, quite shitty. The other interpretation of "get well soon" is also quite selfish: you are banking on some kind of "just world" in which your "get well soon"s will be returned with practical help if and when you, yourself, become ill.

Fuck all that.

Now who hid the tampons?

[gurugeorge]

Expressing the wish that someone "get well soon" has the same actual effect as praying for them. Most people know this, but do it anyway, as a way to signal to others that they have positive feelings about the ill person (who is almost always a person in good standing within the community) and that they're a nice person because they don't want the ill person to suffer. But using someone else's illness as an opportunity to make yourself look good is, IMO, quite shitty. The other interpretation of "get well soon" is also quite selfish: you are banking on some kind of "just world" in which your "get well soon"s will be returned with practical help if and when you, yourself, become ill.

Fuck all that.

Now who hid the tampons?

Jeez, can't people just share a moment of heartfelt emotion with each other?

And signalling is important yo, us being social animals and all.

Other than that, rock on.

[Scented Nectar]

Some of the politicians DO behave as though they've been bought off or are being extorted. I almost hope so, since that would at least mean they aren't simply so stupid that they can't see the dangers of islam.

Sure kind of looks that way - you might take a look at the Wikipedia article on the Saudi Arabia Lobby (h/t Kirbmarc ;-) ). And Clinton looks like she has her hands in that cookie jar too; the more I see of her, the less credible she looks.

Lobbying should be illegal. It's nothing more than paid over-representation mixed with bribery. If I were dictator of the world, that nonsense wouldn't be allowed any more.

It's good you called them on their emotional fallacy type wording, but I'm surprised they let your comment stay.

Yea, I was a little surprised too, particularly given the fairly pointed admonishments at the top of the comments section. But still gratified they let it stand. Sticky issue in more ways than one, and I frequently think many sexworkers are their own worst enemies in refusing to consider some minimal levels of regulation; case in point, a brief conversation I had with Maggie McNeill (The Honest Courtesan):

During a conversation I had a while back in a comment section of an newspaper article on Bill C36, someone referred to an insult that Stanley Baldwin - a British politician, circa 1930 - had used against an opponent which I, and they apparently, thought perfectly summarized the issue: "power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages". Until sexworkers address that point, I don't see them making a lot of headway - which is a shame for many reasons.

Some regulations are only fair. Just like with masseuses and nail cosmeticians, some hygiene regulations might be a good idea. Hotels are made to (hopefully!) change the sheets between customers, so anything involving naked bed activity should probably have the same rules. Also, along with legalization, there should probably be rules about street solicitation. Unless one gets a street vending permit, just like every other business, then it should not be allowed. There should be nothing stopping people from setting up their own drive-through businesses though, with in-car service or whatever.

Because of the physical touching required by most sex work, I think the worker should get to turn down anyone who physically grosses them out, without having to explain. That's unlike most businesses, but I think sex work should be exempt from any equal-service-to-everyone type laws if it involves touching of any sort.

[Shatterface]

Being wished good health can have positive psychological benefits but only when it doesn't come from someone who thinks you are toxic sludge and who takes the opportunity to call you a bigot.

If Myers or Watson got sick I wouldn't pretend I gave a shit.

[blitzem]

I don't thrust people who think December is a summer month...

What if they are high on something interesting and are having pleasant flashbacks of sex in the fields of flowers?

[Shatterface]

I don't trust anyone who thinks mustard is the same colour as Nutella. Cultural diversity be damned, some things are just wrong.

[feathers]

Oh, and last night was the opening night of The Jazzabelles tour in Omagh. It was a triumph. I can smugly announce we got a standing ovation!

A standing ovulation?

[Scented Nectar]

Largely agree with you, particularly about the "pathetic responses" - telling Muslims to piss on the Quran or to piss off should have been the minimal one - and the "nonnegotiable". Late and past my bedtime but, if you haven't seen it yet, you might be interested in this Australian TV panel discussion with Maajid Nawaz, particularly the comments by Rebecca Weisser at the 14 & 25 minute marks.

I'm probably going to regret this, but no, I don't think pissing on the Quran is any more a requirement for muslims than it should be for christians. I just want them to be held to the same standards as everyone else.

Somewhere I read that Mohammed drank piss as some sort of holy ritual. If that is true, then devout muslims might not think of it as desecration, in which case it would not work as an immigration test.

[dog puke]

I have never seen any Star Wars movie... but I do know that the theme starts with a Perfect 5th.

The Star Wars theme was "borrowed" from a piano piece by Debussy, Bruyères.

[youtube]yTrQk9FrTfs[/youtube]

Starts at 1:34

"If you steal, steal from the best."

Yes - and John Williams stole from many of the best. Half of Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps is in Star Wars. Not too mention Gustav Holst and a legion of others.

I am always amused when people hear Mahler for the first time and say "hey - he sounds like John Williams" :lol:

[dog puke]

I have never seen any Star Wars movie... but I do know that the theme starts with a Perfect 5th.

The Star Wars theme was "borrowed" from a piano piece by Debussy, Bruyères.

[youtube]yTrQk9FrTfs[/youtube]

Starts at 1:34

"If you steal, steal from the best."

The composer who would have done the “stealing” would be Erich Korngold for “King's Row” which seems to have strongly influenced Lucas/Williams. I assume it was the temp-track. But I don't think Korngold stole anything, for it's a fairly simple harmomy on rails that doesn't need particular ingenuity to come up. There is far more around it in the arrangement that makes these great, but the lead melody is more memorable.

The other tracks bear a lot of resemblence to Holst's the planets. “Mars” has a similar vibe as the Imperial March, but it's key harmony is taken from Wagner's evil guy leitmotif, which is the dark knight/enforcer Hagen von Tronje, incidentially a somewhat similar character. The tragic tune in there is very similar to one in Tchaikovsky's “Swan Lake”. My favourite from the planets is “Neptune the mystic” which could pass directly as a Star Wars track.

But this shows what is underappreciated: Lucas (and Williams) had a clear vision and weaved together those elements, on point, that made the whole thing this great modern classic. Very old school late Romantic in many ways, and old time cinema, picks up the tradition of adventure film in its purer pulpish incarnations, but treats this as a mythical Wagner-era legend, and presented it with a certain seriousness and cutting edge film making at the time. This was a rare combination, because most people in the business who have to greenlight such projects don't understand what is done there. When they hear “I'm going to include Wagner... and then there'll be elements from old time adventure films” they lack the imagination how this can be made cool again, without loosing the spirit. But their fears aren't entirely unwarranted either, since a lot of filmakers then bring out the pulpy-cheesy-campiness instead of carefully converting it. That's why there are those Joel Schumacher Batmans or the 1980s Flash Gordon.

JJ Abrams lost most of this original “spirit” and delievered a fairly soulless popcorn cinema piece. I enjoyed it while it lasted, it was solid, with likeable characters, but lazy and unimaginitive in too many ways: especially the total rehash of yet another similar looking but differently named desert planet was odd. Not only was this incredibly lazy and easily avoidable, they also had to make it less iconic so that it doesn't totally looked like Tattoine. Star Wars always featured worlds that again capture the 1900s adventure and exotic places (on earth) spirit, a clear formula (ice, desert, wood, lava, clouds etc think Super Mario / Zelda levels) and Lucas instinctivly stuck to this, too. Abrams again, somehow, didn't get it. Hence many now feel that while Lucas failed to juggle all those elements, he at least tried. It's really difficult to keep track of and cram in there these things that would make it stand out. You have to achieve five, six things with one scene, not just witty banter and keeping the story going. The good thing, though, is that Abrams restarted it successfully and introduced likeable characters.

Yep - too true and :nin:

I think that Stravinsky was his number one source, though, as you say, there were many disparate sources. Tchaikovsky, Grieg, etc.

In my mind the most blatant example is taken from Part II of Sacre: Cercles mysterieux des adolescentes = the scene where the droids landed on the desert of Tatooine.

[Scented Nectar]

I'm serious. There has been enough of their violence and shitty theocracies all over the world, and it's been going on for decades if not centuries (I'm shitty at history). If they were a similar group, promoting and doing the same behaviors, but minus it being labelled a religion, no one would tolerate it. It's way worse than the clan ever was. It's at least as bad or worse than Hitler ever was. It's just plain vile.

You are not wrong, but the recent batch of conservative Muslims, who are as bad as you describe them, are more modern than you'd think. They'll largely a creature of the Saudi regime or of the Iranian regime, and the Saudi are richer and have been playing this game with our tacit approval.

ISIS need to be wiped off the face of the Earth. Wahabi/Salafi and other conservative Islamists need to be fought against in the culture war, they need to be ostracized, their fundings need to be monitored and cut and they need to be expelled if they encourage violence.

Hear, hear!

But they're not the only movement within Islamism. Most Muslims are just as clueless about their religion as Christians here. They're the gullible masses which can be swayed one way or the other by their preachers. Our targets should be the conservative preachers, the people who finance them and support them and their apologists, not the masses of the common folk.

Even most of the moderate ones still practice shitty things though, like arranged marriages, child marriages, FGM, and religious legal bigotry against women/gays/non-muslims/etc. Are there very many who don't think that stuff's fine, except maybe some of the second generation ones who've grown up in secular democracies? It seems like a lot of those behaviors have become cultural in majority islamic countries, even outside of their religious roots.

I'm fine with anyone who does not believe that the koran is literal. If there are any such muslims, I'm fine with them. The trouble is that right inside the koran it says to take it literally.

The same thing is true for the Bible. Most believers don't really know what they think about literalism. Most of them have never actually read their holy books and don't really know what's inside them. Religious people are often remarkably ignorant about their religion. This gives power to their sacerdotal class. The priests and the groups behind them shape religion. The common believers don't really get a say in all of this.

I hate that religion is accepted as an excuse to do bad things. It's given a moral stamp of goodness by default just because it's someone's strong moral/spiritual belief.

I completely agree, but this happens largely because people associate personal religious beliefs with organized religion, and organized religion with preserving some sort of order within society and the world at large.

People excuse the unethical behavior inspired by religion because they believe that without religion the world would plunge into chaos, and because they confuse their ethical behavior and beliefs with the teaching of their leaders. Progressive Christians believe that Jesus was a progressive, conservative Christians that he was a conservative, etc. Ethical religious people think that their ethics come from religion, and that the unethical religious people are simply getting religion "wrong" and are "not true Christians/Muslims".

That's funny because they claim the koran is the perfect word of their god. It can't be that perfect if so many are getting it wrong. :)

We atheists have to show them that you can live ethically without any belief in god, that secular liberal democracy is better than theocracy, that bad religious behavior is bad behavior and needs to fought against without ifs and buts.

That said, I'd more then welcome ex-muslims and truly moderate ones who are willing to embrace our modern secular society. I'd love to see that happen, such as taking in only people truly wanting refuge in order to escape oppressive theocracies or religious/cultural family pressures. And things such as that bus advertisement campaign a while back that offered a help line to people trying to escape honor killings and forced marriages etc.

We're on the same page here.

Where'd you say you live? When I become dictator of the world someday (yeah right, in my dreams maybe!), I'll make you head of wherever it is you live. You'll have to get along with Steers though at world leader meetings. I've promised him Canada.

[Scented Nectar]

I don't thrust people who think December is a summer month...

You won't "thrust" (I assume you mean "have sex with") Australians. That's just wrong, you racist! :lol:

[Suet Cardigan]

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style ... 14671.html

images/smilies/icon/confused.gif

[youtube]7eB5AxWraoU[/youtube]

Make up your own jokes about women putting balls in their vaginas.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

WTF you guys? It's me, the Google bot and 10 guests. If this place becomes the A+ forum?

I don't know what I'd do.

Sorry, I was on a date.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

At 4:59 of Becky's talk I saw Dawkins groping his left nipple and smiling. :geek:
Seriously, I don't doubt Dawkins was uncomfortable right from the start with Becky's sleazy jibes at his friend Paula Kirby, much less the way she hijacked the topic to promote herself, then signaled how she was going to not only use his idea of talking about hate mail but actually using it as a base to her career and to attack the atheist movement in general (not that he foresaw that outcome).
Talk about toxic sludge.

Isn't "slag" another word for "toxic sludge"?

[VickyCaramel]

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style ... 14671.html

images/smilies/icon/confused.gif

[youtube]7eB5AxWraoU[/youtube]

Make up your own jokes about women putting balls in their vaginas.

"Don't forget to bully me in the comments". Thats a promising sign.

[feathers]

Australia is very lucky in that we get to pick most of our refugee intake (which is one reason we crack down so hard on irregular maritime arrivals). During the Lebanese civil war, Australia accepted 3 large groups of refugees from Lebanon. The first two were mostly christians and other non-muslim minorities and integrated well with few problems. The last group was largely muslim and caused a huge amount of work for the government, as they wouldn't integrate and caused strife where ever they were placed around Australia. It is, as a result, somewhat unofficial policy to accept non-muslims in preference to muslims if possible.

That's an interesting research case: two groups of people of the same origin/ethnicity, only differing in religion. One plays nice with western society, the other doesn't. The challenge: try to pinpoint what causes this difference. Is it only religious zeal, literalism, or something hidden in their background?

[Matt Cavanaugh]

The short answer is “yes”! Mass was lost when the two black holes collapsed. One of the black holes was 36 times the mass of our sun and the other was 29 times its mass. When they collapsed, the resulting black hole was only 32 solar masses. That means that a mass three times the mass of the sun was lost!

Scientists are busy searching for where the missing mass may have gone.

3_solar_masses.jpg

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[feathers]

The SJWs are gradually losing the cultural war.

I am far less confident of this than you, apparently.

On the positive side, they're no longer hidden; by now even the term "SJW" and their ridiculous jargon (triggers, punching up, intersectional, privilege, safe space, inclusive, ...) have become commonplace. There are still many of these nutters in journalism, but the press has lost much influence with the advent of social media. Read any SJW-slanted column on a newspaper site and it is excoriated in the comments (if enabled).

So there is hope.

[feathers]

I don't thrust people who think December is a summer month...

They've got it all upside down.

[Ape+lust]

Rebecca revels in her coolness while her prime butt snuffler grouses at Joe Chip for not following and defending him.

Being unaware of the Mighty Peez will get you stern words from the Mighty Peez. Watch your asses.

http://imgur.com/mF4ADeG.png

Cornering Peez with an unexpected handjob years ago was probably the best investment Rebecca ever made.

/almost_entirely_baseless_speculation

[feathers]

She's a wretched little shit, directing traffic to her site where she dresses up a crack

I sure hope she keeps her crack dressed up.

[Shatterface]

If Watson had a stroke how would you know which side of her face was sagging?

[feathers]

Lobbying should be illegal. It's nothing more than paid over-representation mixed with bribery. If I were dictator of the world, that nonsense wouldn't be allowed any more.

It's often just one step short of bribery (perhaps free lunches cross this gorge already), but you can't forbid all special interest organisations from trying to get your attention without obstructing free speech.

That said, if I was a politician I'd stay well clear of Saudi lobbies. They can send their request by official letter to my office, to be published at our behest.

[Ape+lust]

Now she's being cheeky.

http://imgur.com/kq7VXZq.jpg

Oh Rebecca, you're such a rascal.

But sorry, no. Giving FtB's horndog a nubber is a better measure and it turns out you are prime junkyard material.

http://imgur.com/Wub7X11.jpg

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Somewhere I read that Mohammed drank piss as some sort of holy ritual. If that is true, then devout muslims might not think of it as desecration, in which case it would not work as an immigration test.

[youtube]xUFQ2ECfPOw[/youtube]

[feathers]

WTF you guys? It's me, the Google bot and 10 guests. If this place becomes the A+ forum?

I don't know what I'd do.

Sorry, I was on a date.

http://www.envisions.co.uk/filestore/ha ... a_mare.jpg

[Ape+lust]

If Watson had a stroke how would you know which side of her face was sagging?

It would take a Surly to know.

http://imgur.com/LLO8fKN.jpg

http://imgur.com/yNPriyR.jpg

[dog puke]

If Watson had a stroke how would you know which side of her face was sagging?

It would take a Surly to know.

http://imgur.com/LLO8fKN.jpg

http://imgur.com/yNPriyR.jpg

[--bill]

Someone posted a link to a Tom Wolfe artikle about a New York cocktail party with the black panthers sometime back. I need it in ref to current events where liberal sociaety is turning their backs on a muslim poet. Will very grateful for a link.

probably :nin: , 'cause I'm pages behind, but:
Radical Chic is the name of the essay.
Published with Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, which is spectacularly great

[Shatterface]

WTF you guys? It's me, the Google bot and 10 guests. If this place becomes the A+ forum?

I don't know what I'd do.

Sorry, I was on a date.

http://www.envisions.co.uk/filestore/ha ... a_mare.jpg

This isn't the Gay Porn Friday I was expecting.

[Shatterface]

I know we take the piss but I really want one of those rhino badges.

[Ape+lust]

HAHAHAHA!!

We need that smilie. Where's the FT?

[feathers]

LOL! Rebecca Watson emoticon!

[Matt Cavanaugh]

I have never seen any Star Wars movie... but I do know that the theme starts with a Perfect 5th.

The Star Wars theme was "borrowed" from a piano piece by Debussy, Bruyères.

[youtube]yTrQk9FrTfs[/youtube]

Starts at 1:34

"If you steal, steal from the best."

Yes - and John Williams stole from many of the best. Half of Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps is in Star Wars. Not too mention Gustav Holst and a legion of others.

I am always amused when people hear Mahler for the first time and say "hey - he sounds like John Williams" :lol:

And Andrew Lloyd Webber completely ripped off Pink Floyd for his overture to Phantom of the Opera. (The rest of the music, his own handiwork, is atonal dogshit.)

[jugheadnaut]

Counter-evidence...

http://i.imgur.com/EF5Jp86.jpg

[Matt Cavanaugh]

WTF you guys? It's me, the Google bot and 10 guests. If this place becomes the A+ forum?

I don't know what I'd do.

Sorry, I was on a date.

http://www.envisions.co.uk/filestore/ha ... a_mare.jpg

You know it, baby!

[Sunder]

Expressing the wish that someone "get well soon" has the same actual effect as praying for them. Most people know this, but do it anyway, as a way to signal to others that they have positive feelings about the ill person (who is almost always a person in good standing within the community) and that they're a nice person because they don't want the ill person to suffer. But using someone else's illness as an opportunity to make yourself look good is, IMO, quite shitty. The other interpretation of "get well soon" is also quite selfish: you are banking on some kind of "just world" in which your "get well soon"s will be returned with practical help if and when you, yourself, become ill.

Fuck all that.

Now who hid the tampons?

I've never been particularly bothered by prayer, except of course when it's offered up in lieu of a real solution. But when there's basically nothing a person can do to help, either because the situation is too dire or, in Dawkins's case, the guy's already guaranteed some excellent medical care, there's no harm in praying/wishing/crossing your fingers.

I agree it's an opportunity to look good for SOME people. But if, say, Krauss or Harris wish Dawkins well, nobody's thinking "Wow, what swell guys." Because nobody's surprised by it. It's only an opportunity really for regular Dawkins-bashers to prove that they've got a little bit of basic human decency, and already we've got some people fucking it up.

[Guestus Aurelius]

Expressing the wish that someone "get well soon" has the same actual effect as praying for them. Most people know this, but do it anyway, as a way to signal to others that they have positive feelings about the ill person (who is almost always a person in good standing within the community) and that they're a nice person because they don't want the ill person to suffer. But using someone else's illness as an opportunity to make yourself look good is, IMO, quite shitty. The other interpretation of "get well soon" is also quite selfish: you are banking on some kind of "just world" in which your "get well soon"s will be returned with practical help if and when you, yourself, become ill.

Fuck all that.

Now who hid the tampons?

Well, yeah, there is some virtue-signaling going on, but I prefer to look at this another way: the equivalence of "sending thoughts" and "sending prayers" exposes the silliness of criticizing people for the doing the latter but not the former. Like, "Those damn religious idiots, sending 'prayers' as if that will actually accomplish anything... Anyway, you're in my thoughts."

Yes, they're hollow gestures, and partially selfish ones, but they're also "nice."

[Shatterface]

Nobody would have thought the worst of Watson if she'd not commented on Dawkins at all. They don't like each other and neither should be expected to comment on the misfortunes of the other.

But using the stroke as an excuse to throw 'bigot' at him and mock his supporters for their 'delicate feefees' is Westbro Baptist/Benson-level cuntishness.

There's definitely something wrong inside her head. It goes much deeper than the usual attention-seeking or spouting of SJW dogma we get from most of the others.

[Ape+lust]

Counter-evidence...

http://i.imgur.com/EF5Jp86.jpg

http://imgur.com/kzlvQvR.jpg

[Kirbmarc]

Expressing the wish that someone "get well soon" has the same actual effect as praying for them. Most people know this, but do it anyway, as a way to signal to others that they have positive feelings about the ill person (who is almost always a person in good standing within the community) and that they're a nice person because they don't want the ill person to suffer. But using someone else's illness as an opportunity to make yourself look good is, IMO, quite shitty. The other interpretation of "get well soon" is also quite selfish: you are banking on some kind of "just world" in which your "get well soon"s will be returned with practical help if and when you, yourself, become ill.

Fuck all that.

Now who hid the tampons?

Well, yeah, there is some virtue-signaling going on, but I prefer to look at this another way: the equivalence of "sending thoughts" and "sending prayers" exposes the silliness of criticizing people for the doing the latter but not the former. Like, "Those damn religious idiots, sending 'prayers' as if that will actually accomplish anything... Anyway, you're in my thoughts."

Yes, they're hollow gestures, and partially selfish ones, but they're also "nice."

I'm not bothered by those gestures when they're from friends, because their real meaning is "we like you". Or if they're from rivals "we respect you". They're pleasant-sounding ways of expressing your pleasant feelings for someone. They do nothing of value except maybe making the person realize that many people like or respect them, but they're also harmless.

Writing those statements for someone you don't really respect is largely meaningless, but it can be an occasion to dial back some animosity and say "nothing personal". Except of course if you use them to reiterate your attacks in a passive-aggressive way, which reveals that what you're doing is only obnoxious virtue signalling, on the lines of "This individual is a bigot who hates women, but I'm way too moral to gloat at his bad luck".

[Eskarina]

If Watson had a stroke how would you know which side of her face was sagging?

It would take a Surly to know.

http://imgur.com/LLO8fKN.jpg

http://imgur.com/yNPriyR.jpg

I'm going to sue all of you for my ruptured lung.

[free thoughtpolice]

Largely agree with you, particularly about the "pathetic responses" - telling Muslims to piss on the Quran or to piss off should have been the minimal one - and the "nonnegotiable". Late and past my bedtime but, if you haven't seen it yet, you might be interested in this Australian TV panel discussion with Maajid Nawaz, particularly the comments by Rebecca Weisser at the 14 & 25 minute marks.

I'm probably going to regret this, but no, I don't think pissing on the Quran is any more a requirement for muslims than it should be for christians. I just want them to be held to the same standards as everyone else.

Somewhere I read that Mohammed drank piss as some sort of holy ritual. If that is true, then devout muslims might not think of it as desecration, in which case it would not work as an immigration test.

As well as revealing the word of Allah, Muhammad was wise in the ways of maintaining health and was aware of the therapeutic benefits of camel piss:
https://islamqa.info/en/83423