My kid made these for a film project. I’m too immersed in US politics because my first thought was that they look like Cheesehead Rand Paul and Avatar Hillary Clinton.
Random news items:
“Murdoch Son Is Named to a Top News Corp. Position.” I’m sure it’s totally merit-based.
“National Rivalries Complicate Hunt for Malaysian Jet.” You don’t say.
“Pollution Killed 7 Million People Worldwide in 2012, Report Finds.” Well damn.
What are y’all up to? Please feel free to discuss whatever.
ETA: Here’s a conversational hare; in an earlier thread, we talked about President Jimmy Carter’s media tour to promote his new book. The premise of the book is as follows: “The most serious and unaddressed worldwide challenge is the deprivation and abuse of women and girls.”
I say Carter is right on. What say you?
Mnemosyne
I saw this Easter cartoon on Monday and now the goddamn song keeps going through my head. If you get an earworm from it, don’t blame me.
BGinCHI
It does look like Rand Paul if the latter’s head were made out of frozen piss.
And until evidence to the contrary emerges…..
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Here we go – let’s start putting blame where blame is due…
http://climatenamechange.org/
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne: I used it to knock “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” out of my ear. Thanks!
Anoniminous
Deprivation and abuse of women and girls isn’t unaddressed it’s more like deprivation and abuse are encouraged and/or ignored.
cckids
@Betty Cracker:
Don’t NAME shit like that!! Now you’ve passed it on.
Tho it did knock “Happy” out of my head for the first time in 3 days.
Mandalay
So if you want your kids to get rich in the long term, what are the best possible degree/college combinations for them? Well 9 of the top 10 positions are for degrees in Computer Science, and you can probably guess most of the top ten schools.
Apparently Harvey Mudd College is the creme de la creme.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/03/which-college-and-which-major-will-make-you-richest/359628/
aimai
Cleaning the house so its tidy when we host a school event on Saturday, cooking a chinese chicken and eggplant dish for dinner, waiting for my youngest to get home late tonight from a trip to New York with her grandfather. Like that.
Mike in NC
Which has the higher IQ, Rand Paul or a lump of clay?
Botsplainer
I’ve bought my Kentucky Derby tickets already. We’ll be arriving back from Belize the morning of the Derby, and will simply have left our Derby outfits in the car for the time we’re gone (can’t take em with us – full of scuba gear and the clothes would wrinkle to hell and back, even packed, in the Belize heat). We intend to change clothes at the airport and take a cab directly to the track, as the cab traffic lanes are dedicated and fast moving.
We’re staying here: http://www.coppolaresorts.com/turtleinn
Looking forward to a week of awesome scuba diving, evenings of great dining on fresh seafood, lots of romance, and then a day’s debauch at the Derby on return.
IowaOldLady
Mr IOL is a 69 year old Mechanical Engineer who has always said that the measure of a culture is the way it treats women. I’m proud of Mr IOL.
jheartney
Adios, Bitcoin.
Snip
SiubhanDuinne
Another random news item, and a good one: the Supreme Court has ruled unanimously to uphold the ban on firearms for those convicted of domestic violence.
The Bobs
Carter is right. Patriarchy is one of the worst ideas humans have ever had.
muddy
My dogs are very concerned that the wind is blowing quite hard. They have alerted me to this distressing situation numerous times.
“it’s picking back up you hear it it died down but now it’s loud again and it’s like the train but there’s no train and why does it keep happening repeatedly surely the wind only needs to blow one time i don’t think it ever did like this before what does lastweek mean” etc.
Comrade Mary
You know how the American election campaigns go on for years? Torontonians have no reason to feel smug. We are getting the first of a jillion mayoral debates right now for an election that happens October 27. Yes, Ford will be there.
If you hate yourself as much as I hate myself, you can watch the live stream starting at 5 PM EDT here.
currants
Damn straight he’s right.
Don’t know how much it’s gonna matter in the long run (not so long–in the next 50-100 yrs) what with the freaking mess we’ve made environmentally, though.
Planet’ll still be here, still turning. I think. It’ll take a long time to heal that wound.
Comrade Mary
Luckily, media are on hand to confirm that Ford doesn’t look obviously drunk: “Mayor Rob Ford walks straight to podium”.
ranchandsyrup
27% of household water use is for toilets. It’s the magick number
Amir Khalid
@Mike in NC:
Why do you hate lumps of clay?
chopper
@Mike in NC:
trick question. rand paul is a lump of clay.
muddy
@Mike in NC: IQ tests are a bit passé, I have other standards. As a potter, I am very informed on this particular topic. Clay is useful and beautiful. Rand Paul is neither.
Elizabelle
I say TeenCracker is a damn fine Play-Doh sculptor.
No way those sculptures could be hurt by a little wine foil art in their proximity.
(And it does look like Rand Paul! Finally, with his own hair.)
MikeJ
@jheartney: I don’t see how the ruling hurts bitcoin. All it really does is make the tax rate on them lower since you’re paying cap gains instead of income tax.
Soonergrunt
The premise of the book is as follows: “The most serious and unaddressed worldwide challenge is the deprivation and abuse of women and girls.”
I agree with this.
jl
Late last night I (and, IANAL) decided to delve into the legal niceties of the Hobby Lobby case, in order to be properly informed on the issues of the day. One of the first things I read about it was that Hobby Lobby has paid for employee insurance policies for years that fund stuff that they now say are very seriously and consequentially against their deeply held religious convictions and seriously and consequentially violate their deeply held religious convictions and freedom.
WTF? IANAL, so maybe some lawyer hear can tell me why that fact does not blow their entire case out of court in an instant?
I mean shit, if I tried some garbage like that, in anything civil or criminal, I would be laughed at. And if at all possible, I would probably be forced pay the court costs of my nonsense. But then, I am mere human being, and do not have the full fledged rights of personhood of an august business corporation.
The whole case is a sick joke, IMHO, until some lawyer type here can give me a good reason why not.
WaterGirl
@muddy: I have a lot of empathy for your dogs – after a straight-line wind gust crashed my 7-ft diameter tree on my house last May, I get pretty jumpy when the winds are high.
What works best for us is sound – music, TV, books on tape. I had something going in the kitchen, the bedroom, the room where I was hanging and in the sunroom. Once I did that, humans, dogs and kitties could pick their room and settle down.
Violet
@Betty Cracker: @cckids: Well, at least you guys have songs in English as your earworms. I’ve had “La Marseillaise” in my head for over a week and I don’t even know the words!
Amir Khalid
@Comrade Mary:
I suppose Rob Ford walking straight does count as news.
jl
Huh, I just wrote a comment asking why Hobby Lobby can stand a chance in court if they have been paying for years, for private insurance policies for their employees that paid for stuff they now say violates their religious principles. Why is the whole case not a joke on that basis?
But the comment is in moderation for some reason. I can’t find any naughty words.
Can a lawyer person here help me?
muddy
Never mind the earworms, I just had a noseworm. The smell of Playdoh!
muddy
@Comrade Mary: He’s had enough practice! Oh well, I’m sure the good parts will be on Youtube shortly.
MikeJ
@Violet:
To arms, citizens,
Form your battalions,
Let’s march, let’s march!
Let an impure blood
Water our furrows!
Yatsuno
@Comrade Mary: Please to stop copying us. We need some exceptional still on this continent.
BGinCHI
Jesus Christ what a fucking idiot:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/chris-cillizza-secret-service-obama-competence
Some say….
Fucking journalism, how does it work?
Amir Khalid
@Violet:
Here you go. Were you thinking warlike thoughts, by any chance?
Ash Can
Love it.
muddy
@WaterGirl: 7 foot diameter! Holy shit that’s huge! I just encouraged the dogs because the last gust was loud and made me startle. The windows made cracking sounds, I think the house shifted.
I broke out the kibble ball and put treats as well as kibble inside so it was stinkier. That thing makes a ton of noise rattling about. They were happy to scramble out from under my legs when I suggested this game. I’m sure they will alert me to any gusts that come once they’re finished though. ;-)
gbear
@SiubhanDuinne: Great news. I was going to post about it if someone else didn’t. I like the fact that the guy was challenging the domestic abuse gun-ownership ban so that he could go back to selling guns on the black market.
I think that male figure looks like a cross between Rand Paul and the Hydra.
catclub
“I’m sure it’s totally merit-based.”
Beat me to it. I was going to say “Meritocracy at Work(!) in America. Cherish it.” But I am a Pierce fan.
muddy
@BGinCHI: Maybe he picked it up in the WaPo comments. I was reading the article in there this morning, and lots of idiots were saying it was Obama’s fault. The poor SS can’t respect themselves because they can’t respect him. They were all perfect until That One came and made a mockery of the Constitution by getting elected. Now they have to booze it up in shame. It’s not their fault! etc etc
This explanation seemed to be the main reason given. TPM says Republicans aren’t saying that. Well, except all over the comments to the article in Cilizza’s paper. Oh, give the big boys a few hours to catch up, they’ll get to it shortly.
Amir Khalid
@BGinCHI:
Does Cillizza think Obama is tacitly encouraging his security detail to drink on the job? (Just typing that question felt a bit strange.)
Southern Beale
7 million people? That’s just … what, Los Angeles, Chicago and Nashville wiped off the planet, no big deal, eh?
WaterGirl
@muddy: Holy shit is right! I had no idea what was happening and it sounded like the whole world was crashing around me, as loud as a train, and then thought maybe earthquake because then the house was shaking. Besides crushing part of my house, it also took out power for the entire neighborhood and started a fire in the trees. It was a rough night.
But the next morning, when I could see things in the light of day, I walked to the first window and heard myself saying “holy fuck” out loud. Same thing at every window and door as I made my way around the side and back of the house. It looked like a war zone. Holy fuck.
jheartney
@MikeJ: Read the article. Not only do you have to pay capital gains on every transaction, you can also end up with liabilities greater than the value of the coins themselves.
muddy
@WaterGirl: So glad you were not crushed! Especially frightening to have it happen in the dark.
Ash Can
Tough call between that and the environment. Both issues are, if not completely unaddressed, then certainly underaddressed. I would say that the condition of women and girls is the most immediately serious in that it directly affects fully half of the population right now in the vast majority of places in the world. In the longer term, however, the environment affects, and threatens, everyone on the planet and presents the possibility, and even likelihood, of a slow-motion (at least) mass extinction event.
Sweet dreams.
Cacti
Disagree.
The world’s greatest problem is bulk metadata collection, closely followed by male Balloon-Juice front pagers and commenters being called dudebros.
muddy
@SiubhanDuinne: Well, that’s a relief. Except of course Scalia had to say that “offensive touching” shouldn’t trigger it. So mean to offensive touchers! Have a sense of humor!
Instead of showing where on the doll the bad man hurt me, can I show it on Scalia instead? “Right here (grab). Like this (grope pinch twist). Are you offended yet? How offended? Can I still go on doing it with a gun in my hand?” Hate him.
catclub
@Cacti: Also, broken NCAA brackets.
Belafon
@Mandalay: After my first son ended up at a small college, Simpson College in Indianola, I went looking for small computer science colleges (my middle son maybe). Mudd turned up near the top.
Look at the campus map if you get a chance: The entire school is on one street, with half of the building taken up by dorms.
Betty Cracker
@Ash Can: Excellent points.
muddy
@Amir Khalid: No no, he does not directly tell them to do it. But he shames them so much by being elected president that they have all been driven to drink.
I hate when people act like no bad things ever used to happen, instead of it being bad things used to be swept under the carpet more, and we are only now hearing about it.
Hill Dweller
@Amir Khalid:
Cillizza is a wingnut lapdog. He’ll spin everything into a negative for Dems. I remember him accusing Obama of crying wolf after he accurately described the negative economic effects of the sequester.
kindness
I saw Jimmy Carter on Colbert last night. For a 90 year old he sure handled Colbert deftly. Knew exactly what he was getting into and parried Stephen well. Stephen was a little nicer than I had seen him with others. Kid Gloves for an ex-president and all I guess. Fun interview.
Violet
@Amir Khalid: @MikeJ: Thank you both.
Amir, no I wasn’t thinking warlike thoughts. Watched the France-Ireland Six Nations rugby final and they play the national anthems before the game starts. It was in Paris, so the crowd was enthusiastic to say the least. Somehow it stuck in my head and wouldn’t go away. I’d march around the house, dramatically singing the tune and waving my arms along with the music. Needless to say, the English contingent in the household was less than enthusiastic at this turn of events.
Calouste
@Mandalay:
Probably, but not in the way the author thinks. IMO students from schools near thriving technology scenes get higher lifetime pay because they are local and have a better chance to get hired. The whole thing totally ignores how much influence locality and brand name recognition of the school have on the hiring process rather than the actual quality of the graduate. And of course the numbers of a small computer science school near a thriving technology scene are going to be distorted by the few who found or join a start up that ends up being worth a billion or two.
muddy
@kindness: Right? He just does not seem that old. I loved when he said he was still getting to know his wife of 68 years. So sweet, and 68 years!
kc
@Amir Khalid:
Maybe he thinks that Obama’s lack of a leader-ly aura is causing the agents to disrespect their jobs. Or something.
Mike E
@kindness: Jimmy is 89, but I have fingers crossed that he lives til 100.
My mom was born the same year, April 13.
? Martin
@muddy:
Life was a lot better when the bad shit mysteriously only used to happen to women and black people.
Those were the days…
shelly
Newsmax headlines we’d like to see.
“Issa Slams New IRS Chief: Hand Over Documents
IRS Chief to Issa: Fuck you, Peewee!”
schrodinger's cat
I have to agree with Carter. The treatment of women is one of the biggest problems, if not the biggest problems facing India, that’s for sure. I have blogged about it before here and here.
MomSense
@Botsplainer:
I hope you have a great time! You have worked really hard to get healthy and now it is time to enjoy!
Betty, I think the most serious and unaddressed crises in the world are climate change and the deprivation and abuse of women and girls. They come from the same place, the same culture of exploitation and arrogance.
Amir Khalid
“National Rivalries Complicate Hunt for Malaysian Jet.”
At least they’re not saying it’s Malaysia alone acting like a bunch of secretive buttheads.
WaterGirl
@muddy: Thank you! I think you’re the first person to figure out how much harder it all was in the night. Thanks for that.
shelly
@muddy:
Oy, my dog’s been freaking out for the past two hours. Didn’t realize an outside door had been banging about for awhile. Secured it, so hope she’ll manage to calm down a bit and not try to climb up into the attic.
Violet
@WaterGirl: Last couple of hurricanes I’ve been through have happened at night. Scary because you can hear the crashing and banging and things falling but the electricity goes out and you can’t really open the door (not safe) so you don’t know what’s going on. Have to wait until morning to see what happened. Glad you were okay, even if your house took a hit.
muddy
@? Martin: My parents (born 19teens) would say that they lived in the best period in the country’s history. I pointed out that had they been different people it would not have been so great. Educated straight white people where the woman wanted to stay home. Sober non-abusive husband etc.
No times are the good times.
Cervantes
Here he is in 1978, writing to Rep. Peter Rodino (D), chair of the House Judiciary Committee:
To see what the opponents said — or thereabouts — you could look in today’s newspapers.
IowaOldLady
When scary things like thunder happened in the night, our dog wanted us awake and alert to keep off the thunder boogers.
WaterGirl
@Violet: Thanks. I’m very grateful we were all okay! Kitties were with me in the front of the house, so when everything started crashing, they bolted to the back of the house, but that was where the tree hit! If it had hit a bit differently I could have lost the kitties, and that helped keep everything in perspective over the 6 months it took to get my house repaired.
WaterGirl
@IowaOldLady: There was a very cute New Yorker cartoon from decades ago – the kitty wakes the cat, the cat wakes the dog, the dog wakes the kid, the kid wakes the parents, and dad says “it’s only the wind”.
Suffern ACE
I’m back from floriday. It is cold. Also, I can attest. The squirrels in Orlando are too small.
MazeDancer
With the whole insanity of Mozilla deciding to appoint a new CEO who had donated thousand bucks to Prop 8, have had to spend time auditioning new browsers. Continuing to use FireFox felt like browsing with hate.
And the guy’s non-denial denial that said he was committed to equality policy at Mozilla – handily avoiding anything about equality outside of Mozilla – was such corporate, cold malarky. Especially winced at how he said he wanted to learn and be advised. Learn what? To not hate? If so, how about starting with recanting Prop 8? Or supporting equality in general in US law, not just within the confines of Mozilla health benefits.
Felt like he was saying basically he’ll tow the company line to keep his job. But what’s the company line? Hate all you want? Prop 8 was one long smear campaign of hate. Mozilla is a non-profit that depends on volunteer help, isn’t it? What were they thinking? If Mozilla tolerates hate – excuse me, diversity of opinion that shows their commitment to diversity as they tried to position it – can’t browse with their product.
So far today have tried the Safari that came built in with the Mac, Chrome, and Opera. Not in love with any of them. But hoping will get used to one of them. (Not that Google doesn’t have it’s evil aspects as well. But avoiding Google is possibly impossible.)
Fair Economist
I’ll go with climate change as the worst current problem. But mistreatment/disempowerment/denigration – and worse – of women is certainly a monster problem, and perhaps more tractable at present. Anyway, Carter is just an amazing man. He actually had a pretty successful presidency – #1 in job growth, above average in economic growth, SALT II, Camp David. The right-wing wurltizer has had to work pretty hard to convince many he was “failed” president. Dang dust storm.
muddy
@WaterGirl: I can imagine the darkness better than I think I can imagine a tree of that size! Well, I have seen redwoods while traveling, but grokking a giant tree hitting the house is another. I have a maple tree with a split in it near the house, my tree friend doesn’t want to mess with it until spring. Part of it hangs over where my bed is, but he’s pretty sure it would not fall just in that direction.
Pretty sure! So you see why a tree falling on you in the night would be very vivid to me. When you said you only saw it in the morning, I thought how terrifying to have all that go on and not even be able to assess. You were gone from here for a long time after that too!
schrodinger's cat
WP eated my comment.
Shana
@Violet: Blame it on Casablanca.
ranchandsyrup
@Fair Economist: .02% of scientific papers in 2013 argued that antropogenic climate change does not exist. IRL and on TV the proposition is 50/50. so strange. MIT paper on the subject
Roger Moore
@BGinCHI:
Wow. Just wow:
So he’s wasting no time in starting a new narrative that Secret Service agents getting drunk is all Obama’s fault. I guess he doesn’t realize that modern politics being all about narratives and storylines is a bad thing, and journalists shouldn’t be encouraging it.
Violet
@Shana: I would if I’d seen it recently. Alas, I have not. I blame Les Bleus.
Mike in NC
@schrodinger’s cat: Netflix has a recent documentary called “It’s a Girl”, about the poor treatment of women in China and India. Have not yet watched it. Probably a template for the GOP.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: Quite a few good schools missing from the full list at Payscale.
MomSense
@Violet:
Madonna’s “like a virgin” is the best cure I know of for those stubborn earworms. The downside is that you will be singing Madonna’s “like a virgin” for the next couple of days.
SiubhanDuinne
@Yatsuno:
I am glad to see you. I’ve been, not really worried about you, but concerned after last weekend’s mudslide. Hope it didn’t do damage to anyone you know.
cckids
@muddy:
My cats are doing something similar, except with them, its the begging/scratching at the back door to go out; then when they get out & they feel the wind, they come tearing back in to stare at me accusingly because it is all my fault. Until the next time they feel the need to go out.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
MomSense
@Roger Moore:
I don’t feel comfortable saying how, but I have known a number of Secret Service Agents over the years and let’s just say that getting drunk is a habit among some of them. I have experienced being the target of their drunken affections–not a pleasant experience. I have also heard a lot of juicy stories that would be denied if made public but are completely true. Drunk Secret Service Agents tend to talk about things they should keep quiet.
Cervantes
@ranchandsyrup:
That’s not an “MIT paper,” unless The Bell Curve is an “MIT book.”
Powell (like Murray) is an MIT alumnus. He used to be president of Reed (among other things). Reagan appointed him to the National Science Board; Bush (41) re-appointed him.
My personal opinion: on a scale of 1 to 10, I’d rate Powell’s credibility as a scientist at 8 or 9. (Murray is a solid 1. I guess it’s possible Murray is still a better scientist than that book indicates, but in that case he’s a liar.)
Josie
@MomSense: Yes! If women were in power in more places, it is possible that some solutions to climate change and environmental issues might be found. Money might be spent in that direction rather than for armaments.
Roger Moore
@Calouste:
That’s Caltech, not Cal Tech, damn it! And I suspect that the issue is as much a matter of tech schools having fewer students in low-earning majors like liberal arts, education, etc. as it is one of computer science being especially valuable.
If I were going to critique their study on any basis beyond their incorrect orthography for my alma mater and their complete lack of error bars, it would be the inherent futility of basing any decision on something like 20 year earning potential. The only way of knowing 20 year earning potential accurately is to look at people who graduated 20 years ago, which tells you a lot about what would have been a good major to pick back then but which may not be such a reliable guide to what to do today. The best field to be in is one that’s going to get big and start pulling in lots of money soon, not one that got huge over the past generation.
ranchandsyrup
@Cervantes: Fair enough and thanks for the info. Should have just linked to the cite without a description but I got all fancy with teh HTML.
Violet
@MomSense: My go-to earworm clearer is always “Sunglasses at Night” by Corey Hart. I tried it this time but for some reason it didn’t work. I think it was all the marching around the kitchen I was doing while singing La Marseillaise..
Roger Moore
@Cervantes:
I haven’t seen a lot of predictions of unisex bathrooms, which ISTR were one of the made up bugaboos about the ERA.
WaterGirl
@Yatsuno: I have not heard a single thing about how your move went and how your job is going. Can you point me to a thread that I somehow missed, or let us know how it’s going?
Cervantes
@ranchandsyrup: Not a problem. Just clarifying things.
Thank you for mentioning Powell’s analysis here.
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore:
And there are always weird career arcs. I know a music major who spent a year after college traveling and studying indigenous music in and around Australia on a grant, then went to Microsoft and made a pile in the dot.com boom years, and has finally returned to our alma mater as dean of the music conservatory. I say major in what interests and excites you and worry about the rest later.
SiubhanDuinne
@muddy: That is a great idea. Not even a Scalia Doll, but just Scalia hisownself.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: Why make someone touch Scalia? Can the unlucky person at least wear gloves?
MomSense
@Violet:
OH MY GOODNESS! That is too funny. You are really committed to that earworm! I only know part of it.
Allons enfant de la Patrie, le jour de gloire est arrive
“Let’s go children of the homeland, our day of glory has arrived.” It’s a dramatic song so marching is totally the way to go!
ranchandsyrup
@Cervantes: I appreciate the information. It’s why I hang out here. I iz learning. Thanks for yr patience.
SiubhanDuinne
@kindness:
According to his grandson Jason Carter (GA state senator who’s running for Governor), Jimmy Carter’s very first tweet ever (or text, I forget which) was to ask Jason if he (Jason) had caught him (Jimmy) on Colbert. The screen grab showed up on Jason’s FB a little while ago. I thought it was sweet.
muddy
@SiubhanDuinne: Oh, of course Scalie his ownself. That went without saying!
ETA: I typoed, but then realized he was scaly. I guess that’s a double typo.
SiubhanDuinne
@kindness:
I was about to say, He’s not 90!, and then I checked his birthdate and realized that he will, indeed, turn 90 in a little over 6 months.
His energy, and Rosalynn’s, put most of us to shame. Wonderful people.
muddy
@Omnes Omnibus: I am willing to offer myself for this cause. I have a robust immune system. I think he should really think about what the line between ok and not ok is. He can think about that afterwards of course. That’s how these things go, Scaly!
Drunken hausfrau
Jimmy Carter, national treasure. Unlike faux saint Ronaldus Reaganus, Jimmy has actually done the work of several saints.
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m not sure I would count on a weird career arc. If they happen often enough to be worth caring about, they ought to figure in to the overall earnings the researchers are using to judge the relative value of majors. That said, plenty of my classmates- and I was class of ’94, so they should be some of the people included in the study- moved into computers from whatever field they had been in because that’s where the action was.
shelly
And I’ve heard/read about the practice in some parts of China and India of aborting female fetuses after an ultra sound. And now in those same areas, they find a shortage of marriagable girls for all those sons. Didn’t this ever occur to anyone that this would be the inevitable outcome?
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
How about using a pointy stick?
Roger Moore
@Roger Moore:
What on earth put this post into moderation?
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: I have been wondering if that’s the grandson who was instrumental in getting the 47% tape out there. Do you happen to know?
Violet
@shelly: When your history and tradition and culture are set up in such a way that sons are valued and daughters are not, you do what needs to be done to have a son. I’ve heard of situations where the wife/mother was beaten if she didn’t have a son so it’s self-preservation in some situations. In addition, culture often dictates that the son has to care for his elderly parents, while the daughter has to care for her husband’s parents, so the parents are looking out for their future well-being as well.
Roger Moore
@shelly:
It sounds like a classic collective action problem. Individual parents prefer boys and (theoretically) get some benefit from having one rather than a girl, but society as a whole goes to hell when everyone gets their wishes.
SiubhanDuinne
@Violet:
My ear worms are almost always something classical. I used to complain to my conductor-composer father about it (long before I even knew the term “earworm”), and he always said “Think of some other, completely unrelated tune.” So I did, would start humming it, and slide right back into the old earworm. When I complained to him, he said, “Well, duh (paraphrasing), you have to change key signatures.”
And he was right. We almost always stick to the same key, and therein lies peril.
Violet
@SiubhanDuinne: Hmmm…interesting theory. I’ll give that a try next time! Now, dammit, the stupid La Marseillaise is back in my head!
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yuck, I would hope so!
SiubhanDuinne
@muddy:
What does this “typo” really mean, Dr. Freud?
muddy
Here’s a nice change of pace, welcome to my little world.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
Different grandson, I believe. I want to say James, but would have to do some Carter-family-treeing.
Although I’m sure Jason was all fine with it.
Mike in NC
I momentarily forgot who Chris Cillizza’s idiot wingman at the Washington Post was, so I Googled “Dick Whisperer” and was reminded it was Dana Milbank. Morans both.
RSA
@jl:
I heard the same thing, and I was also stunned. I’m still getting my head around the idea that a corporation can have religious beliefs as well, even a tightly held S-corporation, whatever difference that makes.
another Holocene human
@jheartney: hahahaha, stcg tax on your winnings, that is rich
SiubhanDuinne
@muddy:
Mesmerizing. Thank you.
I love stuff like that.
muddy
@SiubhanDuinne: If you visit here you can play too!
SiubhanDuinne
@muddy:
I would love to play in the mud! But I’ve never done it before, you will have to teach me!
Edit: Anyhow, for real, I don’t think I knew before this thread that you were a potter, and was already thinking “okay, now I HAVE to stay with Muddy for a couple of days this summer!”
muddy
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s so fun it’s scarcely work.
I just got to the end of that video, I had paused it while I fixed supper. Amazing at the very end how it looks like the concentric circles are going in different directions!
Cervantes
@Violet:
Er … were there tumbrels? Did you do anything you’ve now come to regret?
muddy
@SiubhanDuinne: Oh hell yeah! That’d be sweet!
I make my own glazes as well. Not that this is as fun, unless one likes to imagine oneself Tony Montana with big piles of powder.
Cervantes
@WaterGirl:
No. Are you old enough to remember Chip Carter? The 47% grandson is Chip’s son, James IV.
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: I wouldn’t say that one should count on the weird career arc. I just don’t think that one should say that if you want to be successful major in X. Like you said, it doesn’t always work out that way.
Violet
@Cervantes: Heh. Didn’t see any tumbrels. As I said above, I blame rugby and Les Bleus.
Cervantes
@Roger Moore:
Well, not entirely made up.
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet:
Works for me.
Violet
@Omnes Omnibus: Not a rugby fan or not a fan of the French?
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet: I like rugby and the French. I especially like French rugby. I just thought it sounded like a reasonable excuse for anything from humming La Marseillaise to being found swimming, drunk, in a Paris fountain with a naked person of the opposite sex.
WaterGirl
@Cervantes: I’m sure I’m old enough; I just don’t remember any details about the family, except maybe the black sheep brother. :-)
Thanks!
Violet
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ll remember that the next time I’m in Paris. “I blame Les Bleus!”
The English contingent in my household has not appreciated me marching around singing La Marseillaise, as you can imagine. All the more fun.
Cervantes
@Violet:
I wonder how many times the composer said that.
He was a monarchist. The rebels took his marching song — and threw him into prison.
Cervantes
@WaterGirl: Well, you certainly don’t look old enough.
Cervantes
@Violet:
I love that song.
I also adore Haydn’s lovely melody that became known as “Deutschland Über Alles” — but I do not generally go around singing the song, and especially not while marching!
jake the snake
The usual suspects on the right are up-in-arms because the White Barack Obama said it was Christian’s fault or something.
Roger Moore
@Cervantes:
We had something like that at Caltech, at least in the South House complex. The whole place had been set up when the campus was men only, so there wasn’t a need to provide separate bathrooms when the on-campus housing was built, and it was impractical to try having separate bathrooms when the school became coed. The bathrooms had two toilet stalls and the showers had two showers. We managed to make the system work by relying on common courtesy: you knocked before entering and went away for a while if the occupant told you it wasn’t available. ISTR that the most recent round of renovations was more thorough and converted all the bathrooms into single units so this approach is no longer necessary.
FWIW, I strongly suspect that attempts to do something similar in society at large would wind up in about the same place. People would freak out about unisex bathrooms for a while, and there would be some unpleasant incidents that were really the result of the assholes involved and might happen today but would be blamed on unisex bathrooms. After a while, people would adapt and the biggest complaints would center around the same kinds of things that make sharing a bathroom at home so much fun: who hogs the facilities, has bad aim, leaves the seat up, etc.
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: All of our dorms were coed by floor. It tended to solve the problem as well.
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
Does this really need an excuse? It seems to me that the justification is rather obvious.
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: Good point. I’ll substitute “hanging upside down and naked from a chandelier” – drunk goes without saying in this hypothetical.
muddy
@Roger Moore: The being drunk part is key too. Plausible deniability.
SiubhanDuinne
@muddy:
I don’t get stoned any more, but that video would have been awesome if I had been lit up! Like, heavy, man.
SiubhanDuinne
@Cervantes:
Yes, thanks, that’s the one!
Cervantes
@SiubhanDuinne:
Good for you. In the Bible it was usually fatal.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cervantes: But the Bard of Hibbing says everyone must get stoned.
Cervantes
There was a forum in Boston yesterday where our gubernatorial candidates discussed LGBTQ issues. Here’s what happened:
OK, that’s not all that happened.
beckya57
I hate to disagree with Jimmy Carter, who has been an exemplary ex-president. He’s of course right that abuse and exploitation of girls and women is a huge problem; anyone who’s read Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s work is familiar with that. However, on the list of world problems global climate change trumps everything else, since it poses a major threat to civilization and even survival for many people. Nothing else even comes close. It boggles my mind that we aren’t seeing this as an emergency requiring immediate and forceful action. The Kochs and their ilk must not give a damn about what kind of world their kids will have to inhabit.
beckya57
I do have to add that even though I don’t agree with Carter’s statement, I think he’s an awesome human being. Here’s a guy who is widely considered a failed president, who regularly gets (unfairly in my view) held up as an example of how not to be a president, especially by wingnuts who (absurdly and irrationally) revere his successor. That’s humiliation on a world stage, something none of the rest of us will ever have to deal with. And yet he has gone on with his life, and is still doing good works at age almost 90. What an inspiring example he is.
David Koch
@beckya57:
you couldn’t be more myopic, the biggest problem facing the world today is obviously telephone metadata.
Jebediah, RBG
I think it looks like a Lemongrab Rand Paul.