The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Vicki:

Patrick's "Restaurant to Avoid" is that, certainly, and it also reads like a textbook case of a hostile work environment (in the legal as well as the obvious vernacular sense).

Michael @ 126:

That doesn't even need to be very alternate: Brooklyn absorbs Queens, and someone sells Staten Island to New Jersey (for one dollar and other good and valuable considerations).

One thing that occurs to me about the mammogram recommendations is that if someone dies of cancer that wasn't found, that's counted as a cancer death. If a false positive leads to unnecessary surgery, and possible complications, people are much less likely to turn up and say "My mother/friend/sister/aunt/neighbor was injured by mammograms." If it goes badly enough, it could be "an incompetent surgeon messed up my sister's shoulder" or even "MRSA killed my friend," but they're not likely to trace the blame back to the mammogram.

I have no idea what fraction of the hospital-caused deaths [infections of various sorts, mostly, along with drug overdoses and bad reactions] are in patients who were in the hospital in the first place because of a false positive on a screening test, but I'd be surprised if it was zero.

I have been having routine screening mammograms; if there's no consensus in a year or so, I will ask my GP if she thinks I need another before I turn 50, and we can discuss the specifics of my health and family history. But I don't think "spare women an unpleasant procedure with a hard-to-determine but nonzero risk" is a conspiracy to kill me.

Shit!

*deep breath*

You know how to reach me but if not, 411 will remind you.

Marilee @ 62:

The Pournelle quote sounds like the classic "How can I have been wrong about someone I knew?!" that is almost de rigueur for articles about "respectable" people being arrested. I'm not sure why the newspapers always include those quotes. The shocked parent, spouse, or child, okay--the random neighbor, well, who is well known to all their neighbors?

It seems especially odd in this case, given that it's almost definitional of actual and would-be spies that their neighbors don't know they're spies. It's not like selling drugs or running numbers, where it can be advantageous to have one's neighbors aware of the business. It's not like a past conviction for car theft, because the cars parked on the street won't know about your record. Being known--or thought--to be a spy makes espionage, and especially that sort of espionage for profit, much more difficult if not impossible.

Lila @903: A friend of mine who was using a 12-step program to stay off drugs said that someone they'd met there said that he realized he was now addicted to meetings (every night), but that they were easier on his health and life than the drugs had been.

Duff @ 495:

I understand the use of those tiny URLs on Twitter, but I much prefer the actual URLs in places like Making Light, which don't have that sort of length restriction. In this case, I had to take a moment to figure "okay, probably safe" and then click through--to find an article I'd read days ago. Even aside from the risks of malware, there's no way for me to know whether I've already been to that site when the URL is obfuscated and no title, author, or source is given. (If that tinyurl is labeled with "so-and-so passes on insider accounts at TheExaminer.com" rather than "a very important insider account," I am much more likely to know whether I've already read it.) Leaving that out saves your time, but either wastes the reader's or, from another angle, reduces the number of people who will read the linked article.

Ginger @ 535:

I can and do eat basic/standard poutine, but sweet potatoes instead of potatoes seem like a variation worth trying. (I feel a little sorry for all the people who are looking at good comfort food and thinking "sin." Folks, calories are a measurement of energy, not of virtue.)

Emily @ 539:

I really hope TPoutine's cooking is better than their web design--an all-flash page that, when I want a menu, requires me to download a PDF? Just give me the PDF, if plain text is beyond you because you believe your menu must be in yellow, orange, and white on dark olive.

On the other hand, that their variations on the basic poutine include the smoked meat version is promising (though I'm more tempted to try the mushroom burger version, or ask for the steak and caramelized onions, but with regular cheese curds instead of blue cheese bits). And I'm not going to be in Canada for a couple of months, so a trip down to the Lower East Side may be in order.

The Raven @344:

I am not a Christian and never have been, but listing specific Catholic, or other Christian, practices that you find problematic doesn't show that Christianity is anti-mystical. For that, at least, I would want specific actions or rules that were opposed to mysticism, preferably large-scale or from higher-ups. (Like it or not, mortification of the flesh does produce mystical experiences in some practitioners; whether those pilgrimages you mention are worthwhile for the pilgrims, I have no way of knowing.)

In fact, without more specifics, this reads rather like dismissing a theorem by claiming that the mathematician who proved it is a drunkard. Even if that were true, it's irrelevant: you're changing the question from "does the Catholic church reject mysticism?" to "have Catholic authorities done bad things?"

David @303:

What I'm getting at is that the would-be black magic is an aggravating factor: if he'd had no previous bad experiences, and hadn't been trying to invoke "the warrior" in verbal ways, but had shut that many people up in that sort of small space, and overheated and dehydrated them, and two had died, it would still likely be criminally negligent homicide.

As it is (and no, I Am Not A Lawyer), it sounds more like depraved indifference to human life, which is a more serious matter. And the attempted magic, while not the main thing, is an aspect of that.

With regard to whether those tweets indicate James Ray is practicing black magic: I think intent is relevant here. If he believes what he claims to, he was trying to use magic in ways that he should reasonably have thought might kill people. If he had, instead, pointed a gun at someone, told them to do X, Y, and Z or he would shoot, that would be criminal even if he knew the gun wasn't loaded. If he pointed what he thought was a loaded gun at people and fired, and the gun proved to be empty, I don't know whether that's legally attempted homicide, but ethically I think it is. Trying to use black magic is wrong even if there is no such thing as black magic.

In this case, it's more like someone who quietly dosed his guests' food with what he (perhaps falsely) believed to be a powerful drug, and then pressured them into other stressful activities. It's an attempt to further stress the people who were going through that expensive weekend he created. Yes, sneaking what he thought was a mind- or personality-altering substance into their drinks may make no material if the dealer cheated him and all they got was distilled water, but the attempt is still unethical. (In case it's not obvious, the unethical thing here is dosing people without their knowledge or consent.) And if it had been a real drug, a court is not going to look kindly on a defense based on either ignorance of the drug's effects, or a claim that he thought it was distilled water. Especially when there's years of evidence, from his own writings and past experience, both that he thought this stuff was real.

There's also evidence, from the 2005 case that Teresa pointed to in this post, that he knew or reasonably should have known that the "spiritual retreats" and sweat lodges as he was running them could be harmful.

Lila @ 160:

For me, trusting people is some combination of a low-level default understanding that most people aren't malicious; awareness of the social and legal structure that constrains some forms of self-centered and, yes, malicious behavior; experience with specific people and contexts; and sometimes an inexplicable feeling that I can trust someone beyond what I have justification for. I put a lot of little things on that first one: if someone on the subway asks to borrow a pen, sure, why not, I have plenty of cheap pens (and have always gotten them back). And I am wary about the last one: if it makes it emotionally easier to do something I have reason to think makes sense, great. But I realize that that reaction could lead me into trouble.

And I'm not sure any of that is practically applicable, except for the degrees of: that I trust someone not to randomly start screaming and attacking people on the street doesn't mean I'm going to lend them my life savings, or even let them sleep on my couch.

Sarah @ 113:

Nyna Furezna, Uryyb Zhqqnu Uryyb Snqqnu, cvpxrq hc naq qebccrq va gur Pguhyuh zlgubf.

[I've been doing better with the sf references than the music ones, for the most part.]

I think "bogonic" was intended as a portmanteau of "bogus" and "moronic", but I Could Be Wrong/

I have nothing creative to offer right now, but I'll make a few guesses, with a comment on one of the sources:

Sarah S. @42: Cengpurgg'f Qvfpjbeyq, nyzbfg nalguvat frg va Naxu-Zbecbex (we know from Gur Avtug Jngpu that Naxu-Zbecbex has an official anthem, and some of the lyrics, which, fittingly, are less exalted than your filk.

Mary Aileen @67: Jvaavr gur Cbbu/gur Uhaqerq-Nper Jbbq (this feels like an easy guess, but for someone else one of the ones I'm staring blankly at might be.

Albatross @76: Yneel Avira, Cebgrpgbe

The impressive thing is how few distinct nominations they receive. On the other hand, I suspect that at least some of those eligible nominators don't realize they're eligible; I doubt it's in the orientation packet for new professors in most history departments.

I wonder: what would the average member of the U.S. Congress, or the British Parliament, make of letters from constituents urging them to nominate specific people for the Peace Prize?

Victoria @87: Awards can be given by one person, by a committee of size such that it can reasonable hold meetings (in person and/or electronically), or by vote of a large group of people.

I don't think reducing the committee to, say, the Speaker of the Norwegian Parliament would improve matters, or that you are proposing this be a one-person show. If it's to be voted on, the nomination process becomes more important, as do defining the electorate and deciding how to run the election. Sure, one person one vote seems simple, but with a large number of nominators, the odds are good that there will be a multi-way tie: say, 10,000 votes, with the top seven vote-getters having 43 votes each. Hold a runoff, or use an open-ended single-transferrable vote system? [Nobel's will limits the number of winners in a category in one year to three.]

If you're cynical about awards in general, that's a different position, and one you wouldn't be alone in. That you are also cynical about institutions suggests this. But I don't think the Nobel Prize organization can legally just fold up its tent and stop giving awards, though "no award" is an option in any field, any year.

Matthew @8:

Manifestly, the process does work in that sense: they are considered authorities on world peace, and the process is known to be somewhat political. How could it not be? This isn't something that can be reduced to quantifiers in a meaningful way. For example, there are countries that could disband their armies entirely and reduce the number of soldiers in the world by far less than in China reduced theirs by a few percent. Should the numbers be absolute or percentage, and if so, percentage of previous standing army or of national population? Do you get a peace prize for building up your army in 2002 and shrinking it again in 2008, while someone else kept theirs small? Do all things called "peace conferences" count equally?

There's some politics even in the science prizes (though much less than Conservapedia would like to think, or like us to think): look up the wording of Einstein's award. Yes, explaining the photoelectric effect was worth a Nobel, but putting the rest of his work under "and other contributions to physics" was to placate someone who didn't like relativity.

CosmicDog @72: Obama needed to say that the U.S. isn't at war with Islam, but he's not the first American president to say so. Obama needed to reiterate what Thomas Jefferson said two centuries ago, what FDR made clear during World War II, what other presidents have probably said, because the Shrub made it so clear that he, at least, was at war with Islam.

If he declined, the wingnuts would use that against him. The only person to decline the Nobel Peace Prize was Le Duc Tho in 1973, officially on the grounds that there was no peace in Vietnam (nobelprize.org phrases this as "conditions in Vietnam" would not permit him). Many people, at the time and since, have said, or speculated, that this was because he refused to share it with Kissinger.

Reasons aside, the wingnuts would seize on the fact that the only person to refuse the peace prize was a Communist.

TNH particle:

With ibuprofen, I try to remember that it's an anti-inflammatory as well as a painkiller. So, if I'm dealing with something of that sort (swelling in particular) I may take ibuprofen even if it doesn't hurt, because it does reduce swelling and promote healing. That's a different kind of precautionary use than the "before exercise" stuff discussed in that article.

On the other hand, just about all meds have tradeoffs. My doctor told me years ago not to take ibuprofen on an empty stomach, for the sake of my kidneys. So, at least a bite of something, or take it with milk, if I need it in the morning.

I've recently been told that NSAIDs tend to increase blood pressure, something to watch out for if a person is trying to keep blood pressure down without other meds. (I don't know by how much, and if I had a real issue there I would do more research.)

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