I LOVE that coloring book.
http://www.goingrouge.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/huntress1.gif
"Which creature did Sarah Palin NOT kill and skin in 2008?
a) Caribou
b) Salmon
c) Moose
d) John McCain"
Genius!
I meant to finish revising a novel before November rolled around, but I kept getting distracted and doing other things instead, so I'm only half-way through revising it. Procrastination leads to procrastination leads to procrastination leads to cake. I may start writing a new novel late into the month and just try to push for 50k anyways.
@81: I love it when they put the dealies and the whatsits in the same place. When I ask for a dealie and get led to the whatsits and then need to get new directions to the dealies because I accidentally described a whatsit, it's such a pain.
Being male, I tend toward visibility, but I recall something similar happening with my step-mother. It was particularly amusing because she didn't care enough about the shopping trip to actually get the help she was seeking, but she's not the sort to stand silently while ignored.
(Note that this was a commission-based store, which is why the following makes sense.)
After walking a circuit of the store, she stopped at the entrance and yelled, as loud as she could, "The fact that I parked my FIFTY-THOUSAND-dollar car out front MIGHT have been a hint that I have enough money to BUY something, you LOSERS!" She then walked out to the stares of quite a few surprised salesfolk. I must say, it's on my list of funny moments to have witnessed.
Xopher @46: Actually I'd like to lock our American extreme right in a huge arena with all the Taliban, and all the guns and ammo they can possibly want, and then...never unlock the doors at all. Seal the whole place with concrete. Bwahahah.
What makes you think that, if locked in together, the Taliban and the radical right wouldn't get along just fine, then coordinate an escape and try to reassert their God-given world dominance?
Nobel peace prize? Well, he's no Henry Kissinger, that's for sure.
Even if it involves neatly bio-engineered executive-eating zombies?
First they came for the executive-brains, and I didn't speak up, because I'm not an executive. Then they came for the manager-brains, and I didn't speak up, because I'm not a manager. Then they came for the--- brains... brainnnns...
Sylvia @5: Can we actually say that there is less art, less innovation, less creativity coming from the U.S. compared to other Western European countries?
This can be restricting creativity and innovation without placing US innovation and creativity behind that in Wester European countries. There are many other factors at work independent of this.
Also, I think this fits into the category of things that has a delayed effect on innovation, much like education does. The first decade of such a severe problem doesn't have a noticeable effect because innovation is one of those things that is kinda "in the pipeline" well ahead of actual results. Unless something directly affects the completion of innovative efforts, rather than their introduction, the effects are not felt for some time.
The difference a little paper color can make is amazing. I loaded up the stuff from this year and the stuff from last year, and my first thought was that the stuff on the yellowish paper looked "real". The off-white color immediately made it feel more authentic, for lack of a better word.
It was like the difference between reading a proper book, with the thin, rough paper that flips easily through the fingers and reading a book that was printed on the heavy, white paper my laserjet spits out. Logic may say it is acceptable, but I know that it unbalances the humors in my body.
1) 7.6%
2) 7.6% - Guess who can't afford healthcare in the US right now.
I wonder if vodka would help.
Either it helps the cooking, or it helps the cook, but it never fails to help.
Larry @44: He used his powers of office to have an affair. That is a huge abuse of power. Also, he can't just vanish because he feels like it.
I have never really agreed with the idea that using official powers to carry on an affair is such a big deal. I mean, if he was flying down there to sleep with his wife, it wouldn't be a huge deal, and I don't care who he sleeps with, so why should I care who he flies down to sleep with? I mean, he may have been abusing his position, but the affair is only tangentially involved in that.
As someone who knows no Latin, I want to second the thought that "Non fanatici, sed lectores" just sits better in the ear and before the eye than the other versions so far brought forth.
The other American woman in the village and I often feel that our failures in Dutch language and manners reflect badly on every one of the 307 million people in the United States. Individually. Sorry about that.
Well, now I know who to blame. Gah!
-
On a more serious note, an anecdote on the topic:
I was not a CS student, but I took several courses and knew a great many CS students. There were maybe a half-dozen women in the entirety of the CS department, or at least in the higher-level classes. Of the women I ran into, they behaved in two ways:
A few were really good at what they did. These women did everything themselves and everyone knew they was excellent and respected them.
All the others got by because they asked guys for help. They were flirtatious, always leaning on some guy's shoulder in the computer lab to watch what he did, always making coy comments. They weren't less competent that many of the men, or perhaps even sufficient in numbers to make the proportion of incompetence worse for women than for men. They were very obvious.
The other women blended in because they did their own thing, just as the competent guys did. The only women anyone really noticed were the incompetent ones because they made a point of being notices; it was how they passed the classes. By contrast, the incompetent men went out of their way to not be noticed when they didn't know what they were doing, always asking for help in hushed tones and shadowed corners.
The end result of this was women appearing incompetent, which is very unfortunate.
@53 & most thereafter:
From what I've seen, the measure should be less how much a child is pushed in a particular field than just how hard the are pushed overall. It is natural to, for some portion of the time while raising a child, to push the child to learn and excel and etcetera, often despite the child simply wanting to play. If the child has a clear aptitude, there's no reason this time shouldn't be spent largely on this aptitude rather than in a more generalized direction. The issue is when the pushing of a child to excel begins to really take up more significant periods of time.
Obviously, how much time is enough is very hard to say, but there's definitely risk involved in not pushing someone at all.
Mez @38: Do others find it's easier to hear words on cover versions than the original?
Yes, but I think it's just hearing two-or-more different versions, regardless of who did which. I always have trouble understanding several words from each version, but different words. I think I subconsciously fill in the blanks when I hear a new version, sorta merging the two together.
Erik Nelson @56: Are we attributing to malice what can be accounted for by stupidity here?
Yes.
Seriously, he was a human acting as humans often do, not with every move dictated by careful calculation but as the lusts of his form so drove him.
albatross @43:
It shouldn't amuse me so, but I always laugh when Bin Laden takes credit for something (which he may have actually instigated) and it's explained as Al-Qaeda needing to stay relevant. I start thinking of the terrorists like a bunch of Hollywood stars, trying to drum up press for their latest movies.
What Michael I @35 and Peter Erwin @33 said. Violence works for many things, it just doesn't provoke political change from a minority position, which is what terrorism is for. If you have a majority and want violence, you use war, not terrorism.
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|---|---|
| 2009 | 46 |
| 2008 | 9 |
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