Andy: That was one of the most annoying things for me about living in Canada - the people there seemed to have no concept of unsweetened iced tea. You got presweetened crud or nothing.
I used to start lively discussions with my friends in Vancouver when I ordered a cup of regular orange pekoe, poured it into a cup of ice, and then added sugar. They seemed to think that gave me the same result as the crap coming out of the soda fountain.
I've been meaning to call my rep (David Wu) about this for a couple of days now. I've been working on his campaign quite a bit (his paid staffers tell me I'm one of their superstars), so I'm hoping to get some attention from his office. He's a staunch liberal and a generally good guy (sad day when I have to come up with reasons why he'd be _against_ torture) so hopefully he'll be on board. I'll call tomorrow morning - no more procrastinating.
On blindly following regulations despite not believing in them:
How many cops enforce laws they disagree with? (Hell, it's a requirement of the job that they do so)
How many jurors convict on laws they think are unjust? (Again, they're frequently told it's a requirement that they do so, although it is patently not)
How many people obey laws they don't agree with, or oppose (f'r example) recreational drug use, simply on the grounds that "it's illegal"? (I've run into many of these, who don't see anything morally or socially wrong with smoking a joint, but still think it's wrong to do it simply because of the illegality of it)
Most people will obey even utterly ridiculous laws simply because they exist, and because they have some sort of knee-jerk trust in/obedience to authority that compels them to accept all sorts of things they would never go for under normal circumstances.
Nicole, it might be that "Pink is the new black" is a Josie and the Pussycats reference. If they start saying "Orange is the new pink", you'll know it for sure ;)
On long-distance moves for bibliophiles (I know this isn't one, but still): USPS Media Mail is your friend. I shipped a couple of dozen *big* boxes of books several thousand miles for around a hundred bucks, after the moving company quoted me two prices (with and without my library) and the second was almost a thousand dollars more than the first. That was after the incredibly painful 50% reduction in bookage around the house. My new postal carrier hated me at first, but he got over it.
Even better, the books actually got there before the rest of our stuff did, so even though we were sleeping on the floor the first couple of weeks, we had plenty to read.
It looks as though Bustamante's case was consolidated with several other cases, bounced back and forth between state and federal court for a while, and then got settled for $147M.
Nancy: (sort of) another example is Weber's trilogy that starts with Mutineer's Moon. Only we are the high-tech aliens in those books - or rather, their descendants, with some of the original aliens still around and messing with our politics/goverments.
Un.Be.Lie.Va.Ble. I want the rest, dammit. And I'm especially glad I spent those years in Canada so that I can stumble through the French bits, even if I do have to not-so-subvocalize it.
Ayse: absolutely! Whether it's as a job skill or just to satisfy my random, frequent and voracious desires for information about a given topic, knowing how to find the knowledge I want and what to do with it once I've found it has paid for my degree in satisfaction over and over. (Of course, the Internet has been invaluable in this regard, too - in our house, it's referred to as 'Ortho-Gro for your brain'. I no longer know what I would do if I didn't constantly have this giant repository of information at my fingertips.)
And while I may not use my degree in my work, I definitely use my education. I finished most of a minor in CompSci while getting my degree. When I started taking CS classes, the professors told us that UBC's program wasn't much like your average churn-out-the-coders CS program - they wouldn't teach us Java, or the MSFC, or any number of things that would be considered 'job-skills' for programmers. Instead, they threw new languages at us constantly. Two or three a term at first, then two or three per course. I ended up having to learn at least twelve useless languages, even studying for an incomplete minor.
Only one of the languages I learned in university has been useful in my work as a programmer (although actually, that one - SQL - has been indispensable). But - as advertised by my profs in CS 120 and 121 - I can learn new programming languages in a matter of days or even sometimes hours, given a decent introductory book and a language reference. And that has been a hell of a lot more useful to me than simply knowing Java would have been.
Intelligent & sophisticated? Only if you were, like the Bush admin, desperate to believe in Chalabi. I remember reading months ago at either Healing Iraq or Baghdad Burning that it was common knowledge among Iraqis that Chalabi was in Iran's pocket.
Even more bizarrely, Pentagon cozies like Richard Perle and Michael Rubin are all over the place singing paeans to Chalabi's innocence, and suggesting that it's all some sort of CIA operation. Meanwhile the State Dept., CIA and DIA all confirm his guilt, and Bush himself supposedly ordered or approved the raid (but Scott McClellan claims the US had nothing to do with it at all, that it was an "Iraqi-led investigation, and an Iraqi-led raid", despite the fact that all articles covering said raid have clearly said it was done by US soldiers and the fact that the IGC has condemned the raid). What are we supposed to believe?
Here are the two scenarios as I see them: Honest and well-meaning but gullible, the Bush administration was duped by an Iranian agent - who became friends with high administration officials up to and including the Vice President of the United States - into financing his lifestyle and vendettas and, indeed, into invading, conquering and occupying a sovereign nation.
Or, dishonest and ill-meaning, the Bush administration cynically used said Iranian agent to fuel their drive to invade, conquer and occupy a sovereign nation under false pretenses, and are now turning on him in an attempt to defuse the inevitable scandal when his Iranian connections were discovered.
There's yet a third scenario I've heard floated where this entire series of events is a charade to get street cred for Chalabi as an Iraqi leader, but I discount that rather steeply, because I can't see being revealed as an Iranian spy as a good way to win the trust and respect of Iraqis.
Either of the first two scenarios frightens the bejesus out of me, and at this point I don't know which I believe more - I suspect the truth is somewhere in between. But I've been frightened almost since the day Bush was inagurated, so that's nothing new. And the question that no one seems to want to ask or answer: where was Chalabi getting the classified information, and why?
rams: According to IMDb, Skip Hinnant was Fargo North, Decoder.
Oh, the joys of remembered juvie books. Sleator and L'Engle were two of my favorite authors in elementary school. Anyone read Caroline B. Cooney? The Fog, The Snow, and The Fire scared me out of a year's growth in 7th grade. I made my mother swear solemn oaths that she would always believe me if I told her someone was doing something evil, even if it seemed impossible.
Right now I can't get enough Diane Duane and Tamora Pierce, even if I am a little sheepish to be shopping in the 'tweener' section of the bookstore. I loved So You Want To Be A Wizard and the Song of The Lioness quartet when I was younger, so imagine my joy when I discovered that both authors are still turning out absolutely fantastic books.
Stefan: my parents' foxhound does that, too. I don't know why they do it, but I don't think it's a sign that the warhead is armed or anything. Considering dogs tend to sneeze when they get excited, maybe she's got that about-to-sneeze tickle in her nose?
BS in English Literature. Currently working as a freelance web programmer and small businesscritter.
Tina: I don't think enjoying proofreading is all that strange. Sitting down with a pile of paper and a red pen makes me pretty happy, too :P My dad used to have me proof his reports for work when I was in middle school.
It makes me dizzy and nauseous every time I look at those pictures - and I'm not a weak-kneed Nelly, either. It makes me *physically* ill - not so much the torture itself, but the smiles on the soldier's faces! Those awful, happy, aren't-we-great GRINS! Sick,sick,sick - I feel dirty for my country. I feel as though I ought to go to Baghdad and apologize to every person I meet - I'm sorry, I was against the war, but clearly I didn't do enough to stop it, and now look what we've done.
And the military says, "They weren't trained in the Geneva Conventions", and gives them *reprimands*? They need to go to prison, and be dishonorably discharged. Whoever ordered it needs the same. Anyone who looked the other way or was willfully unaware needs to be discharged. Examples need to be made of these people. Not to "win hearts and minds" - it's time to admit that that's all over, there's nothing that can be done. We have become Saddam in this. But the most stringent punishments need to be meted out because there is *no* place for this behavior anywhere.
Xopher: My mother always told me a blivet was 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag.
Of course, she also told me that a punk is someone who sniffs girls bicycle seats.
Speaking as a web programmer, I believe whoozis is, in fact, the technical term for thingus.
Share the Bush joke, please!
Soap? To me, cilantro tastes like armpits. Dill sounds good, though.
Liver I haven't had since I was about 6, when my mother had a good long think about what your liver does, and stopped serving it. I never got up the gumption to try it myself as an adult.
I believe that any deity that would demand my worship is not worthy of it, because I cannot conceive of worshipping a being even less perfect than myself (and I am, of course, inconceivably flawed).
I believe that any deity that would be capable of Creation would be inadmissable of anthropomorphism, and beyond my ability to understand. For that reason I believe that we are on our own in this life, because I cannot conceive of a way in which we could possibly know what a Creative deity (or even a lesser, animistic one) would want of us, or how we can validate any claims of such knowledge by others.
I believe, nonetheless, that there is Something in the universe that loves me, and wants me to be happy in any way I can, so long as I am trying not to hurt anyone else.
Great Easter thread, even for us non-Christian types, I have to agree ;)
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