discoveries from the internets and some stuff I wrote too
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recent quotes i like
"Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words." - ? | | | | | | |
"If there is anything I have learned from liberals and conservatives, it's that you can have great answers and still be mean... and that just as important as being right is being nice. " - shane claiborne | | | | | | |
"If Liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." --George Orwell ||||||
"On Facebook, no one can hear you scream." - I dont know ||||||
"The reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favor; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it." - Machiavelli ||||||
Chest of Drawers
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This chest of drawers is to replace the cheap stand (with no storage) that
was previously holding up our parrot's travel cage. She only lives with us
a few...
An important message from Consumer Reports
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This is our last post on Consumerist.com. We’re deeply proud of all the
work we’ve done on behalf of consumers, from exposing shady practices by
secretive ...
It Is Accomplished
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As Gandhi never quite said, First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you.
Then they attack you. Then you win. I remember one of the first TV debates
I had...
My Milk Toof Travel Update
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*Dear International readers from Southeast France!*
ickle, Lardee & myself will be traveling around the southeast of France
area from 06/02-06/20. If anyo...
Saint Francis of Assisi
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… everyone who follows Christ receives true peace, the peace that Christ
alone can give, a peace which the world cannot give. Many people, when they
think ...
X-Factor Auditions, Part Two: The registration...
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Kind of creepy to be walking around White Plains at 4:30 in the morning. No
lights on, no cars, no people. I felt like I was in a zombie movie. And,
really...
Kitty Lambert and her longtime partner Cheryl attempted to apply for a marriage license yesterday in Buffalo, New York. When she was denied, she turned to the crowd:
"With news cameras rolling, Kitty then turned to the crowd and asked for any male who would be willing to get married to her. A gay man named Ed stepped forward and volunteered. They briefly exchanged information and presented the appropriate documents along with $40. City staff verified the information, and proceeded to give them a marriage license. Kitty’s point in approaching the City Clerk for a marriage license is that there is no religious basis for marriage, and it serves only as a legally binding contract in our society. Instead of being offered the ability to receive a license with her long-term partner, she was able to secure a license with a virtual stranger, strictly based on their gender."
In fact, a great deal of empirical evidence argues that, if anything, we are in the midst of a social and cultural re-norming of some significance. For example, on issues of particular concern to Dobson—abortion and divorce—we have made great strides. The number of abortions performed annually in the United States has dropped to a level not seen since [Roe v. Wade]. The divorce rate, meanwhile, is now at its lowest level in decades.
There is more good news.
Since the high-water mark of 1994, the national welfare caseload has declined by around 60 percent. Teen drug use has declined significantly since the 1990s; so has the birth rate for teenagers aged 15 to 19. The number of high-school students who have reported ever having sexual intercourse has dropped as well. Teen use of alcohol and binge drinking have also fallen sharply. (For more, see here.)
Dolly Freed is my hero. In 1978, at the age of 18, she wrote this smart, funny, and frank manifesto called Possum Living: How to Live Well Without a Job and With (Almost) No Money. In it, she explains how she and her dad (whom she refers to throughout the book as “the Old Fool”) lived on about $700 a year and had a jolly old time not having to answer to the Man. And it’s not like they were hippies or hillbillies either—as Dolly writes in her intro:
“Why is it that people assume one must be a hippie, or live in some dreary wilderness, or be a folksy, hard-working, back-to-nature soybean-and-yogurt freak in order to largely bypass the money economy? My father and I have a house on a half-acre lot 40 miles north of Philadelphia, PA (hardly a pioneer homestead), maintain a middle-class facade, and live well without a job or regular income—and without working hard, either.”
* Facial Attitude. Is the person smiling? Staring straight ahead? Doing that flirty lip-pursing thing? * Photo Context. Is there alcohol? Is there a pet? Is the photo outdoors? Is it in a bedroom? * Skin. How much skin is the person showing? How much face? How much breasts? How much ripped abs?
"Prehistoric life was not short. This is a blessed scientific lie.
We explain this in much more detail in the book, but here's the misunderstanding in a nutshell.
* There was high infant mortality in prehistory. (How this compares to infant mortality in Medeival Europe or modern India and China is an interesting question we look at in the book, but no space for it here.) * There are technical difficulties in distinguishing age of death beyond the early 30s, when one's last teeth are fully erupted from the jaw bone. * These two factors combined with sloppy thinking to create the wide-spread "fact" that "if you made it to 30 or so, you had done well."
"Hollywood has never been afraid to sacrifice realism for the sake of an entertaining story. And since pretty much every movie or TV show features the police in some way, we as an audience get fed a lot of total horseshit about how the law works and how cops operate in the USA.
But as most of us are on the outside of the judicial system (for the moment) we usually don't even realize that what we're being told is incorrect. So we just accept things like..."
In about two months, a YouTube video from Uruguay got over 5 million views.
And a $30 million contract for producer Fede Alvarez.
Panic Attack! (Ataque de Pánico!) only cost $300 to make (as CNN points out, not counting time and equipment).
According to the BBC, the project be directed by Sam Raimi (Spiderman):
The movie Mr. Alvarez has been asked to produce is a sci-fi film to be shot in Uruguay and Argentina. He says he intends to start from scratch and develop a new story for the project.
"If some director from some country can achieve this just uploading a video to YouTube, it obviously means that anyone could do it," he added.
"Let me hold you in my arms. Feel me squeeze the living fucking breath out of your bastard body. Bliss. Lovely."
"Skipping to work makes everything better."
"I haven't put on weight. Your eyes are fat."
"I'd rather peel off my skin and bathe my weeping raw flesh in a bath of vinegar than spend any time with you. But that's just my opinion. Don't take it personally."
"Elephant trunks should be used for elephant things only. Nothing else."
"Lentils are evil. Pure fucking oozing evil. Take them away from me."
"My vision of hell is a lentil casserole."
"By the way, washing in rose water doesn't stop you smelling like a piece of shit."
"Avocados? You can shove them up your ass as well."
"Be happy happy happy happy." "Now fuck off and let me bask in the glory of being me."
Wife's note: Wow. This was a goldmine of a night. Eleven entries, a new record!
