If thou gazest long into the Pit, the Pit will also gaze into thee

Mykeru wrote:Meanwhile:

LiveLeak.com Armed robber terrorizes passengers aboard Seattle bus.png

Perp pulls gun, guy grabs gun, other guys tackle perp, women run away, except one who remains in a managerial position.

I have to say, I was impressed with the guy who grabbed the gun. Perfect move, make sure it's pointed at the perp's innards, then keep pushing him back so he can't fix that.

Also, pausing to make sure the phone is in the pocked? Kind of badass. "Hold on motherfucker, This is my NEW phone...there, nice and safe. Now to beat the fuck out of you."

VickyCaramel wrote:

Matt Cavanaugh wrote:

BarnOwl wrote:
Funny how they wrap him up with a cord, like a rodeo steer. Was waiting for one of them to throw an arm up to stop the clock. :mrgreen:

Too bad nobody had a rubber band to slap around his nuts.

I have to wonder if I am only person who watched that and thought that the contents of the guy's wallet were probably not worth fighting over. Grabbing what it is best to assume was a loaded gun, making it get waved around a carriage full of people risking an innocent bystander, man, woman or child getting killed?

Having said that, once it started, I would have stomped on the fucker's head.

The impression I get was, based on the posture and the headphones was that he didn't grok what was happening at first. Something got stuck in his face, and he grabbed it, then realized "SHIT! GUN!" and like someone riding a tiger, knew letting go would be bad.

Ape+lust wrote:Your breezy overview of the duct tape and rubberband origins of Christianity's superhero is a fine reminder of why "sophisticated" theology is necessary: to divert everyone into the weeds while this stuff lies around in plain sight.

But, clinical studies show text links are only slightly less repellent to potential readers than Yemministy poetry. This entertaining piece deserves all the attention it can get:

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Nativity, But They Were Afraid to Tell You

Thanks, Ape+lust! Both for your kind words, and for saving me from the crayon-muncher brigade by properly embedding the link.

paddybrown wrote: I think the gospels are the result of several decades of his followers arguing about what all the stuff he said meant in light of his death.* You can take all kinds of messages from the gospels.... The Jesus Seminar excluded anything that sounded apocalyptic (the world's gonna end soon, so son't worry about earthly matters, just make sure you're pure) as inauthentic, even though that thread's definitely there, and informs most of the rest of the New Testament. Then there are the handful of hints that the Romans were right and he was planning armed revolt ....

*I think basically what happened was you had a guy** who either claimed to be or was hailed as the Messiah, understood as being the rightful, annointed king who would lead Israel to independence. Then he got killed. Some of his followers remained so convinced he was the Messiah that they had to come up with some kind of rationalisation.

That's pretty much my Frankenjesus thesis, except I see an amalgam of tidbits from several successive messianic claimants/revolt leaders along with standard traits of any popular deity for that time & era.

While the Jesus seminar may have been onto something in demarcating the accretion levels in the Jesus story, in the end it was based too heavily on each participants' wishful thinking about their own personal Jesus.

**Yes, I do think there was a real person at the origin of the Jesus of the New Testament. The two nativity stories in Matthew and Luke are the smoking gun. They're both such obvious bullshit, but they're obvious bullshit in different and contradictory ways. ... They're two separate and incompatible attempts to solve the same problem - how can a man from Galilee be the Messiah, when everybody knows the Messiah's supposed to be a descendant of David from Bethlehem? If there wasn't a man from Galilee, why go through these contortions?

That's a glaring point that the ultra-mythicists like Price and Dick whatshisname ignore.

Say, have you read Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Nativity, But They Were Afraid to Tell You

Mykeru wrote: <snip>

You have a group of very young sport tourists doing the 1950s Soviet version of "extreme sports". They are literally "off the map" because no one had taken this route before. They are cold, tired, hungry, just getting ready to eat and bed down, having taken off their boots and awkward cloth wrapping and other primitive, mostly home-grown gear, laid out their packs to insulate the tent floor, when this big-assed bit of hard layered snow slide takes out three of them resulting in horrible, painful injuries. They bug out, having to cut the tent from the inside and although fearful, they make an orderly retreat, perhaps doing something "dumb" but no dumber than what people do on a regular basis, re: a series of dumb errors that results in some guy having to cut his own arm off and they make a movie about it, for example. By the time they figure out they are weighed down with injured and everyone else is dying too and the feared avalanche didn't come to pass, it's just too late.

<snip>

Apologies for the poor quality of the image below (it's a photo of photo, no access to a scanner today), but I think it demonstrates "never underestimate the burning stupid of young sport tourists" quite well. It's a much younger me, with very short hair, on my first backpacking trip in the Oregon Cascades. My level of physical fitness at the time was quite good, with lots of swimming and running ... at sea level, in a semi-tropical climate. There are at least 10 visible things in the photograph that I'm doing completely wrong, many of which made the hike in to base camp extremely exhausting. I didn't feel prepared to climb the next day, so I stayed behind at base camp and drew wildflowers and watched insects all day (probably the only smart thing I did).

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3729/1148 ... 68baa2.jpg
DSCF0009 by BarnOwl83, on Flickr

Yes, there are many items awkwardly strapped to my backpack with bungie cords - lots of poorly-balanced and largely unnecessary weight. That's going to hurt the next day. Also, every item of clothing I'm wearing or carrying, including the stupid sweater tied around my waist, is cotton. Yes, cotton. So there are two of the mistakes ... the latter one might have killed me, had the weather changed.

Fortunately, I survived and developed much better outdoors skills over my years in grad school. Of course that's starting from Level Semi-tropical Dumbass. :mrgreen:

Jan Steen wrote:Some more insanity from witchwind and her commentariat.

we do have a fundamental right to kill our torturers, rapists and abusers – especially given that they never stop finding new victims as long as they’re alive, we’re certainly doing other women a service too, on top of saving our own lives.

That's a 5150* right there. In the US, if a mental health professional hears a client advocate harm to themselves or to others, they are required by law to have them immediately committed. Not that the rest of their cray-cray doesn't merit it.


* ( Or a "Section 8", as my dad, the former Air Force medical orderly used to call it.)

Poor Ken Ham! A vile atheist published a fantasy in which Ken is cooked alive and eaten for Christmas. No way it’s just a piece of unsubtle satire – it’s a credible threat. And what’s more, it’s not only dumb creationists who see it that way, no, even Peezus himself comes to Ken’s defence. He deems it “unpleasant. It’s threatening.” Moreover, “It is allowing a fundamentalist creationist claim the moral high ground.”

Most of his zombie Horde agree, of course, sycophants that they are. Dimwits like this one:

nich wrote:At first I was also in the “What’s the big deal” camp but then I thought about it further. This smacks of “Well you said all men were rapists so how about I…” bullshit followed by a “Well GOSH I was trying to SATIRIZE the other side, cantcha take a joke” bullshit response. Just because you and your little buddies see it as non-threatening does not mean the intended target is going to be in on your shitty joke. Sort of like how no woman wants to read graphic descriptions of disgusting crap posted by some Slymepit denizen under the bullshit guise of a joke, I really doubt Ken Ham wants to read “satire” by some cut-rate Swift about being boiled in hot oil and cannibalized by an atheist. Making your opponents angry is one thing, but making them squirm uncomfortably is quite another.

Just what we needed, Peezus tone policing the atheist movement on behalf of Ken Ham. Fuck PZ Myers. Who will rid us of this meddlesome neckbeard? Can some benevolent cannibal please eat his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti?

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... t-do-this/

Hunt wrote:

Jan Steen wrote: There’s lots more where this came from. It’s only slightly crazier than the stuff written by Twisty Faster, who is admired by Peezus, but not that much.

but like you say, it ain't all that far from Twisty.

Except, whereas the witchwinds are lesbians, Twisty is sexually attracted to ranidae.

For those who can understand my barbarian language:

http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societ ... 09246.html

(Short story: a Femen activist symbolized abortion at a church in Paris by leaving a piece of veal liver on the altar, then started pissing on it. Go figure...)

Jan Steen wrote:
Just what we needed, Peezus tone policing the atheist movement on behalf of Ken Ham. Fuck PZ Myers. Who will rid us of this meddlesome neckbeard? Can some benevolent cannibal please eat his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti?

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... t-do-this/

Fuck, don't waste good Chianti. Give the cunt some PBR or Kokanee.

Lsuoma wrote:

Jan Steen wrote:
Just what we needed, Peezus tone policing the atheist movement on behalf of Ken Ham. Fuck PZ Myers. Who will rid us of this meddlesome neckbeard? Can some benevolent cannibal please eat his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti?

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... t-do-this/

Fuck, don't waste good Chianti. Give the cunt some PBR or Kokanee.

Hey, it's not Peezus who will be drinking the chianti! It's the good guy (and it would spoil my Silence of the Lambs reference).

VickyCaramel wrote:... you have a very real possibility that Jesus is the product of a Jewish cult, and that he is a remnant lesser god that may have well have roots much further back than orthodox history suggests. If this is so then the Jesus figure would have undergone transitions anyway, and religion was undergoing an evolution.

So we have two possibilities.

1) Jesus was a real historical figure ~ his story is being changed to make him fit OT prophecy.

2) Jesus is a lesser god ~ his story is being changed to make him seem historical and fit OT prophecy.

In both cases, it seems that OT prophecy isn't OT prophecy and the writers of the bible are showing very little understanding of the OT because they aren't Jews. They are in fact creating a Hellenistic deity for a European audience.

I don't see the two as mutually exclusive -- imo, both are at play.

We also mustn't forget that the gnostic christ predates the trinitarian version, but was expunged at Nicaea. Both Jesus' baptism and his final lament make much more sense in gnostic the context of an ordinary, mortal man temporarily imbued with (read: possessed by) a demi-urge spirit.

Paul never really alludes to Jesus ever being a historical figure and it is quite possible that he never believed he was.

First, we have to acknowledge that there are really two Pauls -- the one in the Epistles, and one in Acts who speaks & behaves much differently. Second, 'Paulie Epistle' makes a lot more sense when you realize his spartan, ethereal Christ came out at least a century before the detail-rich Jesus biography found in Luke and Matthew. Since the Epistles were first produced by Marcion, and the author of Luke-Acts closely based Luke on Marcion's gospel, it's easy to see how an earlier, gnostic christ cult was much later 'polluted' with man-god elements. It's not even necessary for the gnostic christ to have originated with stories of a Galilean prophet/freedom fighter named Jesus. The two could have evolved independently, then merged into a V'Ger -like hybrid.

BarnOwl wrote: Apologies for the poor quality of the image below (it's a photo of photo, no access to a scanner today), but I think it demonstrates "never underestimate the burning stupid of young sport tourists" quite well. It's a much younger me, with very short hair, on my first backpacking trip in the Oregon Cascades.

At first glance I thought that bright spot on the right was a city in the distance, or else a Close Encounters of the third Kind-type landing pad for the mothership. :) I guess that's Mount Hood in the distance?

SkepticalCat wrote:

BarnOwl wrote: Apologies for the poor quality of the image below (it's a photo of photo, no access to a scanner today), but I think it demonstrates "never underestimate the burning stupid of young sport tourists" quite well. It's a much younger me, with very short hair, on my first backpacking trip in the Oregon Cascades.

At first glance I thought that bright spot on the right was a city in the distance, or else a Close Encounters of the third Kind-type landing pad for the mothership. :) I guess that's Mount Hood in the distance?

I was thinking when I uploaded the photo that the bright spot from the flash looked like a UFO hovering.

I think the mountain is actually Mt Washington (I was hiking to Mt Jefferson), though it's possible that it's Mt Hood. Mt Washington is pointier and less symmetric than Mt Hood, which is why I think it might be the former.

Hunt wrote:

Jan Steen wrote: There’s lots more where this came from. It’s only slightly crazier than the stuff written by Twisty Faster, who is admired by Peezus, but not that much.

It's about on par with Valerie Solanas stuff--men are parasite beings feeding off women. Men have enslaved women because they're secretly deficient in some key ingredient to a meaningful existence and require some sacred quality that only women hold...etc. etc. It's basically the mirror image of the craziest of the crazy MRA stuff. I hope (hope!) PZ would find it execrable, but like you say, it ain't all that far from Twisty.

Honestly, I made a big deal of how crazy she sounded, but what this insane blogger is raving about is pretty much pulled from the Dworkin/Solanis party line. There's this very weird thing in feminism. With MRAs, there's a line at which most MRAs will say "okay, that's just nutters." But I've noticed this thing feminists do. When someone points out how nutty Dworkin, Solanis and the PIV crowd are, they will say "yeah, that's not my feminism." But when you're not looking, suddenly they come back with an idea or argument pulled from the crazy radfem crowd, like mansplaining or an implication that PIV sex is bad and people with penises should feel ashamed for having them.

If an MRA doesn't like A Voice For Men, I don't usually hear of them citing articles or ideas which began at AVfM. Why, then, would feminists who claim they are not against sex pull out arguments from anti-sex radical feminists? It seems to me a lot of feminists try to be whatever "type" of feminist is most advantageous to their arguments at that moment. It's somewhat like libertarianism or socialism in this way. A socialist who doesn't agree with Marx or Lenin suddenly starts citing Marx and Lenin when you're not looking.

The craziest thing about anti-sex feminism is where they end up. Dworkin made a career of saying heterosexual sex was evil and bad, and she ended up in a heterosexual relationship in a man while still claiming she was a lesbian. She married a man and presumably had sex with him regularly. But oh, she's a lesbian. So much facepalm.

debaser71 wrote:

Hunt wrote: The mode of interaction between radfem and more moderate (i.e. sane) feminism is covered by the same framework Harris set forth in End of Faith for religion, the fact that moderate religions (or in general ideologies) run interference for the more radical elements. A few things will almost always be observed:

* The moderates will say they are "not like" the radicals and that the radical elements are not the defining faction.

* When carefully interviewed, there will be surprisingly little difference between the rad/moderate creeds on technical issues. It's just that the rads are more vocal/violent or active.

* The moderates will rarely attack the radicals and perhaps even vicariously revel in their actions.

* The moderates soften public perception of the religion (ideology) and shield it from active rejection by greater society.

So moderates facilitate, often actively, the more radical elements.

This. Exactly. from http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/chapter-one

"Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance—and it has no bona fides, in religious terms, to put it on a par with fundamentalism. The texts themselves are unequivocal: they are perfect in all their parts. By their light, religious moderation appears to be nothing more than an unwillingness to fully submit to God’s law. By failing to live by the letter of the texts, while tolerating the irrationality of those who do, religious moderates betray faith and reason equally. Unless the core dogmas of faith are called into question—i.e., that we know there is a God, and that we know what he wants from us—religious moderation will do nothing to lead us out of the wilderness."

Yes, this describes the phenomenon perfectly.

BarnOwl wrote:
Apologies for the poor quality of the image below (it's a photo of photo, no access to a scanner today), but I think it demonstrates "never underestimate the burning stupid of young sport tourists" quite well. It's a much younger me, with very short hair, on my first backpacking trip in the Oregon Cascades. My level of physical fitness at the time was quite good, with lots of swimming and running ... at sea level, in a semi-tropical climate. There are at least 10 visible things in the photograph that I'm doing completely wrong, many of which made the hike in to base camp extremely exhausting. I didn't feel prepared to climb the next day, so I stayed behind at base camp and drew wildflowers and watched insects all day (probably the only smart thing I did).

First: Dork. Second. I don't think they were that stupid. They did undercut the slope to level out for their tent, and maybe use being a little sunk in for wind cover, but Mountain 1029 just isn't avalanche country and the sliding snow shelf has never really been replicated even after attempts to reconstruct the tour, so it really was an unexpected one-off freak accident if it did indeed happen. Fear of an avalanche after that, even if unfounded, would be pretty justified.

Phil_Giordana_FCD wrote:For those who can understand my barbarian language:

http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societ ... 09246.html

(Short story: a Femen activist symbolized abortion at a church in Paris by leaving a piece of veal liver on the altar, then started pissing on it. Go figure...)

Is feminism more or less extreme in France? My understanding of French culture is that everyone protests in a radical way all the damn time over the slightest little things. :lol: I can't tell by looking if these feminists are any more or less radical than the ones at my college campus.

Also, I really need to brush up on my French. It's been a good two years since I've used it.

Over at FfTB both Yemmy and Tariq have rather sensible posts regarding sex workers. Surprisingly the commentariat is supportive so far. I was expecting a lot of advocacy for the "Swedish model" which is all the feminist rage right now.

Ronald McDonald has a post telling us that gay marriage won't stop HIV the way everyone is claiming it will, only he doesn't really produce anyone or any quote that is actually saying that. He just really seems to dislike gay marriage, and one look at his face is explanation enough as to why that might be.

A Million Gods has a bizarre and rambling post about fake rape claims-the one against him, and the Occidental College anonymous survey. I couldn't make much sense of it except that he's a victim. Anyway, MRA's are bad m'kay. I admit to being disappointed that the Pit was not mentioned. So far, zero comments.

Matt Cavanaugh wrote:

ERV wrote:... why was Poppy picking her ears and nose and wtf? It made me sick.

Vegans need a snack sometimes, too.

Now you know how vegans get their vitamin B12! :rimshot:

Mykeru wrote: ... the solution involves human psychology as much as physical evidence. If you read the work on "woodshock" by Lawrence Gonzales, people in these situations often do what seems, in hindsight to be terribly irrational things by people who have a long time to ponder a situation they themselves are not in.

... They bug out, having to cut the tent from the inside and although fearful, they make an orderly retreat, perhaps doing something "dumb" but no dumber than what people do on a regular basis, re: a series of dumb errors that results in some guy having to cut his own arm off and they make a movie about it, for example. By the time they figure out they are weighed down with injured and everyone else is dying too and the feared avalanche didn't come to pass, it's just too late....

Now that the sun's out again, I want to revisit this.

From the links y'all provided, I see nothing 'mysterious' or inexplicable about the details or course of events following the party's decision to leave the tent. As some of you have noted, fatal disasters like these usually result from a compounding of minor, seemingly trivial, misjudgments. The Donner Party was doomed even before they left St. Joe. Nor do I see signs of a cover-up by the Soviets.

All that remains unanswered with Dyaltov Pass is, what could have compelled not just experienced trekkers, but Russian ones, to flee in the middle of the night, in sub-zero weather, barefoot and in their underwear? That is no minor miscalculation, rather a drastic, high-risk expediency. They desperately felt the urgent need to either get away from the tent, or to somewhere else (their cache, presumedly.)

I find the injuries-from-avalanche theory unpersuasive. Even if that did occur, you give first-aid to the three (?) injured, then send two or three of your most able colleagues to reach the cache (for what, medical supplies??) And they first suit up properly. If you've determined that the tent site no longer provides adequate shelter, then you all first suit up properly.

No, they had to have been convinced that, if they did not flee the tent site that very instant, they would die. We can imagine one of them hurriedly pulling on one shoe, but judging that no time was left to put on the other (or find it). This strikes me less similar to Schackleton's compounding of errors than the group insanity of the Franklin Expedition. And so, I'm forced to consider the really bizarre options -- infrasound 'madness', weapons testing, etc.

A few questions:
* Is there any better insight as to whether the tent was stove in, or cut open from the inside?
* Nearby radio transmitters were mentioned as a possible source of infrasound. Has the presence of those been confirmed? Can they indeed produce infrasound? What other plausible sources of infrasound exist?
* Any other plausible sources for something affecting the entire group's judgement?

another lurker wrote:So I was perusing The Raw Story and I came across this interesting little article...

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/20/w ... w+Story%29

Apparently, people say mean things about cats because misogyny

While all sorts of people have pets of both types, cats are associated with not just women, but single, childless women. A lot of what people are doing when they insist that you cat doesn’t really love you and you must be fooling yourself is a kind of mansplaining: Silly cat ladies, who think that their cats love them! It fits into this larger narrative about how women are dumb and needy and cling to cats, unlike sure-footed, bright men who pick a pet they know loves them: dogs. (Never mind that men have cats and women have dogs, too. There’s no doubt that these pet choices are imagined as gendered in the public imagination. I get at least 10 people a week sending me “clever” jokes about how I must be a lonely woman who only has cats for comfort.)

Amanda Marcotte has really outdone herself this time. The bonus, she links to a R. Watson article...

I think anyone could be an SJW. Just read the news, and blame Teh Patriarchy for everything, as the Pit has been saying, for months...

http://sarahgignac.com/wp-content/uploa ... -today.jpg

I started reading that and thought it was some idiotic comment from someone who stopped taking their meds and was spending her time ranting on the Internet. Then I saw it was written by Amanda Marcotte, which explained everything.

Brive1987 wrote:

JackSkeptic wrote: <snip>

By the way guys, calling people bitches and whores plays right into their narrative.

I apologise to all for suggesting Mykeru was half a whore for an incomplete Patreon setup. Or that e-begging on Patreon was a form of solicitation for services (or 'whoring'). A concept so overblown as to be almost comical. Almost. I now see I was inconsiderately hurting the cause because a SJW might see it.

Now let me confirm for future reference, cunt is still a magically ambiguous term? And people do realise my avatar is an ironic reference to an amusing comment made up page, plus a fingers up to Cunt (oops sorry), plus an allusion to my antipathy to RW, plus an amusing comment on how a mad sign-bum might see the schism? Are we ok now - hugs?

Not to belabor the issue (much), but I think that that is still sort of missing the point, i.e., that your original comment was based on some pejorative connotations to the word, that somehow taking money for sexual services is way-beyond the pale.

An attitude, one might argue, that contributes to if not motivates various crimes against prostitutes – who happen to be 7 times more likely to be murdered than the next most dangerous profession, male taxicab drivers.

But somewhat apropos, I happened to notice that Canada’s Supreme Court has now struck down various provisions in the criminal code related to prostitution – which has, in itself, been legal for some time:

In striking down laws prohibiting brothels, living on the avails of prostitution and communicating in public with clients, the top court ruled Friday that the laws were over-broad and "grossly disproportionate."

Jan Steen wrote:Poor Ken Ham! A vile atheist published a fantasy in which Ken is cooked alive and eaten for Christmas. No way it’s just a piece of unsubtle satire – it’s a credible threat. And what’s more, it’s not only dumb creationists who see it that way, no, even Peezus himself comes to Ken’s defence. He deems it “unpleasant. It’s threatening.” Moreover, “It is allowing a fundamentalist creationist claim the moral high ground.”

Most of his zombie Horde agree, of course, sycophants that they are. Dimwits like this one:

nich wrote:At first I was also in the “What’s the big deal” camp but then I thought about it further. This smacks of “Well you said all men were rapists so how about I…” bullshit followed by a “Well GOSH I was trying to SATIRIZE the other side, cantcha take a joke” bullshit response. Just because you and your little buddies see it as non-threatening does not mean the intended target is going to be in on your shitty joke. Sort of like how no woman wants to read graphic descriptions of disgusting crap posted by some Slymepit denizen under the bullshit guise of a joke, I really doubt Ken Ham wants to read “satire” by some cut-rate Swift about being boiled in hot oil and cannibalized by an atheist. Making your opponents angry is one thing, but making them squirm uncomfortably is quite another.

Just what we needed, Peezus tone policing the atheist movement on behalf of Ken Ham. Fuck PZ Myers. Who will rid us of this meddlesome neckbeard? Can some benevolent cannibal please eat his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti?

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... t-do-this/

Holy shit, Peez's 'horde' have short memories. Any of them recall 'go die in a fire?', 'eat broken glass and die' etc. etc.? I do note the worst offenders - Wowbagger, Josh Spokesgay & Brownian - appear to have had the decency to not comment on that thread. Here's hoping some of Peez's 'brave horde' do venture over to the Pontificator's blog in order to give him a stern finger-wagging, as it'll be a delight to post some links to Pharyngula's worst excesses by way of response.

Also, that first post from Jackie 'wish I could hibernate' Paper once more demonstrates a level of cretinousness on her part which is coming to rival that of Nerd of Redhead, as she has somehow managed to infer that Ken Ham was actually sent the post in question.

Matt Cavanaugh wrote:Hey -- read my Nativity post!


Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Nativity, But They Were Afraid to Tell You
http://imaginaryfriendjesus.wordpress.c ... /nativity/

It's a deliberate tour de force, and contains lots of little bombs y'all can drop on your believer relatives at xmas dinner.

(Also guaranteed to cause steam to erupt from the ears of certain biblical literalist trolls.)

Really nice work. Appreciate it.

James Caruthers wrote: The craziest thing about anti-sex feminism is where they end up. Dworkin made a career of saying heterosexual sex was evil and bad, and she ended up in a heterosexual relationship in a man while still claiming she was a lesbian. She married a man and presumably had sex with him regularly. But oh, she's a lesbian. So much facepalm.

iirc, he was a gay man, and they married to save on rent. (He took up residence inside a fold of Dworkin's mu-mu.)

Steersman wrote:
Not to belabor the issue (much), but I think that that is still sort of missing the point, i.e., that your original comment was based on some pejorative connotations to the word, that somehow taking money for sexual services is way-beyond the pale.

An attitude, one might argue, that contributes to if not motivates various crimes against prostitutes – who happen to be 7 times more likely to be murdered than the next most dangerous profession, male taxicab drivers.

But somewhat apropos, I happened to notice that Canada’s Supreme Court has now struck down various provisions in the criminal code related to prostitution – which has, in itself, been legal for some time....

Ah, so you're the mystery patreon who bought Becca that Naughty Elf Nightie from Frederick's of Hollywood!

Thanks, Tribble.

Mykeru wrote: First: Dork. Second. I don't think they were that stupid. They did undercut the slope to level out for their tent, and maybe use being a little sunk in for wind cover, but Mountain 1029 just isn't avalanche country and the sliding snow shelf has never really been replicated even after attempts to reconstruct the tour, so it really was an unexpected one-off freak accident if it did indeed happen. Fear of an avalanche after that, even if unfounded, would be pretty justified.

At least I come by my dorkiness naturally, rather than affecting it for the purposes of garnering a fan base to send me money for making crappy videos. (As an aside, I love how RW and the pharyngulanha horde frequently refer to their cars as "beaters," presumably to gain sympathy for their pitiable financial state. I don't think most of them know what a real beater car is ... they seem to think that a car that's got >150K miles, or is more than 5 or 6 years old, is automatically a beater.)

My cat didn't want anything to do with me half an hour ago, and now she is attacking the back of my monitor and my modem in order to get my attention.

I feel so downtrodden. Send me money!

Ape+lust wrote: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/panten ... 2013-12-19
http://business.time.com/2013/12/17/a-l ... razy-over/

http://i.imgur.com/Mjeh3bo.png

Late as usual but that's hilarious.

Something charming about a faceless corporation that predominantly trades in women's neuroses about their appearance pandering to a group who are supposedly so set against such.

Light those torches of freedom, dummies!

Matt Cavanaugh wrote:Thanks, Tribble.

Yeah, that was great Matt.

The History Channel has a new show, Bible Secrets Revealed which touches on a lot of these subjects:

http://www.history.com/shows/bible-secrets-revealed

In all honesty, I am kind of surprised that the History Channel can even get away with this shit considering that a large portion of their audience is made up of evangelical rednecks.

Matt Cavanaugh wrote:

Steersman wrote:
<snip>

But somewhat apropos, I happened to notice that Canada’s Supreme Court has now struck down various provisions in the criminal code related to prostitution – which has, in itself, been legal for some time....

Ah, so you're the mystery patreon who bought Becca that Naughty Elf Nightie from Frederick's of Hollywood!

:lol: Never underestimate the power of suggestion.

But no – as Rhett Butler said to Scarlett O’Hara, I kind of doubt she would be worth $300, although that was in 1865 money. For one thing, one might wind up with rather more than what one expected – like “Reginald”.

James Caruthers wrote:

Phil_Giordana_FCD wrote:For those who can understand my barbarian language:

http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societ ... 09246.html

(Short story: a Femen activist symbolized abortion at a church in Paris by leaving a piece of veal liver on the altar, then started pissing on it. Go figure...)

Is feminism more or less extreme in France? My understanding of French culture is that everyone protests in a radical way all the damn time over the slightest little things. :lol: I can't tell by looking if these feminists are any more or less radical than the ones at my college campus.

Also, I really need to brush up on my French. It's been a good two years since I've used it.

Feminism in France, much like in many other parts of the world, does good and helps further push equality. Then there's the fucknuts, and that's where we get the lulz.

Matt Cavanaugh wrote:
A few questions:
* Is there any better insight as to whether the tent was stove in, or cut open from the inside?
* Nearby radio transmitters were mentioned as a possible source of infrasound. Has the presence of those been confirmed? Can they indeed produce infrasound? What other plausible sources of infrasound exist?
* Any other plausible sources for something affecting the entire group's judgement?

Here are some tent comments. The reference to 'more documentation' leads to (duh) Russian documents.

Tent of Dyatlov group is ripped from the inside. Initially the fact was overlooked, but a woman who worked for the police department laundry services clearly identified that the damage came from the inside. Her explanation was simple and ingenious. She looked on the inside of the Dyatlov Group tent and saw several cuts made to the inside surface. Not all of these cut made all the way through the canvas, but it gave an idea the location of a person or persons who did it. Further expertise proved her hypothesis to be correct (scans from the criminal investigation analysis of the tents is available here Additional Documentation). However no one was able to identify who and why made these cuts. Lack of eye witnesses to the Dyatlov Pass Incident left many people speculate that where was some one else on the slopes of the Dyatlov Pass. Additionally search and rescue party admitted that they increased existing holes by increasing pre- existing cuts. We can't even tell for sure if Dyatlov Group members used this alternative way to leave the tent. Some theories about Dyatlov Pass Incident claim that these cuts were made by whoever forced the group out of the tent and used these holes to keep an eye on the slope of Kholat Syakhl mountain.

http://www.ermaktravel.com/Europe/Russi ... Syakhl.htm

I too suspect the injuries weren't caused by an icefall and that the "pristine tent" (see what I did there?) wasn't damaged enough. Also I read 'somewhere' the injuries the women in the pit had would have killed her within 20mins. The link to the autopsies is here: http://www.ermaktravel.com/Europe/Russi ... topsy.html

Matt Cavanaugh wrote:

James Caruthers wrote: The craziest thing about anti-sex feminism is where they end up. Dworkin made a career of saying heterosexual sex was evil and bad, and she ended up in a heterosexual relationship in a man while still claiming she was a lesbian. She married a man and presumably had sex with him regularly. But oh, she's a lesbian. So much facepalm.

iirc, he was a gay man, and they married to save on rent. (He took up residence inside a fold of Dworkin's mu-mu.)

Relationship with John Stoltenberg

In 1974 she met feminist writer and activist John Stoltenberg when they both walked out on a poetry reading in Greenwich Village over misogynist material. They became close friends and eventually came to live together.[30] Stoltenberg wrote a series of radical feminist books and articles on masculinity. Although Dworkin publicly wrote "I love John with my heart and soul"[31] and Stoltenberg described Dworkin as "the love of my life",[32] she continued to publicly identify herself as lesbian, and he as gay. Stoltenberg, recounting the perplexity that their relationship seemed to cause people in the press, summarized the relationship by saying, "So I state only the simplest facts publicly: yes, Andrea and I live together and love each other and we are each other's life partner, and yes we are both out."[30]

Dworkin and Stoltenberg were married in 1998; after her death Stoltenberg said, "It's why we never told anybody really that we married, because people get confused about that. They think, Oh, she's yours. And we just did not want that nonsense."[32]

Sex seems heavily implied from these "love of my life" and "live together and love each other and are each other's life partner" bits. Sure, they both claim to be gay, but c'mon, how does that even work? Seems to me that feminism is once again changing the meanings of words to avoid an admission of hypocrisy. It doesn't sound like this was solely a marriage of convenience.

Steersman wrote:

Brive1987 wrote:

JackSkeptic wrote: <snip>

By the way guys, calling people bitches and whores plays right into their narrative.

I apologise to all for suggesting Mykeru was half a whore for an incomplete Patreon setup. Or that e-begging on Patreon was a form of solicitation for services (or 'whoring'). A concept so overblown as to be almost comical. Almost. I now see I was inconsiderately hurting the cause because a SJW might see it.

Now let me confirm for future reference, cunt is still a magically ambiguous term? And people do realise my avatar is an ironic reference to an amusing comment made up page, plus a fingers up to Cunt (oops sorry), plus an allusion to my antipathy to RW, plus an amusing comment on how a mad sign-bum might see the schism? Are we ok now - hugs?

Not to belabor the issue (much), but I think that that is still sort of missing the point, i.e., that your original comment was based on some pejorative connotations to the word, that somehow taking money for sexual services is way-beyond the pale.

An attitude, one might argue, that contributes to if not motivates various crimes against prostitutes – who happen to be 7 times more likely to be murdered than the next most dangerous profession, male taxicab drivers.

But somewhat apropos, I happened to notice that Canada’s Supreme Court has now struck down various provisions in the criminal code related to prostitution – which has, in itself, been legal for some time:

In striking down laws prohibiting brothels, living on the avails of prostitution and communicating in public with clients, the top court ruled Friday that the laws were over-broad and "grossly disproportionate."

There's more than two options here. But let's take a couple up front.

1. I chose the word 'whore' because I am a ball hammer wielding avenger against 'fallen woman".
2. I chose a word with negative social connotations to get a rise out of Mykeru - by using gross exaggeration.

I'd be more sympathetic to your point of view if I had said "RW is a whore". But I didn't.

I know your love of analogy. So if I had said "her patreon feed is awhoring anew" I'm sure you would be charitable and think, "segments of society find prostitution abhorrent. Brive finds her feed abhorrent. He is likening the two emotions". Ie you can compare two things in the feelings they produce while only really providing a values statement on one half of the equation. Nuanced to be sure - but possible for a sophisticated audience where there is a certain level of ethical trust on both sides.

But in any case I didn't even do that.

Or we can assume "whore" is a hateful gender slur with no possible context or meaning beyond implicit abuse of so engaged women - and ban its colloquial use altogether as a moral thought crime.

As I said originally, conceptually I dont see prostitution as inherently bad. Now you are forcing me to think about it, I'm sure it runs the full gamut from exploitation to empowerment. Unfortunately (given the patriarchy) with an emphasis on the former rather than the latter.

And yes I know my analogy used a metaphor.

[quote="Matt Cavanaugh"
Say, have you read Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the
Nativity, But They Were Afraid to Tell You[/quote]

Yep, it's very good and pretty comprehensive, but it misses one vital thing about the census. When Herod the Great died, his kingdom was divided between three of his sons, Herod Archilaus (Judaea), Herod Antipas (Galilee) and Philip (trans-Jordan), who ruled like their father as independent but beholden Roman allies. Ten years later the Romans removed Archilaus from power, annexed Judaea, and carried out a census census so they could tax it directly. Galilee remained independent under Antipas. If Jesus' parents lived in Galilee, they would not have been subject to the census.

James Caruthers wrote:

Matt Cavanaugh wrote: iirc, he was a gay man, and they married to save on rent. (He took up residence inside a fold of Dworkin's mu-mu.)

Sex seems heavily implied from these "love of my life" and "live together and love each other and are each other's life partner" bits. Sure, they both claim to be gay, but c'mon, how does that even work? Seems to me that feminism is once again changing the meanings of words to avoid an admission of hypocrisy. It doesn't sound like this was solely a marriage of convenience.

I read those exactly the opposite. But we'll never know, and everything about Dworkin was grody anyway. Here's how I imagine sex with her -- straight or gay -- must've been like:

Brive1987 wrote:I must have been gagging to miss the actual hard plug for skeptical Robot at the end of RW latest commercial offering. I knew the mention of Thor in the "substantive" had to be a weak segue to ... something

http://i.imgur.com/cfoqon1.jpg

She should wear the horned mask more often.

That's a knitted Skyrim Nord helmet, not the knitted Viking helmet. For someone who pretends to be familiar with geek culture, she's woefully ignorant. Blood can be shed over getting something like this wrong... Which is probably not as traumatic as the 5-seconds-from-hell Elevator Coffee ride...

BarnOwl wrote:
Yes, there are many items awkwardly strapped to my backpack with bungie cords - lots of poorly-balanced and largely unnecessary weight. That's going to hurt the next day. Also, every item of clothing I'm wearing or carrying, including the stupid sweater tied around my waist, is cotton. Yes, cotton. So there are two of the mistakes ... the latter one might have killed me, had the weather changed.

Fortunately, I survived and developed much better outdoors skills over my years in grad school. Of course that's starting from Level Semi-tropical Dumbass. :mrgreen:

Did you get sunburned? Because I find most people who don't have experience with that kind of hiking/camping end up with nasty sunburns as they don't quite understand just how much the atmospheric UV protection drops, plus they seldom understand how much uv reflection they're getting off the snow.

You could be, easily, getting 50% to 100% more UV depending on altitude and snow cover quality.

Tribble wrote:
Did you get sunburned? Because I find most people who don't have experience with that kind of hiking/camping end up with nasty sunburns as they don't quite understand just how much the atmospheric UV protection drops, plus they seldom understand how much uv reflection they're getting off the snow.

You could be, easily, getting 50% to 100% more UV depending on altitude and snow cover quality.

Yep, dumb things #3, #4, and #5. #3 - where the hell are my sunglasses? #4 - why am I not wearing sunscreen? #5 - where the hell is my hat?

paddybrown wrote:

Matt Cavanaugh wrote: Say, have you read Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Nativity, But They Were Afraid to Tell You

Yep, it's very good and pretty comprehensive, but it misses one vital thing about the census. When Herod the Great died, his kingdom was divided between three of his sons, Herod Archilaus (Judaea), Herod Antipas (Galilee) and Philip (trans-Jordan), who ruled like their father as independent but beholden Roman allies. Ten years later the Romans removed Archilaus from power, annexed Judaea, and carried out a census census so they could tax it directly. Galilee remained independent under Antipas. If Jesus' parents lived in Galilee, they would not have been subject to the census.

Yeah, that's a mortal blow, and I ought to have included it in my post. But Luke didn't know that (in fact, when copypasting Josephus, he proved he didn't even know what a tetrarch was.) Luke surely conflated the Quirinius census with the universal Roman census of of AD 74, when Galilee had become part of Judea. So, fairly firm evidence for AD 74 as the earliest possible terminus a quo for the census pericope.

Aww, how sweet. Who says there can be no reconciliation?

http://i.imgur.com/AZlEJa3.png

Gumby wrote:Aww, how sweet. Who says there can be no reconciliation?

http://i.imgur.com/AZlEJa3.png

AHAHAHAHAAA!!11!!! Nice touch with the lampshade. :D

BarnOwl wrote:

Tribble wrote:
Did you get sunburned? Because I find most people who don't have experience with that kind of hiking/camping end up with nasty sunburns as they don't quite understand just how much the atmospheric UV protection drops, plus they seldom understand how much uv reflection they're getting off the snow.

You could be, easily, getting 50% to 100% more UV depending on altitude and snow cover quality.

Yep, dumb things #3, #4, and #5. #3 - where the hell are my sunglasses? #4 - why am I not wearing sunscreen? #5 - where the hell is my hat?

I didn't want to mention snow blindness. I figured you didn't since you were sketching.

Gumby wrote:Aww, how sweet. Who says there can be no reconciliation?

http://i.imgur.com/AZlEJa3.png

Some people have WAY too much time on their hands.







Others just do funny photoshops...

Gumby wrote:Aww, how sweet. Who says there can be no reconciliation?

http://i.imgur.com/AZlEJa3.png

That was amazing.

Also, happy holydays to our FTB friends. The Pit will be active during the whole shabbang, so take my wishes as granted.

Phil_Giordana_FCD wrote: Some people have WAY too much time on their hands.







Others just do funny photoshops...

:lol:

Haven't made a serious effort in a while... guess I was just overcome by the Christmas spirit...

It all makes sense when you think of women as interior lighting.

It's also possible that King Herod suffered from kidney disease and Fournier's Gangrene which made him prone to fits of violent/anger and what would be considered to be a shitty attitude overall:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... grene.html

Herod's personality problems predated his illness, "but it might have made them worse. Chronic kidney disease can lead to depression (Herod attempted suicide during his illness), paranoia, and irritability," said Prof Hirschmann.

Matt Cavanaugh wrote:

Mykeru wrote: ... the solution involves human psychology as much as physical evidence. If you read the work on "woodshock" by Lawrence Gonzales, people in these situations often do what seems, in hindsight to be terribly irrational things by people who have a long time to ponder a situation they themselves are not in.

... They bug out, having to cut the tent from the inside and although fearful, they make an orderly retreat, perhaps doing something "dumb" but no dumber than what people do on a regular basis, re: a series of dumb errors that results in some guy having to cut his own arm off and they make a movie about it, for example. By the time they figure out they are weighed down with injured and everyone else is dying too and the feared avalanche didn't come to pass, it's just too late....

Now that the sun's out again, I want to revisit this.

From the links y'all provided, I see nothing 'mysterious' or inexplicable about the details or course of events following the party's decision to leave the tent. As some of you have noted, fatal disasters like these usually result from a compounding of minor, seemingly trivial, misjudgments. The Donner Party was doomed even before they left St. Joe. Nor do I see signs of a cover-up by the Soviets.

All that remains unanswered with Dyaltov Pass is, what could have compelled not just experienced trekkers, but Russian ones, to flee in the middle of the night, in sub-zero weather, barefoot and in their underwear? That is no minor miscalculation, rather a drastic, high-risk expediency. They desperately felt the urgent need to either get away from the tent, or to somewhere else (their cache, presumedly.)

I find the injuries-from-avalanche theory unpersuasive. Even if that did occur, you give first-aid to the three (?) injured, then send two or three of your most able colleagues to reach the cache (for what, medical supplies??) And they first suit up properly. If you've determined that the tent site no longer provides adequate shelter, then you all first suit up properly.

No, they had to have been convinced that, if they did not flee the tent site that very instant, they would die. We can imagine one of them hurriedly pulling on one shoe, but judging that no time was left to put on the other (or find it). This strikes me less similar to Schackleton's compounding of errors than the group insanity of the Franklin Expedition. And so, I'm forced to consider the really bizarre options -- infrasound 'madness', weapons testing, etc.

A few questions:
* Is there any better insight as to whether the tent was stove in, or cut open from the inside?
* Nearby radio transmitters were mentioned as a possible source of infrasound. Has the presence of those been confirmed? Can they indeed produce infrasound? What other plausible sources of infrasound exist?
* Any other plausible sources for something affecting the entire group's judgement?

First, I got something wrong in a previous post: It was Rustem Slodobin who was the "rich kid" of the bunch.

Now:

The Dyatlov group wasn't in their "underwear". They had taken off their outwear, that is, coats and boots, which they used for flooring. They had on underwear, shirts, sweaters, and all that. Those that were nearly naked, like Doreshenko and Krovonishenko at the cedars were obviously stripped of clothes post-mortem.


One thought is they did try for the cache, but it was a ways off and they likely missed it.

The fear of avalanche seems to have been the overriding concern, especially after three members were hurt by a slide. Again, there was no avalanche, and Mountain 1029's ~23° grade where they camped has a low risk. What hit them was a localized sheet slide from where they undermined the ice and snow layers to make camp. What lead them astray was fear of a large-scale avalanche based on a very localized freak event.

Have you ever tried tripping out of a tent and putting on a shoe? No easy. Besides, they weren't wearing shoes. They had their version of ski boots. In the tent they wore "soft padded boots" that were homemade from the quilted pants material Soviet Troops wore in WWII. None of this would be easily put on. The body of Thibeaux-Brignolles seems to be wearing at least one shoe.

They were experienced, the purpose of the trip was to upgrade many of them from Grade II to Grade III "Master of Sport", but so what? Being an Eagle Scout doesn't make one invincible in the woods.

Analysis of the tent shows it was cut from the inside. The tent is three-ply heady canvas and so it's rather obvious. For comparison, members of the recovery party cut into the snowed in tent with an ax.

Infrasound transmitters? It's the middle of nowhere in the Ural mountains. The only infrasound transmitters would be the super secret sneaky kind, I guess.

Parsimony, man. Why do you need anything to explain the groups behavior aside from being tired, cold, anxious people coupled with human nature's tendency to group think even if you dismiss the hierarchical nature of dedicated young Soviets from the Ural Polytechnic institute? You get a bunch of kids from MIT, put them in the woods in the middle of the night and yell "bear" and they aren't going to sketch out a decision tree.

Tribble wrote:

BarnOwl wrote:

Tribble wrote:
Did you get sunburned? Because I find most people who don't have experience with that kind of hiking/camping end up with nasty sunburns as they don't quite understand just how much the atmospheric UV protection drops, plus they seldom understand how much uv reflection they're getting off the snow.

You could be, easily, getting 50% to 100% more UV depending on altitude and snow cover quality.

Yep, dumb things #3, #4, and #5. #3 - where the hell are my sunglasses? #4 - why am I not wearing sunscreen? #5 - where the hell is my hat?

I didn't want to mention snow blindness. I figured you didn't since you were sketching.

Yeah, there wasn't enough snow on the hike in for that to be a serious problem, but sunglasses would have cut the glare and UV exposure. Now I wear them even while out in the yard with the dogs, if it's sunny. I wear a broad-brimmed hat outdoors as well, and sunscreen every day.

#6 - water is inaccessibly packed, and I should be drinking it frequently. High altitude conditions are dehydrating.
#7 - quick energy source is also inaccessibly packed, and I'm prone to hypoglycemia.
#8 - borrowed ice axe: WTF? I have absolutely no idea how to use it, and it weighs a ton.
#9 - topo and trail maps, compass: I have none. In fact, I have no clear idea of where we're headed, or of the terrain involved.
#10 - hiking boots are way too heavy for what I'm doing. They, along with the tinker's backpack of useless items, will contribute to the exhaustion.

The only mistake I made again on subsequent backpacking/climbing trips was #7. It took me awhile to figure out just how much of a problem hypoglycemia can be for me, with exertion and altitude. I've had to figure it out again with distance running - had to find something to eat for runs > 8 miles that didn't make me want to puke.

iT IS THE TIME TO BE JOLLY. LALALALAAAA LA LA LA LA.

"The body of Thibeaux-Brignolles seems to be wearing at least one boot" rather.

Hard to tell, it could be one of the unheeled "soft boots" they wore in the tent:

More feminist lunacy.

If "rape culture", a culture that normalises and trivialises rape, exists, that culture is feminism itself. They are obsessed. Everything is seen through the lens of rape. I'm sure everyone here has read Dawkins savaging Sandra Harding's characterising of Newton's Principia as a "rape manual". I have today discovered musicologist and feminist music critic Susan McClary, who in 1987 wrote this about Beethoven's 9th symphony:

"The point of recapitulation in the first movement of the Ninth is one of the most horrifying moments in music, as the carefully prepared cadence is frustrated, damming up energy which finally explodes in the throttling murderous rage of a rapist incapable of attaining release."

Here's the piece in question:

[youtube]FBA2IGzBlBQ[/youtube]

Now, my musical education is woefully lacking, and I wouldn't know a point of recapitulation from a hole in the ground, but I've listened to the whole thing and have completely failed to notice anything "horrifying". In light of listening to it, I would interpret the quote as meaning "the dramatic ending's a bit overdone". But McClary's a feminist, so she has to compare it to rape. Because to someone who's only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Phil_Giordana_FCD wrote:iT IS THE TIME TO BE JOLLY. LALALALAAAA LA LA LA LA.

Sang that this afternoon. Piotr, the Polish member of our troupe, speaks excellent modern English but was quite baffled by the line "Don we now our gay apparel".

Did you know the original lyrics (translated freely from the Welsh) to "Deck the Halls" were:

Oh! how soft my fair one's bosom,
fal lal lal lal lal lal lal lal la:
Oh! how sweet the grove in blossom,
fal lal lal lal lal lal lal lal la:
Oh! how blessed are the blisses,
[instrumental flourish]
Words of love, and mutual kisses,
fal lal lal lal lal lal lal lal la:

Phil_Giordana_FCD wrote:iT IS THE TIME TO BE JOLLY. LALALALAAAA LA LA LA LA.

Shut up, Phil.