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

Why would somebody with no connection to Scotland wear a kilt? Did you invent your own pretend tartan as well? You're not those weirdos who attend the North American highland games are you? They seem to have appropriated their culture from a Crawford's Tartan Shortbread tin. Wannabe teuchters, a very strange mob.
I think I might get married dressed as a cowboy or something.

justinvacula wrote:http://i.imgur.com/QlieF.jpg

Any time you expect people who are not you to behave exactly as you think they should, you are going to be disappointed.

Most of us get over this by the time we are 12.

Others, like McCreight, appear to take longer. Maybe in her 30s, she'll figure it out. Probably on her second job.

bhoytony wrote:Why would somebody with no connection to Scotland wear a kilt? Did you invent your own pretend tartan as well? You're not those weirdos who attend the North American highland games are you? They seem to have appropriated their culture from a Crawford's Tartan Shortbread tin. Wannabe teuchters, a very strange mob.
I think I might get married dressed as a cowboy or something.

Meh. It's all just fucking honkies acting like THIS bunch is different from THAT bunch. All just palefaces, who cares what they wear.

justinvacula wrote:http://i.imgur.com/QlieF.jpg

She should have thought of that before she created that broken mutant wobbling blob of schizophrenic protoplasm known as AtheismPlus.

But here's a thought Jen: Maybe you should stop expecting every group you join or create to automatically conform to your way of thinking. Doesn't the fact that EVERY SINGLE FUCKING group you associate with "disappoints" you TELL you something? Like maybe, "Hey, maybe I should integrate myself better and find ways to be more productive and better the group"? Nope, all it tells you is "I'm a special pretty princess, and how dare atheists, skeptics, scientists, feminists and liberals NOT THINK EXACTLY LIKE MEEEEEEEE!!!!!!"

Hey Jen - you know who's disappointed with YOU? Atheists, skeptics, scientists, feminists and liberals.

Face the facts, dummy. You need to get over yourself, Jen. You're not special, your ideas are mediocre, and you're definitely no leader. Feel free to take your ball and go home. The adults will do fine without you, I promise.

bhoytony wrote:Why would somebody with no connection to Scotland wear a kilt? Did you invent your own pretend tartan as well? You're not those weirdos who attend the North American highland games are you? They seem to have appropriated their culture from a Crawford's Tartan Shortbread tin. Wannabe teuchters, a very strange mob.
I think I might get married dressed as a cowboy or something.

Who has no connection to Scotland?

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

Of course, the one commonality in Jen McWrong's fucked up dysfunctional relationship and disappointment with all of them is, of course, her.

VICTIM BLAMING TRIGGER WARN--

Oh, too late.

Mykeru wrote:

bhoytony wrote:Why would somebody with no connection to Scotland wear a kilt? Did you invent your own pretend tartan as well? You're not those weirdos who attend the North American highland games are you? They seem to have appropriated their culture from a Crawford's Tartan Shortbread tin. Wannabe teuchters, a very strange mob.
I think I might get married dressed as a cowboy or something.

Who has no connection to Scotland?

I think bhoytony is invoking the No True Scotsman fallacy.

Mykeru wrote:
Who has no connection to Scotland?

I don't know, Kim Il Sung? My surname can be traced back to the Vikings, but I don't use their costumes for my dress-up games.

Mykeru wrote:

bhoytony wrote:Why would somebody with no connection to Scotland wear a kilt? Did you invent your own pretend tartan as well? You're not those weirdos who attend the North American highland games are you? They seem to have appropriated their culture from a Crawford's Tartan Shortbread tin. Wannabe teuchters, a very strange mob.
I think I might get married dressed as a cowboy or something.

Who has no connection to Scotland?

No True Scotsman?

Gumby wrote:
I think bhoytony is invoking the No True Scotsman fallacy.

It's more the No Plastic Scotsman fallacy.

Mykeru wrote:http://i.imgur.com/QlieF.jpg

Of course, the one commonality in Jen McWrong's fucked up dysfunctional relationship and disappointment with all of them is, of course, her.

VICTIM BLAMING TRIGGER WARN--

Oh, too late.

http://i48.tinypic.com/flitcx.jpg

Michael J wrote:Now they have gone after Shermer are there any famous skeptics left?

I predict Swoopy and Derek will be next, especially after Derek dissed Bin Laden on Derek's own FB page.

Lsuoma wrote:

Mykeru wrote:

bhoytony wrote:Why would somebody with no connection to Scotland wear a kilt? Did you invent your own pretend tartan as well? You're not those weirdos who attend the North American highland games are you? They seem to have appropriated their culture from a Crawford's Tartan Shortbread tin. Wannabe teuchters, a very strange mob.
I think I might get married dressed as a cowboy or something.

Who has no connection to Scotland?

No True Scotsman?

The correct answer is: Idi Amin

Thank you for playing.

Mykeru wrote:

Lsuoma wrote:

Mykeru wrote:
Who has no connection to Scotland?

No True Scotsman?

The correct answer is: Idi Amin

Thank you for playing.

I know you know this, but perhaps other people don't, so I should point out that he was declared King of Scotland in 1974.

Lsuoma wrote: I know you know this, but perhaps other people don't, so I should point out that he was declared King of Scotland in 1974.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... kcover.jpg

There are a distinct lack of mirrors in the households of the Baboons.

Jen's squealing is the same as Ophelia's consternation at why she keeps losing friends and associates.

Lot's to catch up on, but two comments -

Women is misogynist - haven't you heard of "womyn"?

I have no Scottish blood in me at all, so I have no tartan, but I have a kilt and like it. Comfortable (at least in warm weather, I have no insulation), and can't really give a fuck if it "cultural appropriation" or whatever the fuck it was. As for getting married in it, we have a culture where people get married in uniforms, when they have no relationship to the United Federation of Planets. Really, as long as the couple is happy, who gives two shits what someone wears?

Mykeru wrote:

Lsuoma wrote: I know you know this, but perhaps other people don't, so I should point out that he was declared King of Scotland in 1974.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... kcover.jpg

The "whitebread award" ?

Good thing these jackasses weren't around during our early evolution, otherwise we wouldn't have been allowed to "culturally appropriate" fire from whoever the hell figured it out first.

Altair wrote:

Steersman wrote: But while it is quite true that many women advertise their wares – which I generally have no problem with; never pass up gratuitous titilation – it seems that more than a few “men” – I use the term loosely – are rather boorish, to say the least, about the phenomenon even where such intent is not present. For instance you might want to take a look at a post by Ophelia Benson on quite odious levels of sexual harassment as described in a documentary. A salient quote or two:

When Sofie Peeters moved to Brussels for a film degree, she found herself confronted with a depressing problem almost every time she left her front door. Walking around her local neighbourhood, the mixed, working-class district of Anneessens, at any time of day she would be greeted with cat-calls, wolf-whistles and jeers of “slag” and “how much do you cost?”

….
What are these men expecting to get from that? I find it hard to believe that they expect a woman to feel attracted to them or to answer their whistles positively. Is it a desire to look more "macho" in front of their friends? A desire to embarrass her, maybe to take away her "sexual power"? Something else entirely?

Good questions; I wondered about that myself. Most forms of behaviour tend not to be repeated if they’re not rewarded in some way. So one is obliged, more or less or to a first approximation, to think that “scoring” isn’t the goal as those “lines” can’t be terribly successful, but only used for the purposes of the harassment itself.

I may be somewhat off base and I don’t want to make racist remarks, but my impression from watching that documentary or segment thereof was that a large percentage of the men making those remarks were Middle-Eastern as in, possibly, Muslim – something which is emphasized or corroborated in the full documentary with the comment [@ 00:51] that “invasive men and directly insulting comments are primarily the hallmark of foreign Belgians”. And which would be consistent with the reports from Egypt of sexual assaults and harassment during the revolution and afterwards – Islam really seems rather remarkably and egregiously misogynistic. You might be interested in Ibn Warraq’s Why I Am Not a Muslim for details [chapter 14 in particular in the on-line and down-loadable copy linked].

The human mind is very complex, but I think that understanding the underlying causes of this kind of harassment would do more towards changing the behavior than instituting fines.

Agreed; seems that with cognitive neuroscience and the like we’re just starting to get a decent handle on what’s happening underneath the hood. But interesting to note that what I quoted earlier suggested that the documentary initiated some discussions on the causes which will, no doubt, help. But it seems, offhand, that publishing photos and audio recordings of the offenders might do even more.

Badger3k wrote:

Mykeru wrote:

Lsuoma wrote: I know you know this, but perhaps other people don't, so I should point out that he was declared King of Scotland in 1974.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... kcover.jpg

The "whitebread award" ?

Haha, did the same doubletake as you! But it's actually Whitbread without the "e".

Cod (Peas be upon Him), she's a fucking idiot:

Jennifer McCreight ‏@jennifurret

I remember in 2nd grade we got a bomb threat, so they put the school in the gym and showed us Black Beauty. An interesting solution
Collapse

Reply
Retweet
Favorite

5:15 PM - 17 Dec 12 · Details

ConcentratedH2O, OM wrote:Cod (Peas be upon Him), she's a fucking idiot:

Jennifer McCreight ‏@jennifurret

I remember in 2nd grade we got a bomb threat, so they put the school in the gym and showed us Black Beauty. An interesting solution
Collapse

Reply
Retweet
Favorite

5:15 PM - 17 Dec 12 · Details

we had a teacher get killed by a spree/serial killer. They made an announcement, we had a moment, and finished the fucking day.

papillon wrote:

Git wrote:I see you the Party Rings and raise you:

Nice. Buttery biccies are excellent for teh dunkin.

Bollocks. You don't dunk Butter Puffs, they're for spreading massive amounts of Dairylea on and stacking, to be introduced into the mouth as a six inch wad of slimy carbs.

ConcentratedH2O, OM wrote:Cod (Peas be upon Him), she's a fucking idiot:

Jennifer McCreight ‏@jennifurret

I remember in 2nd grade we got a bomb threat, so they put the school in the gym and showed us Black Beauty. An interesting solution
Collapse

Reply
Retweet
Favorite

5:15 PM - 17 Dec 12 · Details

The disgusting Jenny Titwobble just has to make the death of 20 children about herself. In some micro-relevant, self-aggrandizing, fucking heartless way.

Cunt cunt cunt cunt.

Cunt.

bhoytony wrote:Why would somebody with no connection to Scotland wear a kilt? Did you invent your own pretend tartan as well? You're not those weirdos who attend the North American highland games are you? They seem to have appropriated their culture from a Crawford's Tartan Shortbread tin. Wannabe teuchters, a very strange mob.
I think I might get married dressed as a cowboy or something.

Well I got married in a Tux myself. When in Rome and all that. However, there is enough of a market to support several kilt makers in Canukistan. For example from the website of one Vancouver kilt maker :

http://www.westcoastkilts.com/ordering.php

I only work from measurements that I have taken myself because part of my service to you is ensuring an absolute proper fit. If you live outside of the Greater Vancouver Area we'll have to work something out.

For example, I had one customer from Scotland who pre-ordered his kilt-cloth so that it was on hand when he arrived in Vancouver. I measured him, we agreed upon the particulars (pleated to the sett, etc) and he left for a snowmobile holiday in the Interior. He picked up his completed kilt on his way back though Vancouver to return to Scotland,

And, I suppose you may not be aware of the history of how the modern tartans became established, so this may surprise you:

Tartan Design Service: charged by the hour. Generally this comes to around $400.00 and includes submission of the new Sett to the Scottish Tartans Authority for registration.

http://www.mackay-and-stewart.com/historyoftartan.html

Based on the fact that tartans had varied geographically, the notion arose that every clan had a unique tartan which was proper to it alone. The convention was adopted - by the Anglicised clan chiefs - that a clan tartan was that which the chief of a name ordained. This idea was greatly encouraged by the appearance in Edinburgh of two Polish brothers calling themselves Sobieski Stolberg Stuart. Claiming to be the grandsons of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Sobieski-Stuarts published a book entitled the Vestiarium Scoticum which they maintained was a 16th century manuscript detailing tartans and the clans to which each belonged. Clan chiefs rushed to adopt tartans, partly as a way of legitimising their ownership of vast tracts of land.

The Vestiarium Scoticum was later uncovered as a fraud. However, by then the modern notion of clan tartans had become well established. There are still to this day clan tartans which owe their origins to the fertile imaginations of the Sobieski-Stuar.

Oh BTW? The modern "Polish" tartan. From the Scottish Register of Tartans Tartan date: 01/01/2006:
http://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/tartan ... x?ref=5852
http://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/imageC ... height=750



So to answer your question? Multiculturalism in the raw mutherphucker! Not this pale thing by the same name the PC pissants espouse. The real deal.

Are you going to tell Toddish McWong of Gung HAGGIS Fat Choy : http://www.gunghaggis.com he can not wear a kilt?

http://caledonians.com/sitebuilderconte ... McWong.jpg

Well? Are you? No I dinna think so you fecking sasanach! The man has backing from the locals, which is not too surprising seeing as he is also a local.

Take a look here:
http://www.donaldseye.ca/Performance/Ce ... mpd5-L.jpg

And here:
http://www.gunghaggis.com/_photos/40318 ... 987989.jpg

Want to start something about you have to be born in Scotlland to wear a kilt? You are in for a bovver mate.

Steersman wrote:

Altair wrote:Today's WTF tweet, courtesy of ElevatorGate

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/605/ballsfo.png

Apparently evolution is misogynist.

If it would make her feel better, I'm more than happy to walk about with my balls hanging out on display.

Steersman wrote: I may be somewhat off base and I don’t want to make racist remarks, but my impression from watching that documentary or segment thereof was that a large percentage of the men making those remarks were Middle-Eastern as in, possibly, Muslim

The Guardian article says, and it was also brought up in Ophelia's comments, that the harassers are overwhelmingly North African immigrants (this is the reason it's been "taboo" to discuss street harassment, not some defensive reaction on behalf of all men, as some of the commenters would prefer to understand it)

Rather than take it as evidence of some universal tendency of men or Muslims, IMO this makes a better demonstration of how obsessive privilege-checking can make it more difficult for real victims to be heard. The filmmaker is agonising over whether she was "targeting" immigrants by drawing attention to the problem:

“It was one of my biggest fears. How to tackle this subject without making the film racist? But this is the reality: when you're walking around Brussels, in 9 cases out of 10 these insults come from a foreigner.”

Having spent some time in Brussels, I can confirm the observation that women get incredible amounts of male attention on the streets, although I never experienced anything threatening myself (could be that I had more limited exposure, but the filmmaker also says that the "innocent" approaches are much more common).

Reap wrote:Kudos to Pitchguest for the tireless work of explaining the obvious to the oblivious on the youtube vid.

You know what, sometimes I think I have some masochistic tendencies by not just engaging these fuckwits, but also responding to them.

:doh:

Speaking of which, if anyone wants to join me in talking some sense into Adam Lee who for some reason can't leave his confirmation bias out of the equation when discussing Shermer's comments, feel free. I made a comment about how you shouldn't pick women for being women but that you should consider their qualifications first, and he gave this in response,

Nothing in the above comment makes sense unless you're making the assumption that women are inherently less qualified than men, and that any conscious effort to include them can only take away slots from more-deserving white males. I deny that this is the case. To the degree that it makes sense to talk about who's "most qualified" to get a speaker slot or a public position, there are many, many women who are just as well qualified as any man you could name.

This is what I said:

What are you talking about? What you're proposing is treating women as tokens. Didn't you read what Fascination said? She said she wanted to be treated as a person and not some token speaker or attendee, which means looking at her qualifications first and her genitals second. Advocating making sure that people of different gender and race have a similar proportion in attendance and speaker positions is an admirable goal, but if you strictly look at their gender and race first, what's the point?
Conversely, if you find you're inviting a minority or woman over someone else who's not a woman or a minority who's more qualified in a certain subject because you realise inviting that person would skew a proportion of speakers in relation to race and gender, then, once again, what's the point?

http://tnation.t-nation.com/forum_image ... _groan.gif

welch wrote:Meh. It's all just fucking honkies acting like THIS bunch is different from THAT bunch. All just palefaces, who cares what they wear.

“Honkies” all be wearing their distant ancestors costumes like this, but “crackers” be wearing it like that.

That said, nothing disabused me of the Irish Republican diddly-aye bullshit I was force-fed as a kid faster than working on a team of actual micks.

Lsuoma wrote:http://www.dallasvoice.com/instant-tea/ ... k-nutz.jpg

Genius

franc wrote:This is what's really happening...

http://www.terrorweekend.com/2012/07/ra ... eview.html

Original title: Reipu Zonbi: Lust of the Dead

Year: 2012 Duration: 73 min. Country: Japan Director: Naoyuki Tomomatsu Writer: Naoyuki Tomomatsu, Jiro Ishikawa Photo: Tamiya Takehiko Cast: Aikawa Yui, Kazuyoshi Akishima, Asami, Norman England, Hiroshi Fujita, Fukuten, Haruna, Yukihiro Haruzono, Hiroshi Hatakeyama, Yuria Hidaka, Ryoichi Inaba, Hideo Jojo, Hidetoshi Kageyama, Amu Kamika, Hiroyuki Kaneko

RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE!
Men, women, zombies and collards. zombies Our dear friends ... with them and we've seen them all types and colors, or so we thought. And if I tell you all these loved ones do not bite or tear limbs, those things are for the most classic. 2012 now fully engaged modern zombies to rape, yes, to rape women. We face the new generaZion of putrid. Besides these zombies are more specific, only affects men, and funny way of killing is his ejaculation-venomous attack suffered by females. The end of humanity as we know it has arrived. All men of the world are becoming zombies. Government authorities around the globe do not reach a conclusion about what is happening and all specialists are debated each other may be a virus or simply is the logical evolution of man. The only certainty in all this is that men have reached a point that can not contain his alpha male testosterone and need to expel all they contain. But a group of explosive women, who are "well armed" are not willing to be raped by these particular men. Welcome to the new world where men roam poison!

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b2npNgTyKUg/U ... poster.jpg

Sounds like a typical hentai plot.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Not that I ever watch any of that stuff, like, ever. :shifty:

Angry_Drunk wrote:

welch wrote:Meh. It's all just fucking honkies acting like THIS bunch is different from THAT bunch. All just palefaces, who cares what they wear.

“Honkies” all be wearing their distant ancestors costumes like this, but “crackers” be wearing it like that.

That said, nothing disabused me of the Irish Republican diddly-aye bullshit I was force-fed as a kid faster than working on a team of actual micks.

I've had a few friends who are actually Irish, as opposed to American Honkey irish.

The difference is not small.

Pitchguest wrote:

Reap wrote:Kudos to Pitchguest for the tireless work of explaining the obvious to the oblivious on the youtube vid.

You know what, sometimes I think I have some masochistic tendencies by not just engaging these fuckwits, but also responding to them.

Link please ....

Pitchguest wrote:

Badger3k wrote: The "whitebread award" ?

Haha, did the same doubletake as you! But it's actually Whitbread without the "e".

Good catch - I had to go back and still took two to read it properly.

Rawrsome wrote:If it would make her feel better, I'm more than happy to walk about with my balls hanging out on display.

Oddly enough, I recently heard BradyFan83 (IIRC) old video on the Favre sexting bit. Does this woman want those kind of tweets? :whistle:

windy wrote:

Steersman wrote: I may be somewhat off base and I don’t want to make racist remarks, but my impression from watching that documentary or segment thereof was that a large percentage of the men making those remarks were Middle-Eastern as in, possibly, Muslim

The Guardian article says, and it was also brought up in Ophelia's comments, that the harassers are overwhelmingly North African immigrants (this is the reason it's been "taboo" to discuss street harassment, not some defensive reaction on behalf of all men, as some of the commenters would prefer to understand it).

Thanks for the additional information; I hadn’t had much more time than to track down a few of the high points and I hadn’t remembered much of Ophelia’s post.

Bit of a complex issue though, possibly made more so by a commitment to dogma and a refusal to face facts. Not to mention the potential conflation of the issues of sexism and racism. Although certainly debatable how much that behaviour pattern – including several others which have been recent topics of discussion – is due to genetics and how much is due to feedback and amplification by culture of a basic genetic trait .

Rather than take it as evidence of some universal tendency of men or Muslims, IMO this makes a better demonstration of how obsessive privilege-checking can make it more difficult for real victims to be heard.

I’m not sure how much can be laid at the doorstep of “obsessive privilege-checking”. While it seems it is not an inconsiderable amount – as argued in the previously noted article, I would still agree that the plight of at least some “real victims” is lost in the privilege-checking or postmodernist shuffles. For instance, there was discussed here earlier, if I’m not mistaken, the suggestion that it was racist for medical emergency personel to tailor responses based on race – in particular the increased incidence of sickle cell anemia in blacks. I think that qualifies as a rather surprising case of wishful thinking – the rather King Canute-ish belief that there are no genetic differences between sexes or races – that is supposedly only found in the religious.

katamari Damassi wrote:

Steersman wrote:

Altair wrote:Today's WTF tweet, courtesy of ElevatorGate

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/605/ballsfo.png

Apparently evolution is misogynist.

Exactly. And racist – I want a recount; how come Jews get to have more Nobel Laureates? And speciesist to boot ….

Altair wrote:

Michael J wrote:Now they have gone after Shermer are there any famous skeptics left?

They could go after Randi. He's old and white, but he's gay so who knows what SJW's will do

that didn't stop them from going after DJ Grothe.

I have a feeling they know not to go after Randi. If they are stupid enough to try, they will never get a speaking gig at a sceptics conference/event/gathering... not even a local sceptics in the pub, they will finally be the laughingstock of the entire community. No one would want to have any association with them, they may as well be living in 17th century with Leprocy.
They may be able to keep their hard-core cult followers, but everyone who is truly a sceptic will very quickly distance themselves.

Randi himself will not have to do a thing. He is well respected and loved by the sceptic community, and an angry mob of sceptics would defend him, and attack those disparaging him.

I've spoken to him at least 5 different times, he is the kindest, most humble, appreciative person one can imagine. He takes time to listen to anyone who wants to talk with him, he is happy to have a photo taken with a fellow sceptic, happy to sign anything one hands him, goes out of his way to join in with those that are in the audience, no one is ever overlooked, ignored, or rushed when there are other well known "celebrity" sceptics trying to get his attention. He is absolutely lovely.

I have back and neck issues, and cannot get comfortable in the type of chairs provided for the audience at TAM, so once it begins to be painful enough to distract me, I sneak out quietly, and walk around outside of the conference hall. What I learned at my first TAM, was the most interesting conversations and fantastic random things happen in the hallway when the vast majority of attendees are seated in the main room with the scheduled speakers at the podium.

That is when the famous sceptics talk, listen, entertain, and interact with people like me, who find themselves out in the hall in the middle of the "main event". One time Penn Gilette was using the hallway to juggle things that looked like bowling pins back and forth with a group of people that just happened to be in the hallway, and knew how to juggle.

I became quite friendly with Richard Saunders at my first TAM, (wonderful person). We flirted, and laughed, and had private jokes, during the entire three days, he and I sat together at his booth for hours and had a ball. We had hilarious photos taken of us "hamming it up" as he called it, he gave me a box of Tam Tams, made origami animals for me. and made me laugh.
He has remembered me the three times I've seen him since, and as if no time had passed at all, we were back to our antics. All in good fun, he is happily married.

I spoke to Randi very briefly my first TAM, and was touched by how genuinely grateful he was to be able to spend time with the "peasants".
I queued up behind those that wanted him to sign a book, or a tee-shirt, or a Randi doll, or just to have a photo taken with him.
He must have been exhausted, he was ill, recently out of hospital, and weak, but he never complained, never sat down, never turned anyone away. When it was my turn, he had his pen out, and looked around to see what I wanted him to sign, I said, I have nothing to sign, I just wanted to thank you. He said "For what?" I told him that although I realised many years later that I've always sceptic tendencies, I did not know it had a name, and I had no idea there were others who thought the way I did, and when I was introduced to sceptic community, I felt for the first time in my life, I had found my people. You have been directly responsible for that, so I want to thank you for who you are, and all you have done.

He smiled, put his pen away and hugged me, and, like Saunders, he has remembered me every time since then.

I spent a lot of time with Randi during my second TAM, Somehow the subject of tea came up, and that evening I brought him a little care package of PG Tips, which he was quite happy about. He chose me as his "victim" when doing magic tricks out in the hall when the show was going on, and the last day, he must have overheard me being quite disappointed that they had already packed up the little flying pig lapel buttons, as I buy one every time as a souvenir, and when I turned around, he called me over, he was wearing an original from the very first time they were made, (the design is a little different, there is more detail, and the metal used is much better than the ones they sell now - they were too expensive to make that way, so they went to the new version), he took it off his lapel, said "shhh" and handed it to me. I was nearly speechless, but I told him that I could not possibly take his pin, and did my best to decline, even backing away. He wouldn't have it. He insisted, and now I have James Randi's flying pig lapel pin.

*shocking, I know, but very occasionally I can be sentimental. My reputation is now ruined.

This is who he is, and anyone who has met him can verify that, and even if you have not met him in person, it's clear he is kind, and honorable just from listening to him speak.

If they go after Randi, it will be the Coup de grâce.

JackRayner wrote:

franc wrote:This is what's really happening...

http://www.terrorweekend.com/2012/07/ra ... eview.html

Original title: Reipu Zonbi: Lust of the Dead

Year: 2012 Duration: 73 min. Country: Japan Director: Naoyuki Tomomatsu Writer: Naoyuki Tomomatsu, Jiro Ishikawa Photo: Tamiya Takehiko Cast: Aikawa Yui, Kazuyoshi Akishima, Asami, Norman England, Hiroshi Fujita, Fukuten, Haruna, Yukihiro Haruzono, Hiroshi Hatakeyama, Yuria Hidaka, Ryoichi Inaba, Hideo Jojo, Hidetoshi Kageyama, Amu Kamika, Hiroyuki Kaneko

RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE!
Men, women, zombies and collards. zombies Our dear friends ... with them and we've seen them all types and colors, or so we thought. And if I tell you all these loved ones do not bite or tear limbs, those things are for the most classic. 2012 now fully engaged modern zombies to rape, yes, to rape women. We face the new generaZion of putrid. Besides these zombies are more specific, only affects men, and funny way of killing is his ejaculation-venomous attack suffered by females. The end of humanity as we know it has arrived. All men of the world are becoming zombies. Government authorities around the globe do not reach a conclusion about what is happening and all specialists are debated each other may be a virus or simply is the logical evolution of man. The only certainty in all this is that men have reached a point that can not contain his alpha male testosterone and need to expel all they contain. But a group of explosive women, who are "well armed" are not willing to be raped by these particular men. Welcome to the new world where men roam poison!

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b2npNgTyKUg/U ... poster.jpg

Sounds like a typical hentai plot.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Not that I ever watch any of that stuff, like, ever. :shifty:

I've just made my decision for "movie night".

Steersman wrote:

Altair wrote:Today's WTF tweet, courtesy of ElevatorGate

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/605/ballsfo.png

Well if they stopped arresting me, I would.

real horrorshow wrote:

papillon wrote:*Full disclosure: I am a person of whiteness, compete with penis and latent homicidal tendencies.

Having given the matter a little more thought, I think the proper form should be Person of Paleness or PoP.

"Pop" stands for Parachutist over Phorty. Every year they old a competition (Hit n' Rock, IIRC) where they have to make precision landing then run to a rocking chair and have a beer. The fastest PoP wins.

They also have a funny logo (this is the US version)

http://www.google.com/url?source=imglan ... bw_MpuNsUQ

justinvacula wrote:http://i.imgur.com/QlieF.jpg

Seconded.

I'll just throw this down:

The guy who did the shooting was bright. He planned what he did. He was prepared with body armour.

So do we really thing taking away his guns would have stopped him?

We lost 168 in the Oklahoma City bombing because some less intelligent person figured out how to fill a truck with amonium nitrate. Most terrorist tend to use bombs. Europe has had it's fair share of bombs.

We also share a border with Mexico. Mexico will sell you anything you want. A gun ban here would be just another open market for them.

So all a gun ban would to is swap one weapon for a more dangerous one and we'd end up with a higher body count.

A completely random aside that might amuse some people's sceptic sensibilities. This news story made me think of people upthread picking letters out of Justin "my middle name is fucking" Vacula's organisation to show a hidden code that proved whatever anyone felt like proving.

A few weeks back, a guy renovating his chimney found a dead WW2 pigeon - complete with coded note. GCHQ (UK gov comms) said without the codebook, it would be virtually uncrackable. Then some Canadian claimed to have cracked the code - by just making words up that sound WW2-ish and fitting them to the letters. It is hilarious, particularly the way he randomly adds words in to make his oddball "decryption" fit the facts (see BBC news article here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20749632).

It reminds me A LOT of people "decoding" nostradamus and suchlike. While it is clear that this guy Gord Young has not a single clue about cryptography, the tabloid press on both sides of the political spectrum are lapping it up; the daily fail on the right and the huffpo on the left showing a staggering lack of critical thinking. Mind you the BBC isn't much better - although the beeb at least it indicates that this guy may not have it right in their article.

Of course, like all good fictional stories - existence of god being a good example - it is almost impossible to prove this nutter wrong without actually cracking the code. He is either delusional or a black belt troll, I can't decide which.

Steersman wrote:

Altair wrote:Today's WTF tweet, courtesy of ElevatorGate

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/605/ballsfo.png

Apparently someone commented something about her breasts on the street. While that's not a exactly nice thing to do, I don't find it terrible either. And it's not like someone put a gun to her head and forced her to display her breasts (is that victim blaming?).

Maybe somewhat unfortunate, depending on your point of view, that women’s “secondary sexual characteristics” are generally so obvious; maybe Ms. Lewis would like to see more men wearing codpieces – I expect Scented could work-up a line of SlymePit approved knitted versions for the next TAM – likely to provide “stiff” competition – depending on the models used, of course – for Amy’s schlock.

But while it is quite true that many women advertise their wares – which I generally have no problem with; never pass up gratuitous titilation – it seems that more than a few “men” – I use the term loosely – are rather boorish, to say the least, about the phenomenon even where such intent is not present. For instance you might want to take a look at a post by Ophelia Benson on quite odious levels of sexual harassment as described in a documentary. A salient quote or two:

When Sofie Peeters moved to Brussels for a film degree, she found herself confronted with a depressing problem almost every time she left her front door. Walking around her local neighbourhood, the mixed, working-class district of Anneessens, at any time of day she would be greeted with cat-calls, wolf-whistles and jeers of “slag” and “how much do you cost?”

Sick of wondering whether it was her fault for wearing particular clothes, she made her end of year film on the topic, armed with a hidden camera to record the street harassment.

The student film, Femme de la Rue, a shocking account of everyday sexist insults in the street, is now at the centre of a political and social storm in Belgium and across its borders. After it was shown on TV and at a screening last week it has become an internet success and triggered a public debate.

Belgian politicians say they were already planning legislation to crack down on sexist insults and harassment, promising fines for offenders. French feminist groups seized on the film to highlight similar problems in France and break the taboo surrounding street harassment.

As you say, we are all judged, at one time or another, frequently on the basis of sexual attractiveness which frequently tends to be rather idiosyncratic. For instance, this interesting if bizarre case of the Sara Kaba tribe in Africa which inserted – apparently until the practice was banned – wooden plates of increasing diameter into the lower lips of their women to make them less attractive to raiding parties from other tribes and which, apparently, came to be seen by the former as marks of distinction.

But just a little difficult to argue that all of that isn’t an outgrowth of genetically determined pair-bonding and procreative instincts. Trick is, I think, to ensure that those instincts are adequately “disciplined by our hearts and minds”.

Interesting way of presenting the documentary. Even more interesting is the omission of the documentary's center point: the harassers are mostly muslims from North Africa and the Middle East. Same here in France.

But I guess cultural differences are irelevant to the intended narrative...

ConcentratedH2O, OM wrote:

papillon wrote:

Git wrote:I see you the Party Rings and raise you:

Nice. Buttery biccies are excellent for teh dunkin.

Bollocks. You don't dunk Butter Puffs, they're for spreading massive amounts of Dairylea on and stacking, to be introduced into the mouth as a six inch wad of slimy carbs.

Dairylea? You sick bastard. Am I the only person on Earth who hates Dairylea cheese*? My kids thrive on it.

*I have my doubts that dairylea is actually a cheese. Judging by the taste I reckon it's mined from somewhere near Chernobyl.

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

The thing is, if she'd just limited herself to complaining about atheists, skeptics and scientists, we'd be no doubt hearing that it is those terrible misogynists again, driving out a youthful activist.
Shame on you!

But...

The inclusion of liberals and feminists indicates that all is not well in social justice warrior land.
Anyone who has experience of campus politics will know that this was inevitable. There is no unified feminist movement for Jen to rally behind. The sex negative and sex positive feminists have deep and unresolved differences that rise to the fore whenever they get a taste of power. And then there are the deep divisions between some radical feminists and transgendered individuals - not to mention the opposition of the likes of Sikivu Hutchinson to the 'white supremacy' of the skeptic movement, which, as anyone can attest, is in conference attendee terms, whiter than an Alabama tea-party rally.
Atheism+, Jens crowning achievement, the Prometheus of atheism, is atheism without skepticism.
'I believe because I choose to believe'

justinvacula wrote:http://i.imgur.com/QlieF.jpg

If only we could all live up to the incredibly high standards that Jen sets.

*Le sigh*

Seriously though, Jen is just sooo much better than everyone else. It must be true, her daddy said so.

justinvacula wrote:http://i.imgur.com/QlieF.jpg

How to win friends and influence people. (I wonder what percentage of her followers she just described as disappointing.)

Altair wrote:

sacha wrote: After doing some more research, the only articles and mentions I found are so dripping with elaborate praise, my skeptic radar is on high alert. In addition, the exact same article was reprinted by a few different blogs, news organisations, and tech websites, and almost every mention that is not a carbon copy of at least part of that article, are in websites specifically for women with a pro-feminist slant, and every one I saw, uses the term "brogrammer culture".

I've been a Software Developer for 10 years and I have never seen a company with an environment that could be considered "toxic" for women

This is part of the "say it enough times, and people will begin to believe it" marketing strategy. It is also one of so-many-at-this-point-I-can't count reasons I'd be extremely surprised if Hackbright was not a scam.

as I said previously:

sacha wrote: I honestly cannot see any IT company in SF hiring someone with no experience who just graduated from a 10 week "training program". This isn't a place one has to lure people to live. Why would they hire from HackBright, no matter what their gender, when it is so easy to find someone tech educated and experienced who lives here, or would love to move here. This is why I'm thinking it is a scam. From the small amount I've read online about the "school", it seems that a good percentage of their students quit their jobs, and move here from elsewhere, thinking that a 10 week training program will land them an IT job that pays enough to live here.

sacha wrote:I have a few people in IT here (San Francisco) asking around, and looking into Hackbright "Academy"

So far no one I've spoken to has heard of it, and can't imagine anyone in SF hiring someone with no experience who has taken a 10 week non-acredited "training program".

now I have even more information to be sceptical about:

The only mentions I have found, that do not come directly Hackbright are gushing with "life-changing" adulation:

example:

It really hasn’t hit me yet that this amazing 10 weeks of collaborative learning, problem solving, sometimes frustration, epiphanies, and bonding with 15 other indescribably fantastic women is coming to an end. I’ve been so focused on writing code the past few weeks that my keyboard has not had a purpose for anything resembling the English language.

It’s been difficult to put into words how transformative this experience has been for me. In my previous attempts to learn programming and bash (ha ha) my way into system administration, I often felt confused and completely in the dark, without even the language to articulate to my colleagues what I needed help with. I had some failures, and some definite wins; but overall, it was an experience that left me drained and frustrated. I felt like I had all these little pieces that I had figured out independently, but no clue as to how to put them all together. I was stuck, intimidated, and a little resentful of those who were able to connect the dots so easily.

On the first day of Hackbright, that all changed...

There are so many things I want to do now, and they don’t seem out of reach or hopeless. And I know everyone I’ve worked with over the past 10 weeks can do these things too. I’m really impressed with how much everyone has learned and supported each other, and I know that just because we graduated doesn’t mean we stop. We all have the tools, vocabulary and problem solving skills to keep going at ramming speed.

There are so many things I want to do now, and they don’t seem out of reach or hopeless. And I know everyone I’ve worked with over the past 10 weeks can do these things too. I’m really impressed with how much everyone has learned and supported each other, and I know that just because we graduated doesn’t mean we stop. We all have the tools, vocabulary and problem solving skills to keep going at ramming speed.

not my bold, but actually bolded in the article:
http://www.women2.com/last-day-of-class ... xTGFF7j.99

notice the name of the website (Women 2.0) and the feminist slant.

This sentence is very telling:

...12 women are graduating today. Each of them paid at least $6,000, some quit previous jobs, and all moved to the Bay Area to do one thing: learn to code, surrounded by other women, in hopes of landing a job in tech.

"all moved to the Bay Area"

They may have a lot more difficulty luring (scamming) women to pay $7500 (the current cost) for a 10 week training course for "women only" (completely sexist - men are going to university to study, and then get on-the-job experience, women can't handle that, "so here is a shortcut, princess") who live in a significant metropolitan city where tech companies are ubiquitous, and it is well known that there are many women in IT positions here, well known that competition is fierce for those jobs, and they know very well how much it costs to live here.

Although there are always plenty of people who will believe whatever one tells them, if they are hearing what they want to hear.

...But the fact that these 12 women — and the other 30 or so who applied and were rejected — were willing to move to San Francisco and pay to learn to code certainly says something about the perceived desirability and stability of those jobs.

(one of the owners) has told (the students) to be more confident in their own skills and to be willing to brag a little in job interviews, something they said they think guys are more inclined to do.

Right there is the out. Didn't get a job? That's because you were too meek on the interviews. If you had gone in with confidence (like a man) you would have gotten the job. It's your fault, not ours, we gave you all the tools and training needed to succeed.

quotes above from here: http://gigaom.com/2012/08/24/my-fair-la ... ackbright/

and from another article - this one takes the award for bizarre sycophancy:

Hackbright is the best invention since sliced bread.

Pair programming is like speed dating with intellectual stimulation, by sharing coding knowledge and developing communication skills. I love the nested tables with shared desktops and mice, and the collaboration and steep learning curve that you get when you put two curious minds together.

Having barely scratched the surface of Learning Python the Hard Way and Learning Code the Hard Way, I was amazed at how quickly the exercises and classwork programs came together. I appreciate how the classroom projects are structured — morning lecture, breakout into new pairs (daily!), review exercises, and applied learning by writing programs. It is much like easing a toe into a frozen lake then throwing caution to the wind and cannon-balling in.

Monday = welcomes, hugs and hellos...

http://anniechang.wordpress.com/2012/10 ... t-academy/

If this is a real person, and she somehow manages to get a job in IT, the men who work for that company have my sincere sympathy.

Punker wrote:

justinvacula wrote:http://i.imgur.com/QlieF.jpg

How to win friends and influence people. (I wonder what percentage of her followers she just described as disappointing.)

You know who else was disappointed in their followers and blamed them for everything?

http://goo.gl/1Rs5B

But, it wasn't always that way.

http://www.stuartcreation.com/pics/HitlerAmused.jpg

http://img.youtube.com/vi/2W33p11MHCw/0.jpg

katamari Damassi wrote:

Phil_Giordana_FCD wrote:

Michael J wrote:Now they have gone after Shermer are there any famous skeptics left?

Just waiting for them to posthumously attack The Hitch. Then there will be real trouble...

Radfems have gone after Hitch since he made those remarks about women not being funny. I'm shocked that the baboons haven't picked up on that and started hurling their feces at him.

BTW-I don't know what the context of Hitch's statement was since in their ragegasms the sisters of perpetual outrage never include it, but it does sound like a dumb thing to say.

So you have made a disparaging remark about something you have only heard about through the Baboons, and you have not even bothered to read it for yourself.

Good job "sceptic"

I should be commended for helping the severely disabled: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/featu ... hens200701

I'm going through job offers right now and was wondering: is it just a French thing that for any job these days they ask for 2 to 5 years experience in the same domain?

If you only ever hire experienced workers, how the fuck do I even start getting some experience in x or y domain?!? Skydiving and music, although very cool to start conversations in pubs, are not exactly helping on my CV.

Kids, get a degree and accept to be threated like shit for a few years as an intern. I didn't, and now I have to drink instant coffee instead of my usual Italian blend.

Sorry for the rant, I'm just very exasperated right now.

Mykeru wrote: http://img.youtube.com/vi/2W33p11MHCw/0.jpg

Is it just me, or is McCreight, superficially at least, starting to resemble someone?

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Gua ... kin128.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hYCKh29DLv8/S ... workin.jpg

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/200 ... kin184.jpg

real horrorshow wrote:

papillon wrote:*Full disclosure: I am a person of whiteness, compete with penis and latent homicidal tendencies.

Having given the matter a little more thought, I think the proper form should be Person of Paleness or PoP.

no, no. The correct term is transparent - person of transparency. pale of any colour, is still colour.