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At 12/18/10 01:37 AM, Jedi-Master wrote: If I didn't know any better, I'd say Pox was trying to troll certain political forum regulars. Well, shame on him...

Heh, and whaddaya know...

At 12/17/10 10:52 AM, conservative23 wrote: Not surprising that most scientists are democrats, after all scientists this decade have been liars.

Hook.

At 12/18/10 02:52 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: YAY MORE PARTISAN BS!

Line.

At 12/18/10 02:12 PM, Memorize wrote: You're a fool to follow a consensus that's constantly shifting.

Which just goes to show how unscientific you are.

Dumb Fuck.

And sinker.

At 12/18/10 01:21 PM, adrshepard wrote: The difference between you and me is that I have no problem labeling those people as freaks, and I would have no problem with arbitrarily restricting any of their freakish imagery.
Censorship is a lot more palatable when you think of it as a one-time event targeting something in particular.

And that, in a nutshell, is what makes it so dangerous.

At 12/17/10 10:21 PM, SevenSeize wrote:

At 12/17/10 11:15 AM, Ravariel wrote: So, apparently Ypsilanti's air raid... excuse me, tornado... siren sounds like an auto-tuned vuvuzela.

My mom is from Ypsilanti. You're the first person I've met who has heard of this location besides her.

Well, you can assume anyone whose a Michigan student or from Ann Arbor/Detroit has a good idea where it is, too. Ann Arbor's little delinquent, unemployed brother.

I've slept through them here.

That's the thing... the one in Ann Arbor will wake you from a dead sleep, this one is practically soothing.

So, apparently Ypsilanti's air raid... excuse me, tornado... siren sounds like an auto-tuned vuvuzela.

The thing that really fascinates me about this case is that it so well illustrates the internal contradiction that is Japan's approach to violence and sexuality. If ever there were a culture that made our own look somewhat logical, it would be Japan.

Their culture is incredibly insular and based upon rules, honor, maintaining status quo, and fulfilling societal roles. They place a high value on propriety, so much so that they make the Victorians look positively bacchanalian. They still censor all of their pornography. And yet they produce vast quantities of some of the most vile examples of the form known to man (don't believe me, google search the term Guro... on second thought... don't).

They pass this law, that makes their already strict censorship laws even more strict by placing the possibility of even light nudity or dark/twisted themes being pushed into the Adult-only business, put it in the hands of a few men who are "urged to act with prudence" so as to keep artistic expression intact, and yet paint the law so broadly that it could do nothing ot completely choke the entire medium.

Japan itself is struggling with it's own ideas of sexuality. I think it sees the fact that shotacon and lolicon are genres, not just fringe fetishes and worries about the state of it's society... and yet it takes a bill that is probably pointed at homosexuality in order for them to get around to making a move against the forms.

Also, it was once said that the worst thing about being an advocate for civil rights is you're often stuck defending scoundrels (paraphrased) and things you find morally repugnant. Remember, just because you don't like it doesn't mean it shouldn't exist. Or that someone else isn't allowed to make it.

Here's the deal: Nearly everyone loves the part of the Health Care Plan that says that you can't be turned down due to pre-existing condition or be dropped by insurers because of high risk. So those with congenital heart defects or diabetes or whatever now can actually get decent health coverage and not have to file bankruptcy every few years because their local public health coverage doesn't cover $700,000 worth of heart surgery, hospital stays, rehabilitation and a $2,000/month worth of prescriptions.

But, if you can't be turned down, then what is to stop someone from not buying health insurance until they absolutely need it (for the extreme hyperbolic example: with your blackberry while in the ambulance on the way to the hospital) then dropping it again once they're clear. That would cost insurance companies millions of dollars a year, which they would pass on to customers resulting in a huge raise in premiums.

So congress tried to fix this by requiring everyone to buy insurance, which will spread the burden, put everyone into the insurance pool and probably LOWER premiums across the board. People can opt out of purchasing insurance by paying a fine (tax).

Without this context, just looking at the statement "The government is making people purchase a product. They are legislating against inaction." seems perfectly ridiculous, and the idea that congress is overstepping it's powers via the commerce clause making it unconstitutional seems like a no-brainer. But think of it this way: we're already paying for it. We already have mandated taxpayer-funded health care in the form of emergency rooms. People cannot be turned away, and those who are there without insurance often get it while there in order to help pay for their care. We the Peeps already pay for this, and Helath insurance is, indeed, unlike every other product on the market for the simple fact that noone can ever say he or she will never need it.

At some point in your life, unless you land in the top 1-5% of wage earners, you will need insurance to pay for a medical event at some time in your life. And you never know when that will be. SInce we already pay for it, why not pay LESS, and get a better system? If this one, narrow part of the bill gets struck down, much of the rest of the bill falls apart.

Personally, I think the judge saw that there could be a better way to word the law in order to resolve the conflict between mandating coverage and mandating purchase, knew it would be a case likely to head to the SCotUS, and ruled it unconstitutional just so it would go that far. As the most controversial part of the Bill, this one issue will be the likely legal sticking point, and dismissing or ruling constitutional the bill would have harmed it's chances of getting to the SCotUS, I think he probably saw it as a good idea to speed the journey by making a splashy ruling, and almost guaranteeing a trip to the highest court.

While I disagree with his ruling, I believe it was the right ruling for him to make (if that makes any sense).

At 12/15/10 04:30 AM, RightWingGamer wrote: THAT'S IT?! All that the law requires is that these explicit materials be put in the adults-only section? Hell, it specifically talks about sexual acts, which should be in the adults-only section to begin with.

Think of it this way: This is like a rule that basically tells the MPAA that Rated R movies now get designated NC-17, PG-13 is now R, and PG is PG-13, and NC-17 movies can be outright banned.

Imagine what that would do to the movie industry. NC-17 ratings pull in significantly less than R movies, and the trend continues with G movies being the best money makers, and we're not even talking profit (granted most current NC-17s would gain some ground there due to being, in general, low-ish budget indie films, but that's kind of a chinken-and-egg thing), just sheer box office. And when was the last time an NC-17 movie won any kind of award, or had any significant star-power behind it?

The Fight Clubs, and the Requiem for a Dreams, and the Black Swans, and the District 9s would never be made (on the plus side, The Expendables and the xXx movies wouldn't either), and Harry Potter would be an R-rated movie.

This would cripple the industry and pretty heavily neuter its ability to tell mature stories.

Yeah, you read that right.

So the general affairs committee of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly recently passed a ban on "manga, anime, and other images (except for real-life photography)" that "unjustifiably glorify or exaggerate" certain sexual or pseudo sexual acts including crimes, violence and anything that is "likely to interfere with the healthy development of youth".

This means that any manga, anime, game or illustration that doesn't pass the regulatory board's muster would be shunted into the 18+ or adult-only sections of publications and stores. This would be a death knell for any publication moved in such a way because, contrary to the popularity of ero-manga, the business side of that industry is one of marginal profits at best. They generally rely on Tankoubon (NSFW ads/rest of site) income (basically graphic novel collections), and most artists in the 18+ genre (NSFW ads/rest of site) only barely make a living. Shunting a manga that is violent (like Bleach, Rurouni Kenshin, or Berserk), dark and slightly twisted (Death Note, Code Geass), or even the slightly ecchi (softcore, light nudity, "teasing") could be shunted into the 18+ category, crashing their sales and likely killing the book.

Even the Hentai market could suffer. Those set in schools could be seen as detrimental to the healthy development of children, even if they can't be sold to them, and banned outright. Additionally, the ban's mention of "rape and other sexual acts which violate societal norms" seems inevitably to point to a ban on depictions of homosexuality, or the more perverse ends of the hentai spectrum like lolicon, futanari, tentacles, rape and incest (I suggest you don't google image search those if you're easily shocked or offended). Oddly, a clause in the bill to ban possession of photographic child pornography was removed.

And while this is only in Tokyo, as the center of Japan this could have far-reaching implications throughout the Japanese Animation world, and is a pretty hefty blow in the realms of free speech and censorship that will be felt worldwide.

At 12/15/10 12:01 AM, poxpower wrote: Ok you guys are way overthinking this.

Pretend like 10% of the people do everything you could possibly want done.

There, what now?

We make those positions hold prestige, make them worth the work. Give them better houses, more [food/toys/cubits/etc]. And we regulate their performance, so that at any time that they may take their position for granted and be lazy and not do the work, we replace them, knocking them down a social status and raising someone else up.

OR, we keep the same incentives (more money chips, or potato chips, or better houses, more playstations, shinier cars, whatever) and we lottery the positions every year or two. Those who are consigned, have to work, but live like kings while the rest only live like regular folk.

At 12/13/10 06:01 PM, Drakim wrote:
Well, basically, this guy with shifty ties to the neo nazi movement had "visions" of Odin telling him to bring back the country to the true faith.

Well, that's legitimately disappointing. So basically, the Scandanavian version of christ on a cheese sandwich or the Branch Davidians? I guess it'll be interesting to see if this is just a flash in the pan or if the movement will gain some real steam.

This seems like an entirely too specific and arbitrary set of numbers to just be pulled from your ass, pox. What, exactly are you getting at?

Guess it's kinda hard to hit a flying sword with a Tomohawk missile....

At 12/13/10 03:02 PM, jepper65 wrote: DOOD!!! Yggdrasil is the tree of the world, not a lost city/place...

Don't worry, I knew it was a tree, but as I understood it, the location/path to the tree was lot (or hidden by the gods), but perhaps a better parallel would have been to the Garden of Eden in Christian Mythology: the place where humans were begun but then kicked out never to return.

Sorry for bringing this up, but I see as a sort of cause for me to bring the true 'information' about the asatro (Danish word for the Nordic Mythologi also used in rest of scandinavia) to the world...

Please do. If you read through the rest of the topic you'll see we like to discuss all matter of religious and philosophical ideas, mytthologies, beliefs, and contradictions in a levelheaded manner (ironically, most of the discussions are done by skeptics, but that's neither here nor there). While the original topic was technically a red herring for those unwilling to discuss religion in a calm and respectful manner, it was done so because of the lack of information that the rest of us have about it. Most of my info was gleaned from what mythology I have picked up and some quick research online.

And I do not like the word Odinism as the religion is not the belief in odin, but the belief of the asa (The name of all the gods in asgard like we are humans or Mexican people are mexicans(not that they are non-human))

Well, as Heathenry is the technical non-scandanavian word for the religion, and it has significant negative connotations now, Odinism is kinda the only other way it is known. I was not even aware that it was called Asatro until you said so. I wonder, do you have any good online resources (in English) where we can learn about the religion?

It's a big problem that this religion is being twisted by bad translations, misunderstandings, Heavy Metal etc. etc. The religion is coming back in scandinavia and i hope that it is not misunderstood.

I have heard a couple of people say they were Odinists (their words), but I always figured it was a non-conformity thing, like teenage satanists who think they're the first ones to ever read and understand Aleister Crowley, I wasn't aware it was a serious movement. Do you know why the movement is happening? What cultural shifts are occurring that would promote such a resurgence of a religion most folk thought was dead?

At 12/12/10 05:10 PM, stafffighter wrote: I want the fun part of winter weather, damn it!

Of what "fun" part do you speak. Surely you must jest, because I've lived in Michigan my entire life (most of it in the coldest place in the lower 48, which has worse weather than Alaska according to folks who have lived both places... and no I don't mean Juno) and I have yet to see this "fun" part.

bah humbug

No, I'm not bitter about the fact that I expected to be living in San Diego by now, not at all, why do you ask?

Proteas: so in an epic battle between swords and helicopters... who wins?

At 12/10/10 08:39 PM, aviewaskewed wrote: Which is where I got the idea that this isn't something he's all that committed to be the Pres to repeal it. Handing it back to Congress smells to me like a game of "hey, I just signed the thing in front of me" or even better "well, you see, it was in a defense bill that we really NEEDED. I wasn't exactly a fan of repealing DADT, but I couldn't let that other critical stuff go away". So again, I don't see how Obama is "pushing this". Also I can make facebook posts about stuff too, lots of people can...does that really prove that what I'm posting about is deeply important to me?

To me it smells of him wanting to make the repeal stronger. To have something knocked down by the SCotUS opens the door for a re-worded version that does the same thing, or an underground "social contract" type of thing in the military that allows for persecution/discharge as long as you're clever about it. By making it explicit that this shit don't fly in actual US law, that grants protections to the victims. Striking down one form of discrimination doesn't protect against others, by making it illegal to discriminate, the message, and the legal rotections granted to those harmed by that discrimination, is much greater.

At 12/10/10 06:29 AM, satanbrain wrote:

At 12/9/10 05:58 PM, Bacchanalian wrote: You said, "If someone doesn't want a baby to die he'll always be able to take care of it, otherwise he's a hypocrite."

Do you acknowledge a chance of failure (significant enough to call it chance) or not?

If you know the specific baby that is going to be neglected and eventually die you'll probably know at least where he is.

My god, I am about to go find this hypothetical baby that may or may not be neglected and may or may not be murdered and strangle it my fucking self just so this retarded conversation can be over. I think there must be some sort of language barrier going on because nothing satan says in response seems to have anything to actually do with the question asked and the single-sentence posts are so vaguely/poorly constructed that I hardly know what he's even saying. And Bacch seems to just be seeing how long he can make this damn thing go on and hell I doubt either of you even know what the original discussion was about now that you've gone so far into the minutiae of a ridiculous hypothetical. Aargh!

satanbrain, if you want us to understand what you mean, you're going to have to explain what you mean when you give single-word or single-sentence answers. Give context, mitigations, background, corollaries, anything... because as it is I have no goddamn idea what idea you're even espousing here. It's taken Bacch about 10 pages of tooth-pulling to extract maybe a handful of clear answers and/or ideas out of you that are necessary to know in order to understand one of your posts. We still need about a dozen more answers/ideas out of you to actually fully understand wtf you meant. You have to remember, like Bacch said, we can't read your mind, we can't see the layers of context that go on in your mind that inform the words you type on the page. Without that context at least explained a bit, usually what one says will be completely incoherent.

At 12/10/10 02:37 AM, aviewaskewed wrote: I agree. A shame Congress and the President don't seem to.

Pres is pushing hard for it, even launched a facebook email yer congressman campaign about it, but congress is being dicks about the whole tax deal thing.

At 12/10/10 01:46 AM, The-General-Public wrote: That doesn't matter.

Why not?

<nerdsquee>Tron sountrack by Daft Punk: O</nerdsquee>

more symphonic than I expected...

Or better yet, show me a perfect triangle.

At 12/10/10 12:22 AM, The-General-Public wrote:

At 12/9/10 11:23 PM, Ravariel wrote:

Math is actually one of the most cultural things in the universe.

Show me a culture where the the pythagorean theorem doesn't accurately describe the relation of the legs of a right triangle to its hypotenuse then.

Show me an integer.

At 12/9/10 11:35 PM, Bacchanalian wrote:

At 12/9/10 11:23 PM, Ravariel wrote: social interaction between a mind and the physical world.

That's an awfully funny use of the word "social."

I know.

At 12/8/10 07:49 PM, The-General-Public wrote: I bet you'll find something stupid and claim that it's a social connection.

You mean like the history of the Pythagoreans that they discovered irrational numbers, but kept the discovery secret because they believed that all is number, and the idea that sqrt 2 is not a distance that can be measured by a ruler divided into fractional parts was so disturbing to them that they put one of their own members to death when he tried to make the discovery public.

Not only that, but the ancient egyptians first discovered the ratio 4000 years ago, well before pythagoras, and so the entirety of egyptian social culture around mathematics can be brought into play.

The idea of an objective truth separate from culture is meaningless. Math doesn't actually exist, integers don't exist, they are a cultural creation that allows us to do complex things, but "natural" bodies don't do math, planets don't sketch out equations to determine their orbits. Math is descriptive, not proscriptive, and description requires cognition which requires social interaction between a mind and the physical world.

Math is actually one of the most cultural things in the universe.

At 12/9/10 05:03 PM, TheMason wrote: The problem with Libertarians is that there are many types of Libertarians.

Ironically, that's one of the biggest problems the Democrats have, too. There are a bevy of issues that fall under the purview of "democratic issues" and the disparity between the proponents of a lot of those issues makes it difficult for Democrats to show a united front. With many Dems actually behind cost-cutting, tax breaks and fiscal responsibility, it makes it easy for the reps to drive wedges and be able to obstruct issues by playing on Blue Dogs fiscal perogotives. And yes, a lot of the blame for such a fractured cooperative rests squarely on Obama for nbot being able to pull his own party together to a united front.

A shame, really, because Democrats' diversity should be one of their greatest strengths, but is currently being exploited as their greatest weakness.

Honestly, I hope you're right, and a real, compelling Libertarian candidate does come in and gank the presidency from Palin or whoever and Obama (I don't forsee any real primary challenge for him from the democrats, regardless of what people might say). If only to galvanize the public into a new paradigm that allows for some fucking nuance in policy instead of the binary bullshit we have now.

At 12/8/10 06:49 PM, gumOnShoe wrote: The Republicans have said that of their three #1 priorities (lol), keeping the deficit from going up is of tantamount importance. But by only being willing to legislate tax cuts (they've made an ultimatum about it) and choosing the most expensive option available, without introducing spending cuts, they've actually ensured that the deficit will rise as much as is possible.

Maybe this is just my cynicism speaking, but what if it's not really the Republican officials that are lying to their constituents, but rather the constituents themselves that are lying about what they want. They claim to want lower spending and deficit reduction, but it always seems to appear that what they really want is spending on the shit they think is important (Guns, God and no homo) instead of what the Dems want (Nanny states, no business, and tree hugging). Maybe there is a sort of cultural SEP field on the fact that the words used by the reps to get into office and the words of what the rep voters say they want actually coincides but is a sort of shared illusion, and they actually simply share the desire to spend differently instead of less. Less spending and deficit reduction and tax cuts all sound good to the voter who sees numbers in the hundreds of billion spent by the government and sees hundreds of dollars of their paychecks vanishing into a bottomless pit every month, but actually cutting spending is political suicide because whoever you cut out will not vote for you again.

So it's less the fault, really, of the politicians themselves, rather the republican voters who won't actually vote for the people when they actually do what they say they're going to do.

It's not the politicians that need to stop their hypocrisy, it's the voters. "I want you to cut all spending that doesn't effect me. Fuck everyone else, but god help you if you lower MY benefits!"

okay, rant over.

At 12/8/10 09:41 PM, morefngdbs wrote: Yep the eyes....well for me, the eyes

D'aaaaaaaaawwww

At 12/8/10 08:21 PM, zephiran wrote: But you're forgetting the eyes man, the EYES!

Aaaagh! Sweet jeezus!

Since my csl post kinda started this, these are the lips that... y'know. Though y'gotta see 'em in motion to get the whole effect.

At 12/8/10 05:47 PM, Ranger2 wrote: Plus, if what the OP says is true, NOBODY is cutting spending. Democrats are spending like crazy!

True, but they don't run on platforms of cutting spending, which is kinda the point.

At 12/8/10 05:37 PM, The-General-Public wrote:

At 12/8/10 12:41 PM, SolInvictus wrote: how would you create something neutral and free of social mores?

Pretty easily

Okay, do it. I dare you to create something completely independent of the social, even only hypothetically.

And how much do you want to bet that I can find the social connection to it?

doublepostgum

I hope y'all realize how difficult it was for me to find a picture of boobs that was safe to post on my computer.

Just sayin'.