News that makes us laugh, cry, or both

[Crissa]

I have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say here? Could you clarify?

I was replying to Jilocasin.

So...rich people live longer than poor people. And that's supposed to be news?

No. But rich people are trying to raise the retirement age by five years to reduce social security payouts without raising the limit on income subject to its tax. Follow the link.

-Crissa

[Crissa]

As to genitalia... Generally, you find this to be an issue with men far more than women. I'd be tempted to chalk it up to culture except that it is parallel in violence, as well as politics. Certainly there is that tiny minority of penis-is-a-weapon folks, but they're outnumbered by Log House Republicans (and closeted ones) by a large ratio.

I can only speak to context, because I have no idea what "Log House Republicans" is really supposed to mean,

Log Cabin Republicans. I know, will he apologize for being ignorant?

...but it appears to be the case that she is saying that women are less icked out by the genitals they don't want to have sex with, whether it be lesbians or straight, and that she would think it a cultural thing except that it often becomes apparent in violent rejection, not just political rejection.

Then he links two sentences together, without dealing that they were separate statements.

It's pretty hard to argue that men are not responsible for more of these 'ick' arguments and violence... And politics based upon it.

Personally, I don't see how men being more likely to instinctively or violently reject the genitalia they don't appreciate is compelling evidence that it's not cultural if you already believe it is cultural.

...But he does.

-Crissa

[Josh_Kablack]

Dude who claims to be interested in sex research is squicked out by the nitty gritty of said research, since nitty gritty involves female sexual fluids, easily offended woman in sex research takes this to be misogyny and rants a lot about mucous and oppression. Dude insists that he is not misogynist, and then does very poor job backing that position up - he seems to have less clue about women that the average D&D nerd (possibly because he's gay, possibly just because he's clueless). Neither of these people should really be in sex research - but that field is so full of cultural biases and
politically motivated anti-science that they probably aren't doing a significant amount of additional harm there.

And personally, I find both "this is what she said, even though you weren't asking me" and "I was replying to the post above mine" to be useless as clarifications. The argument between the two of you is quite literally nonsense to me.

[Crissa]

Well, I generally have to ask a third person to tell me what was misunderstood about the statement before I can figure out an answer to convey the meaning, Josh.

I was hoping that giving the other end of that thread of conversation would help, since I had not clearly identified that.

-Crissa

[Kaelik]

And personally, I find both "this is what she said, even though you weren't asking me" and "I was replying to the post above mine" to be useless as clarifications. The argument between the two of you is quite literally nonsense to me.

My attempt at explanation had nothing to do with any argument, it was just an attempt to parse words on a page.

I maintain that what I thought she was saying makes far more sense that what she now implies she was saying by explicitly denying that her two sentences about the same subject in the same paragraph are related.

And now, since I had to reread this:

It's pretty hard to argue that men are not responsible for more of these 'ick' arguments and violence... And politics based upon it.

Personally, I don't see how men being more likely to instinctively or violently reject the genitalia they don't appreciate is compelling evidence that it's not cultural if you already believe it is cultural.

...But he does.

-Crissa

What part agreeing (or at least accepting) your premise that men are responsible for more ick arguments indicates to you that I am arguing that men are not responsible for more of them?

I mean seriously, how the fuck does "I don't see how men being more X" counts as arguing that men aren't more X?

[Psychic Robot]

Dude who claims to be interested in sex research is squicked out by the nitty gritty of said research, since nitty gritty involves female sexual fluids, easily offended woman in sex research takes this to be misogyny and rants a lot about mucous and oppression. Dude insists that he is not misogynist, and then does very poor job backing that position up - he seems to have less clue about women that the average D&D nerd (possibly because he's gay, possibly just because he's clueless). Neither of these people should really be in sex research - but that field is so full of cultural biases and
politically motivated anti-science that they probably aren't doing a significant amount of additional harm there.

Correction:

Guy interested in sex research is grossed out by ejaculate mixed with female vaginal fluids. Angry misandrist starts screaming and ranting about sexism in typical feminist fashion. Guy writes a TL;DR response that was really boring and didn't address the underlying issue: the woman in question is an easily-offended man-hater backed up by a squad of mental incompetents who mindlessly cheerlead her and act as a women's studies choir.

[CatharzGodfoot]

PR, you and Bering are why nobody takes claims of "misandry" seriously. Skin thinner than a peach, and a persecution complex that runs deeper than the ocean.

[Psychic Robot]

Some guy makes an off-hand remark about how collecting semen from vaginas is disgusting? MISOGYNIST BULLSHIT HANG HIM RIGHT NOW.

A feminist goes into a frothing rage over said comment and later remarks how men "don’t quite deserve the word mucus. Semen’s good enough for them." HAHAH JOLLY GOOD TIME.

I'm not offended by the second quote, but if Bering had cracked a joke about how "semen is too good for women," that crazy bitch would have thrown her computer out a window. There's a double standard in here somewhere.

[Maj]

Some guy makes an off-hand remark about how collecting semen from vaginas is disgusting?

Because I'm misogynistic, I went and read all the articles surrounding the argument, and when I got to the description of how they collected the goo from the couples who had had sex, my son came running into the room and started laughing like a hyena.

Why?

Because reading the description had me dry heaving in disgust, and apparently that's funny.

I don't care who wrote the article - male, female; gay, straight; sex researcher, egotistic blogger... I can totally relate to someone thinking it was gross.

Mocking Bering for having a weak stomach is fine. It's totally cool to laugh at someone who dry heaves at the thought of that gunk. Ascribing that disgust to some deeper motivation like being anti-feminist is an assumption of the highest order.

The whole situation is stupid. Both sides are incredibly juvenile, and all the writing back and forth is just a waste of space that could contain something worth reading.

Nagoski, get over it. Some people (including women) are grossed out by the details of collecting goo. That's OK, and it's not anti-anything... Except maybe anti-telling-me-the-details. Bering's not going to stop thinking it's gross because you can't cast the spell, "Control Disgust."

Bering, get over it. You are not obligated to respond to crazy people. If you still have your job, then not enough people gave enough of a shit for Scientific American to care. Nagoski's not going to change her perspective seeing as how she was crazy enough to have it in the first place.

[Josh_Kablack]

, my son came running into the room and started laughing like a hyena.

You had to go There. Didn't you?

You just couldn't have chosen an animal metaphor where dominance is independent of gender, could you.

Insert 5 page screaming offended rant here.

[Maj]

Thanks, Josh. It was funny, and I learned something.

[Meikle641]

Teens getting high using digital drugs

Reminds me of Fox News reporting on Anonymous again...

[Prak]

...oh god that's hilarious.

Makes me think of Space from Transmetropolitan, except Space is an actual chemical drug that slows you down and "puts you in a waiting room of the mind" which is why Supermodernity music sounds like silence, you have to be on space to hear it.

I wondered how long it would take, but it seems youth may "reach it's terminal ambition" about a hundred years ahead of schedule, "fucking itself before anyone else can"


edit:

The educators have gone so far as to ban iPods at school, in hopes of preventing honor students from becoming cyber-drug fiends

...wait, there were schools that didn't ban ipods? man I got fucked...

edit, edit:
This has to be a joke:

What if kids smoked dried banana peels and listened to these trippy tunes at the same time — could they OD? What happens if someone sells a tainted MP3?

Here’s a sample of the heavy stuff that some light experimentation with drug drone music could lead to. (Note: The following video is only for informational purposes and should only be viewed by responsible adults.)

video

Kansas, the band, however might not be safe for teens, and could be a gateway band to harder, more dangerous psychedelic fare like Pink Floyd.

well, ok, they were satirically reporting, I guess.

[Meikle641]

Did ya go to the first youtube link in the page? That was seemingly legit. Wired is merely reporting on that...report. Or something.

Regardless, there's little doubt in my mind there are people spazzing about such a "threat".

[Prak]

Oh, I'm sure they are. It just seemed weird for Wired to spaz out about it.

Oh, and I fully intend to ingest a truly heroic dose of this i-dosing shit and see what the fuck it's about...

[Koumei]

I am disappoint with kids these days. In my day, we took real drugs, supplied by maniacs with machineguns, risking arrest and mandatory life sentences both ways, and we liked it!

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Lol, the banana peel thing. If you dried banana peels and smoked them, you'd get extremely ill.

It was something in The Anarchist's Cookbook, which is a dangerous book. Not because it tells you to make bombs and drugs, because it tells you how to do so improperly and you'll probably blow yourself up if you follow their instructions. The book is satire.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I just realized how vulgar the Planescape setting is. Some of the "planar cant" is still in use today, it would seem.

[Koumei]

Oh? The only planar cant I remember is actually stolen from Cockney rhyming slang: berk: Berkley hunt: one of the few censored words. Is there more than that?

Also for fake drugs that the media runs with, see jenkem. Quite possibly invented by Encyclopaedia Dramatica (or /b/ or SomethingAwful or one of the associated groups). Yet some people are dumb enough to believe it.

Incidentally, whenever they do a fear report on some new drug, aside from when they tell you how many people it killed (see: to fit it on the same chart as alcohol you'd need to round it down to zero), they'll tell you what the teenagers/young adults did when exposed to it. For instance, Meow-Meow:

"Several young women were given M2 and were soon taking their clothes off, walking around on all fours and making animal noises."

Try replacing the drug name with "alcohol", "a placebo", "a glass of water" or "ten dollars and an encouraging wink". It still works. "People do dumb things at parties/raves" doesn't make a good headline though, I guess.

[Red_Rob]

Watch British celebrities lining up to decry the evils of "cake" described as a "made up drug" which caused one girl to "throw up her own pelvis bone".

This was part of Chris Morris' amazing series Brass Eye which duped famous people into campaigning against ridiculous things to expose the fact that celebrities will say anything to get on TV.

Here is their report on internet paedophilia, warning that "paedophiles now control an area of the internet the size of Ireland" and that they can "make your keyboard release pheromones that make you more suggestible"

[Maxus]

http://www.aolnews.com/weird-news/artic ... g/19556328

Confession Time: I'm loving the coverage of all the iPhone 4 problems.

I don't like Apple. I don't like Apple a lot.

They make cool stuff, but they really overestimate the importance of what they do, and a lot of the Apple die-hard crowd (there's quite a few of them in computer classes at college, and I've heard too much about Apple from them) get on my fucking nerves.

So, hurray. Function is triumphing over form!

[Prak]

well, function triumphs every so often. I realized last night that if/when my unemployment kicks back in, I could probably afford an ipad. So I looked them, and reviews of them, up last night.

Between monotasking and censorship, I'm not getting one. I like listening to music while I do things, and I don't want to have to use my ipod with my ipad, or do everything online. I believe information should be free and uninhibited, and Jobs has a hardon for censorship which is very much at odds with my belief.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Oh? The only planar cant I remember is actually stolen from Cockney rhyming slang: berk: Berkley hunt: one of the few censored words. Is there more than that?

Note: following is according to TV tropes with verification from Urban Dictionary, so take this a bit lightly.

"Sodding" is equivalent to "fucking" in the right circles as far as vulgarity goes. "Pike it" is related to "pikey", which at one time was used the way an American might use the term "carnie" or "white trash" ("pike" and "piker" are more innocent terms in Australia it would seem).

[Prak]

well "sod" actually specifically refers to sodomy, as I understand it, as does "bugger". So... yeah, british english has probably no safe swear words...

[Crissa]

Matthew Yglesias[/url]]You know how California is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy? Did you ever say to yourself “damn, I wish the federal government could be more like that”? Well, the authors of the new Contract From America apparently did...

Item three.

Idiots.

-Crissa