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Post by szaleniec on Mar 3, 2009 19:04:44 GMT -5
It makes me wonder if they're stocked entirely by people who were turned down by every uni they applied for, and people who did go to uni but are cynically exploiting this mentality for their own gains. As for "common sense", when I realised it translated as "watch me make up shit to support my argument" (rather than the more familiar "walking out in front of traffic isn't a good idea" definition) I saw everything a lot clearer.
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Post by szaleniec on Mar 3, 2009 18:53:43 GMT -5
My understanding is tobacco started out as a holy drug or something with some native tribes, and the way they originally smoked it wasn't nearly as bad as the way we do now. Tobacco as a religious ritual makes sense. You've got a flame and a large cloud of smoke with a distinctive smell, both of which can be symbolic of just about anything you want. As for weed, I enjoy it but I don't make it a major part of my identity like the people Rime is complaining about. I wouldn't wear a t-shirt with a cannabis leaf on it except as a joke, for instance. I'm fairly confident that the costs associated with legalising it would be less than the cost of enforcing a ban, and for that reason alone I think it should be legalised.
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Post by szaleniec on Mar 3, 2009 18:45:42 GMT -5
That's another advantage of waiting for the DVDs. By the time I got Heroes season 2, the internet had led me to believe it was such utter shite that there was no way it wouldn't exceed expectations.
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Post by szaleniec on Mar 3, 2009 18:42:45 GMT -5
What the fuck kind of academia does this guy envisage? I don't recall any of my lecturers pausing in the middle of pushing curly arrows around a benzene ring to say "by the way, vote Labour".
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Post by szaleniec on Mar 3, 2009 18:31:45 GMT -5
Labour will be ousted at the next election, no questions asked. Even the papers that rupert murdoch doesnt own have got it in for them now. They might as well call the election tomorrow and put themselves out of their misery (but no, they're bound to hold on until 2010 now). The odds stand at 1/5 for the Tories (4/7 for an overall majority), 9/2 for Labour, 200/1 for the Lib Dems and 500/1 for any other to take the most seats. What turned me off the Lib Dems was the disconcerting tendency they developed to throw any leader who was actually popular and competent under a bus. Charles Kennedy comes to mind, as does Chris Davies from the European Parliament. I hold the same healthy scepticism towards the EU as I do for anything in politics, but to withdraw would be an epic mistake and I don't think a lot of people who support this move realise that. 30+ years in the EU have left us unsuited to stand alone, and the argument that we could still trade with the EU countries falls flat when you consider that we couldn't still trade with them on anywhere near as favourable terms as we do now. Imagine the current recession times ten (metaphorically rather than quantitatively). It would also make my split location a lot more hassle to maintain, but that's by the by.
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Post by szaleniec on Mar 3, 2009 17:50:37 GMT -5
Mostly the latter, I think. Kid homeschooled by hardcore Republicans is very good at spouting Republican talking points; be still my beating heart. I was always the most political person in my group of friends, but I'd hesitate to say I had a developed political consciousness (which I'd define as the ability to watch a news item and analyse and draw my own conclusions based on a coherent belief system without any kind of prompting) before I was 16. I gotta say, I was disagreeing with my parents on politics by the first Clinton election, so I was like 11 or 12. I definitely did have my own political identity at that point, though I've definitely grown since. I'm not going to say I'm typical, especially since I know I'm a nerd who probably only grew as I did because my Dad actively challenged me to develop and interpret for myself. Just that it could be true. I may be overly critical of my own political development, and I did grow up in a similar environment. I'd still hesitate to lower the voting age to 16 as has been proposed, and certainly wouldn't support lowering it further than that. (Had the voting age been 16 I'd have been able to vote in 2001, but as I'd probably have voted Labour this might be just as well. I know they were always going to win, but voting for the government that went to war in Iraq wouldn't have sat easy on my conscience.)
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Post by szaleniec on Mar 3, 2009 17:44:56 GMT -5
Okay, so, I'm not a Brit but I have a certain degree of familiarity with your governmental system. But something I've never been able to figure out is what the heck determines when you guys hold general elections? It seems really random to me. I assume MPs have to stand for re-election on a regular basis, but governments (at least in the early 20th century) seem to collapse over losing on total non-issues, like the tastiness of honey. This.To elaborate on this, governments tend to call elections when they think they've got the best chance of winning, or hold on for the full 5 years if they know they haven't a hope in hell (cf. the Tories in the 1990s, and probably Labour now). The American system of fixed election cycles is possibly fairer.
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Post by szaleniec on Mar 3, 2009 17:38:25 GMT -5
I'm partial to Bachelor #2, but I like the original because although I don't read Dinosaur Comics religiously I enjoy it when I do.
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Post by szaleniec on Mar 3, 2009 16:37:17 GMT -5
I feel a little bad for the kid- I mean, I love politics and I love to rant about them, but there is no way in hell you'd get me up on a stage to voice support for ANY political party. No one's ever called me a prodigy before though, so I guess it evens out. I just wonder how much of that was him and how much was his parents' brainwashing. Mostly the latter, I think. Kid homeschooled by hardcore Republicans is very good at spouting Republican talking points; be still my beating heart. I was always the most political person in my group of friends, but I'd hesitate to say I had a developed political consciousness (which I'd define as the ability to watch a news item and analyse and draw my own conclusions based on a coherent belief system without any kind of prompting) before I was 16.
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Post by szaleniec on Mar 3, 2009 16:24:45 GMT -5
It reminds me a bit of an old Polish internet meme, featuring an audio clip of someone phoning up a certain radio station (which shall remain nameless, but suffice to say that a Polish equivalent of FSTDT would not be short of quotes from it) to say three words to the presiding father: chuj ci w dupę, literally "dick up your arse". The YouTube comments section consists mainly of a discussion as to whether "w" should count as a word.
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Post by szaleniec on Mar 3, 2009 16:07:29 GMT -5
I'd be up for it if that's possible. I wasn't on the old forum or public admin but have been quite active on the main page. I can PM you my IP address if you want.
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Post by szaleniec on Mar 3, 2009 15:37:57 GMT -5
.Rupert Murdoch is the biggest repub-whore there is. Murdoch is an "anyone who promises to increase Murdoch's bank balance" whore more than anything. I don't really watch much American TV, or even much TV at all these days. I prefer to watch series on DVD, and have more boxsets than anyone really should. I travel a lot between the two places in my location field, don't have DVR or a video and can't always watch a series every week, so I'd rather wait for the DVD than miss great chunks watching it on TV. Besides, nice shiny box sitting on my shelf.
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Post by szaleniec on Mar 3, 2009 15:23:56 GMT -5
Voting age exists for a reason.
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Post by szaleniec on Mar 3, 2009 15:11:45 GMT -5
Not to mention "thou shalt not covet" is the polar opposite of capitalism and how our economy is expected to work. I enjoy questioning fundies' capitalist credentials when they suggest that the "survival of the fittest" business makes evolutionary theory morally suspect.
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Post by szaleniec on Mar 3, 2009 15:03:47 GMT -5
The UK shipping is expensive but not a total rip-off. I'm tempted to get one - I'm torn between the Classical Periodic Table and the Discworld one.
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