JamesP

For now, yes. We'll put it on the list, though.

Just paste the YouTube URL: For now, just paste other URLs in, like so: http://blip.tv/confused-matthew/the-lion-king-movie-review-pt1-1843017 This board uses customizable BBCode which we can add things to, but for now, we'll have to settle for links.

This is the sort of thing that I would like to see if there are any existing plugins because of the security settings we've got in place, but it's a good suggestion to put on the list.

Yes, only a handful of avatars made it over. But the rest of the user details should be there.

This is an intentional field with an unintentional side-effect. It is meant to aid in the account approval process so that you no longer have to reply to an email, you can answer the question we're looking for right on the registration page. Unfortunately, making it required for registration makes it required when you edit your profile. I could change it to be visible on the profile page as well, but the nature of the question doesn't quite lend itself to being visible there.

One big difference between the dodo and the cod is that the people who hunted the dodo to extinction were not in a social structure that pushed back against overhunting. They would be more akin to the Mongol Horde than to a series of fishing villages.

Q. What's the most common objection to a free society that a libertarian frog encounters?A. What about the toads???

If it weren't so threatening, it would be amusing.

I second asking your therapist for clarification on this, especially if you're unclear and you've experienced her as being empathetic and respectful. My therapist once said something about "forgiveness" in relation to those that have hurt me deeply, and I immediately felt defensive at that. But I stopped to ask her what she meant--when I've heard that in the past, it's usually been to reconnect at the expense of my experiences. But she explained what she meant, and though it wasn't what I would call "forgiveness," it didn't involve me rejecting my experience.

Who all is going/is already at Porcfest this year? I will be arriving on Wednesday.

O vanity of vanities!

More hooks for more trolls, yay!

I would say that it is a considerable achievement if you had to fight your way through historical relationships and propaganda. In that way, it is not only an intellectual achievment, but an emotional and self-awareness achievement as well. It's not the conclusion that matters, but the process. It was a simple analogy that flipped me from agnostic to atheist: "are you agnostic about leprechauns?" But prior to that, I struggled greatly with all of the historical moral burdens. I had to fight against the "loss of community" despite the empirical fact that I had not experienced any actual help from anyone in the church communities I was involved in. No curiosity about me, just exhortations about the importance of prayer and devotion--if they paid any attention to me at all. So for me, that was the triumph. That was the most difficult part of it... I would say that the intellectual aspect was easiest, for that was the part that betrayed the cracks in religion's inflicted edifice. Does that make sense? And yes, I think that once you've accepted an argument, it does become more natural over time, especially if you work to adopt the values that the argument entails.

I wasn't aware that this was an old theory and it would be helpful to have resources, but did they provide any sources for the disproof? If the women are older and frumpier, I would suggest that they have gone on to abuse others, not just themselves. They would most likely be on the losing end of the just expression of anger.

If setting the tax slaves free is so great, why have no slaveowners set their slaves free?

I noticed that he didn't identify any responsibility on the part of his mother for exposing him to a man like his father.

Professional courtesy.

Why not transcribe Stef's arguments/thoughts on the matter, and provide the reference to where he made this statement?

It would be incredibly healthy for your son to witness negotiation, but not to witness fighting. It would also be quite unhealthy for your son to experience his parents divorcing. I can't tell you what I think you ought to do because I don't know you or your wife, but it's your son's welfare that matters here. What would be best for him is for his parents to negotiate and to not split. It's also not about the abstracts, not really. Have you and your wife discussed your respective childhoods? Have either of you spent any time in counseling, separate or together? There are many, many ways to approach this issue that I would say should be pursued before resorting to divorce.

Horizontal attack is so useful... it keeps the slaves in line, and every so often the masters crack down on it to help reinforce the indoctrination.

It is consistent that John McCain would ask such a question--after all, the oldest institution in the world works pretty well without any updates to its core systems.

In addition to searching for a ride here, also take a look at Porcfest's ride share page.

There are a couple approaches you could take. One is to do a little legwork to find examples of a lack of food and drug safety that were caused by current regulation. You could cite the ever-increasing requirements for drugs to be approved by the FDA and how that is an example of a lack of drug safety as new treatments never see the light of day. You could talk about the current map of agricultural subsidies and how it completely distorts the price of food in the grocery store. One thing that I think would be helpful is to keep them trying to answer the question, "How do you know?" If they say that a state is required to keep food from being poisoned--how do you know? Ask them how they think a company that poisons its food could possibly stay in business. Ask them how they might protect the food supply if they couldn't point guns at people. Most fundamentally, it comes down to the gun. If people are willing to point a gun at you because you disagree with how they are currently doing things, then that is the most important problem. It doesn't even matter how food and drugs will be kept safe if you've got a gun to your head. There are a lot of ways food and drugs might be kept safe without a government--the only limit is the collective imagination of the 7+ billion people we have on this planet. That is a LOT of power.

It's not the victims of violence that I'm concerned about as much as the perpetrators of violence. Any technology that can be used for good can also be used for evil. And, at the moment, the good are outnumbered by those who enable evil. My only other thought on this is that if you have the choice to invest in self-knowledge or life extension, it is better to invest in self-knowledge. That way, if life extension does not come along, you won't have wasted your effort, and if life extension does come along, you will be way ahead of anyone else who decided to wait.

Stef's talked about forgiveness several times, and it seems that most people use it as a euphemistic code word to invoke your Stockholm Syndrome. Genuine forgiveness is evoked within you by the other person's actions, not willed. It's important for us to accept others for what they are by what they do, but it is enabling corruption to say that we forgive them when nothing has happened in reality to generate that experience.