Is Weiner the guy who inexplicably hates bike lanes?
Oh, it's fine.
I have been told, repeatedly, heard that the above is not a good answer to "How do I look?"/"Do I look fat?" questions.
parsimon is calling me fat? Well, I never.
5: We're all worried, Stanley. We care about you.
How many non LGBT people have a circle of friends and acquaintances which is over a fifth gay or bi?
I have never called you fat, even in that reindeer sweater (was it?) picture that was posted once.
Nah, I found the topic of interest, but don't have much to add to it now -- it's late and I'm off shortly.
So, I had five kittens aborted today. The vet had suspected there might be a pregnancy, which is why we hurried the spaying (after only having had custody of the cat for about a week) but she was probably five weeks along, more than halfway to giving birth.
I'm a little annoyed that I had to pay half again as much as the spaying would have cost if there'd been no fetal kittens or if they'd been tinier, but the weird part was that I did have some moral pangs about how our poor cat didn't actually consent to this. This is probably compounded by believing that our dog, a hurricane Katrina rescue, did have some sort of trauma response to losing a litter during the storm. I think I can blame this weird squeamishness on the inflamed rhetoric around human abortion, too, though.
And I don't think anywhere near 20% of the people I know identify as LGBT, though of course I don't know what they do in bed. Only a few of them stay up later than they should reading unfogged like I do, I'd guess.
Is Weiner the guy who inexplicably hates bike lanes?
It's not inexplicable. Chuck Schumer hates bike lanes because (a) they put one on his street and (b) his wife, the former NYC transportation commissioner, hates anything being done by the current NYC transportation commissioner. Anthony Weiner hates anything Chuck Schumer hates.
How many non LGBT people have a circle of friends and acquaintances which is over a fifth gay or bi?
Sometimes I feel like I don't know any other straight chicks. Lesbians everywhere! Lesbians to the left, lesbians to the right!
If I counted, the percentages would probably be as expected. It is mostly my lunch partners that are skewing my samples.
lunch partners
Is that a new term?
It might be a new term for something, but I mean it to convey 'people with whom I often eat lunch'.
So, I had five kittens aborted today.
Drunken me thought this was going to be a euphemism for something awesome. Sigh.
sorry we let you down when you needed us, gswift. if it makes you feel any better, I clicked on your links below and thinks your knife looks good, and the proposed new one looks even better.
I sort of came around to figuring out that this was Anthony Weiner after skimming the last thread, but at first I thought that this was referring to our old commenter Matt Weiner.
What is it with men sending photos of underwear (ntm penises)? I don't care if congressmen fool around but must they always be gross and pathetic about it? Why would someone want to look at your underwear? Have we had this discussion before? Am I just turning into a prim old lady? After all, I've been finding clothing at Talbots that I thought was attractive. That's what I'm actually worried about.
I don't think the phenomenon is that surprising. There's a certain kind of reflex conservatism, probably present in all of us to some degree, which isn't deeply or rigorously held on any particular social topic but nevertheless is often the default position. So when a given trend/movement is new or unfamiliar, arguments that it will lead to social chaos or other ill effects hold a fair bit of sway, but after a while of the world not ending despite the prevalence of the movement, those arguments lose their force and only those who are rigorous or passionate in their conservatism or have idiosyncratic opposition to it remain. When you add in the generational factor (also seen to a large extent in the sciences), it's pretty much the result you'd expect.
Time to volunteer for the mars expedition.
20: As long as you tweet us a picture of yourself getting into the capsule in your Talbot's outfit.
19 confused me for a moment because it was addressing the OP 19 comments in, which is unusual. But yes, I expect that's how it works. But there's also the bit where the adherents of the old get increasingly desperate and can on occasion turn the process around (temporarily?) by sheer violence.
Is your reference to the sciences a nod to Planck's aphorism: "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.", or are you making a deeper point?
Wouldn't "apropos the Weiner discussion" be better?
a person is not required to become prim or conservative either to think getting emailed pictures of dudes' junk is gross or to find some things at talbot's attractive, provided one has not solicited the photos and that it's a well done basic, like a red felt coat.
mcmc, you should know that the dude is question did not, it would appear, tweet a random woman a picture of his junk. (I think ockham's razor says a picture of a weiner on rep.weiner's twitter feed is all for the lulz.)
I agree with sifu. we await nosflow's decision with bated breath.
Yeah, I expect the Weiner thing was a prank, and I would have thought he would have enough style not to do something so unaesthetic, but he seems to be indicating that he might have bulgy underwear photos lying around that he's forgotten about, which I find weird.
I expect the Weiner thing was a prank
The wiener thing was a frank.
I honestly think he's joking. (while it also being perfectly likely he has pictures of his cock lying around his hard drive.) more likely the feed was hacked than his actual computer though.
he seems to be indicating that he might have bulgy underwear photos lying around
Eh, sounds to me like he's just having fun at the reporters' expense.
mcmc, just generally don't think too much about what men are up to with their computer. if you suddenly had total psychic knowledge of what each dude walking past you has looked at with interest on the internet, you would go to wherever wonder woman was from. antlesbia or something. lemuria. whatever, you'd be on the first boat, like, get me the fuck away from these motherfucking perverts. sorry guys, you know I'm right.
Is your reference to the sciences a nod to Planck's aphorism: "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.", or are you making a deeper point
Basically, yes.
19 confused me for a moment because it was addressing the OP 19 comments in, which is unusual. But yes, I expect that's how it works. But there's also the bit where the adherents of the old get increasingly desperate and can on occasion turn the process around (temporarily?) by sheer violence.
Of course. I'm not claiming this is a universal or inevitable process, but rather a general mechanism for the desensitisation of (quondam) controversial social developments which applies to the broad middle but probably not so much to extreme conservatives or radicals (on average).
a person is not required to become prim or conservative either to think getting emailed pictures of dudes' junk is gross or to find some things at talbot's attractive, provided one has not solicited the photos and that it's a well done basic, like a red felt coat.
Not sure if this is addressed to me or not, but just in case, I should clarify I wasn't talking at all about Weiner, but about the second two paragaphs of parsimon's post/comment.
As for Weiner, I haven't been following the story particularly closely and don't have much of a view on it, but viewing from afar I was a tad surprised by the response here and elsewhere to his "Well it could be my junk, but I didn't send it" comment. Without having heard its context or tone, that comment read much more like a walkback from "I'm innocent and was hacked" and a prelude to a tearful resignation than a defiant riposte. Have I missed something important that suggests otherwise? And even if it is true, is it not a bit, well, odd for a Congressman to have pictures of himself in his underwear (available to tweeted by 3rd parties at that)? That sort of thing pretty much killed Chris Smith's career in parliament.
sorry guys, you know I'm right.
Except me. My virtue is as pure as the driven snow.
ginger yellow: it's clearer if you see or read the comments, he's plainly just fucking with the press. he's joking, not seriously offering the defense "it was my penis but I didn't send it."
the section you quoted was responding to mcmc, as I initially thought you were too.
I wonder how much of the one in five thing is just innumeracy. People just check a box that is somewhere in the middle of the range they are given, without really thinking about how big a proportion one in five really is.
when I read 36 I'm kind of worried I just hate men generally.
I love lots of individual men, and they're fun to have sex with and all, but I kind of regard them en masse as like a hostile occupying army. you don't want to piss them off or make them notice you, and all the time you hear about new atrocities. they tortured that one guy to death. they killed all those guys. they raped that woman. and that one. and that one. and your sister. and, you, bitch?! just a whole bunch of sweet looking little boys in 5th grade can pull shit that will scare you. stop doing fucked-up shit, ok guys? we cool?
more seriously, how could I fully and accurately educate my daughters on the fucked-up shit men might try to do to them without sounding like what I just said, a nutcase that doesn't trust any of you fuckers. I'm supposed to lie or something?
I'll post about it for real another time. because it's not as though I object to Internet porn, even! and really I think most people are kind!
more seriously, how could I fully and accurately educate my daughters on the fucked-up shit men might try to do to them without sounding like what I just said, a nutcase that doesn't trust any of you fuckers. I'm supposed to lie or something?
No. Just don't forget to tell them about the stuff same-sex accomplices/enablers to the opposite-sex will try to pull.
On Weiner, I'm not sure exactly what he was doing with that comment, but it wasn't exactly 'could be a picture of me' -- it came across more like either fucking with the press, or, possibly, just kind of picking an arbitrary point where he's saying "Look, I don't know anything at all about this other than that I didn't send the picture. Don't know what the picture is of, where it came from, who sent it, what the mechanism was (i.e., whether the right word to describe the process is 'my account was hacked' or some other description). Any question you ask me other than 'did you send it', the answer is going to be 'I don't know."
42: Does it help any to remember that you don't need a terribly high percentage of people behaving badly before you run into them all the time? It's like police brutality -- you only need a couple of percent of cops to be maltreating people before you get nervous around cops generally. So, you can be warning your girls about fucked up shit men might try to do to them without believing or implying that any but a small percentage of men are likely to do anything of the sort.
but I kind of regard them en masse as like a hostile occupying army. you don't want to piss them off or make them notice you
That's kind of how I feel about people in general, but I suppose men especially.
The final question in 42 sounds like the kind of thing bitch phd is writing her book about.
36 is basically correct, but perfect knowledge of what other people think or feel on pretty much any broad enough subject would have most people freaking the fuck out. Civilization is a very thin veneer over some crazy-ass wackadoodlery.
I haven't followed Anthony's Weiner story closely. I did like the links in the previous thread, though. Breitbart and/or O'Keefe ride again, so-called liberal media take them seriously: film at 11. Wow. Knock me over with a feather here.
And it seems more small-potatoes than his usual work. This Republican golden boy rising star got his start by faking evidence of black vs. white racism high in government, and then attempted to rape planned to intimidate a journalist, and now he's faking evidence of a Congressman having a (consensual! Heterosexual!) affair? Very weak evidence of a very implausible affair at that, given that the alleged mistress is a college student on the West Coast and says she has never been to New York or Washington, DC? Really? This is it?
I do like the how Weiner and friends are handling it. I agree with 39. And, hypothetically, even if his "Well it could be my junk, but I didn't send it" is genuine cautious hedging and he's really not sure if it's his junk or not, so what? While on balance, yes, it's stupid for anyone, especially a Congressman, to have such pictures, just having them is such a minor thing that it would be ridiculous if that's all this comes down to.
alameida has it exactly right
not really. I don't know.
Women are trained socialized to quell their dangerous impulses and hide their darkest fantasies, even from themselves, aren't they. I don't know what evil lurks in the hearts of women.
I do know about men, though, and avoid them as much as possible.
I guess, to be strictly accurate, I shouldn't conflate Breitbart with his employee O'Keefe. They are both Republican golden boys, but I guess after 10 years Breitbart can't be considered a "rising star" any more. Breitbart framed Shirley Sherrod for racism on the job, while it was O'Keefe who planned to "seduce", in his words, a reporter to embarrass her employer.
Lots of people have kind impulses, but often when I find out what people really think, I regret it.
Maybe this is because mostly I see comfortable people, and the rawer responses that I see are in response to a middling threat or opportunity. I read that people in truly desperate circumstances are often full of good surprises.
Women are less likely to commit violent crimes (definite positive) but I don't think are any kinder than men.
I redacted this mostly because I realize it violates my relative's privacy, given that lots of people know who I really am and therefore know who my family is. Also I provided details about everybody's rapes but mine, and I think that's telling. takeaway message: of my closest female relatives, an astonishingly high proportion have been raped, in circumstances ranging from being at home in their bed at night to hitchhiking in alabama. that shit is straight fucked up. I want to protect my daughters but there's nothing I can do, in a way. when they grow up, if someone rapes them too, and it's not unlikely, I will lose my shit and become genuinely murderous.
just kidding, DA's office of 2023!
24, 25: Wouldn't "apropos the Weiner discussion" be better?
I'm certainly not very reliable on these things but that seems to me like a hypercorrection. Having had that thought, the indirect evidence would seem to support it. The online Merriam-Webster has definitions for both "apropos" (third definition) and "apropos of" as prepositions. The first merely lists the second as its definition and the first known use is 1879 while "apropos of" is 1746. My favorite tool to misuse (Google n-gram viewer) is also supportive. Also in seeing if Language Log had weighed in, I found this use (but not discussion) of it by Geoffrey Pullum: apropos of a comment exchange.
"Better" can mean lots of things, of course, and I also await neb's opinion (and what the OED has to say).
but what would be the horrible secret well of evil you saw in me when you suddenly knew everyone's thoughts? murderous rage. and nobody tried to stop him and. and. and I want to kill some people, but bad. some of them are dead but it doesn't seem to help. my sister and I finally had the idea, she has friends/stalkers (let's not go there) who are DC cops, if they did a half decent rape kit, if they didn't throw it out, if the rapists committed other crimes--we could find out who those guys were who gang-raped our grandmoms.
36 made me laugh and is quite true.
I think it's Park Slope Wonder Woman was from, btw.
Why is it so much more compelling to read, say, Wikipedia articles on Yvonne DeCarlo than to do my damn work?
57: Does her Wikipedia entry have that story about Tony Curtis, back in New York from California, leaning out a cab's window and yelling at Walter Matthau that he had enjoyed her favors?
53, 55: Man, I've had such a safe, easy life.
I think the feints he makes towards connecting corporatism and the abuse of women are interesting, if incomplete.
...hmm
I watched the Australian criminal movie Animal Kingdom last night. Pretty good & nasty.
I don't know, most times the talk moves to male violence against women I get a guilt thing because always pooping into my head is:"Don't people see what men do to men, every second of every day?" and I wonder if this is a "what about the men" thing.
Every identity group should focus on the violence directed against its members, I suppose, but as someone who hopes to opt out of all identity groups, I look at violence against women as a numerator of all violence, or violence against men by men.
And how do we count a Predator at a village, or Horoshima?
"Life is a disappointment", Ozu says. Whatever your expectations, life never meets them.
OED (shorter) says apropos takes "to" or "of", and notes that it comes from the French "a propos de". Ditto Fowler, who is quite sarcastic about it -- its French origins mean that "of" is best, "to" is unexceptionable, and no preposition at all is "good colloquial idiom"
in a move that really would make a good twisted buddy comedy, two of my sister's exes (one long-term starting HS, the other more a fling) both joined the local force (HS bf was refused when he tried to re-enlist, so you know he crazy). alternately they would stalk her with the squad car sitting on our house the whole night. then they got partnered up for patrol. naturally then they both stalked her and sat on the house in the cruiser. what the fuck were they chatting about? sadly there's only one plausible answer: taking turns. when my mom found a gun not only with the safety off but fucking cocked in my sister's drawer we gave her an endless ration of shit (gun safety much) but it makes me realize now how scared she was. they would come up in uniform at try the door at 2,3 am. and why? because they're fucking pervert bastards. I rest my case.
Coming after 62, 63 makes me a little uncomfortable.
58: That story wasn't in there. It's interesting to see that "I'm Still Here" was, if not tailored to her biography, something she could sing with a certain unforced understanding. First just another sloe-eyed vamp, then someone's mother, then camp. I suppose she's too young to have stood in bread lines with the best. I suppose I am overanalyzing this.
it's this type of thing, as well as my southron heritage that makes me such a strong supporter of our second amendment rights. I think my sister ought to be allowed to set up a tripwire trap with a sawed-off shotgun, like the founding fathers intended.
Alameida, how much of this took place in South Carolina? Not that there isn't stuff like this happening all over the place, but SC really does harbor a special, concentrated strain of violent crazy that stands out even against the rest of the Deep South.
now he's faking evidence of a Congressman having a (consensual! Heterosexual!) affair
Is that the allegation? I thought it was (possibly consensual, possibly not) sexting. Or whatever the twitter equivalent is. I really should read more about this before commenting. Actually, no I shouldn't.
67: Me also, but I still say to leave the gun uncocked if you are asleep.
54: A more valid comparison on ngram would be "apropos of the" vs. "apropos the". Unfortunately I can't tell on my B&W Kindle screen which of those two used to be supreme and which is increasing to the same frequency ballpark.
I'm going to bed now so I'll stop freaking everyone out. and, as so often, bob is right: y'all men fuck each other up but seriously. that person who just got murdered was almost certainly a man. the patriarchy hurts men too, everybody!
apostropher: so, so agreed about my beloved SC. they just take it to another level. sadly this was all in lovely montgomery county, maryland.
71: Good point. "apropos of the" used to be supreme, "apropos the" Rising since about 1900 to come close to the same frequency. ("Apropos of the" has the same basic shape of "apropos of".)
73: geez. That does not fit the picture of Montgomery County, Maryland that my side of the family we very, very distantly share has given me.
all in lovely montgomery county, maryland
Ah. Well, rape culture is pervasive, to be sure.
Fuck off, ToS. Nobody cares about your stupid-ass, halfwitted drivel and your weak attempts at trolling carry all the shock value of a sixth-grader.
I went to high school in Montgomery County, Maryland. I had good fortune neither to rape nor be raped during this time, but I tend to be fairly inconspicuous.
unfortunately, men rape inconspicuous people too, but I'm happy you weren't among their number!
IIRC peep is male, and masculine ones never get raped, so.
80: I know. A poor attempt at humor, and also referring to "you don't want to piss them off or make them notice you."
81 has truth and falsehood mixed together into a confusing froth.
a confusing froth
I believe the technical term is "santorum", peep.
WE HAVE RIGHT, NO A "NEED", TO KNOW WHETHER THAT WAS WEINER'S WEINER!
85: Sorry, I know water is wet, but this one infuriates me--featured on all the cable websites, and a big banner story at Fox. Fuck me and the media too.
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Some here have been in a frothsantorum about starting sentences with "So." I did it in an email this morning, corrected myself, then recalled that in Spanish and Italian, half of all spoken sentences if not more begin with, respectively, "Pues" or "Alore", which are equivalent to "So."
I went back to the beginning and added "All right."
|>
85: Would it be less of a story if he had a different last name?
Under the assumption that it is a hoax, I'd assume that it was motivated by his name.
Given the two elements that he won't say definitively that it isn't him, and he keeps making dick jokes in his public pronouncements, I'm OK with this one running for a while.
Yggles is right, of course, that if it is him, he shouldn't resign. He's one of the good ones -- not one of the best ones, but one of the more entertaining ones.
Are many political sex scandals hoaxes? I mean, it is customary to claim as much as long as one can, but, you know, e.g.:
While giving evidence at the trial of Stephen Ward, charged with living off the immoral earnings of Keeler and Rice-Davies, the latter made a famous riposte. When the prosecuting counsel pointed out that Lord Astor denied an affair or having even met her, she replied, "Well, he would, wouldn't he?"
Given the two elements that he won't say definitively that it isn't him, and he keeps making dick jokes in his public pronouncements, I'm OK with this one running for a while.
He did say definitively that he didn't send it. That's the only part of this that's a scandal -- any hedging about the identity of the picture (and I think that hedging's been overstated) isn't a non-denial-denial.
I don't believe the public has a right to know whether a sitting Congressman takes pictures of his tent set up for camping. I do, however, want to know, and since we're going to drown in bullshit one way or another, I'm enjoying the entertainment value of this particular stream.
OT: Was the world clamoring for another Bill Simmons profile? I'd say something thoughtful about the rapt hero-worship of the NYT for anybody who manages to eke an upper-middle-class or better income out of the scribbling (or publishing cough Nick Denton cough) business, but I don't care enough.
Are many political sex scandals hoaxes
But think about this one plausibility-wise. (1) it's Breitbart. (2) The target denies ever having had any personal contact with him, or having been within a thousand miles of him. (3) This is getting into the tweeting mechanics of it, which I shouldn't opine about with knowledge, but as far as I can tell the claim is that it was publicly tweeted from his account, but no one of his thousands of followers saw it except this one guy who gave it to Breitbart. (4) The error Weiner would have had to have made, if I understand it correctly, is to have sent a message that should have been private out publicly, except that he 'addressed' it to this woman using the @name feature which is how you'd address an intentionally public tweet, not a private message.
It really does look like bullshit, except for the hedging on the picture itself which I'm not 100% sure how to interpret, but seems plausibly to me to be either simple smartassery or some sort of awkward caution about claiming any certain knowledge of anything.
And (5)-(10), it's Breitbart. Nothing Breitbart's broken has been true yet, has it?
||
I've been at my new job for a couple of months now, and it has generally been awesome. But one slight hitch has been that the library lacks a particular publication on which I rely a lot. So I wrote to the department head requesting purchase of the publication. I closed my letter with, "I would also like to request a pony."
I wasn't at all sure I would get the publication, since we're in budgetary crisis and the library budget in particular has just been decimated. But yesterday I received notification from the librarian that my request was approved, and the publication will get here in two weeks.
Today, a document box was delivered to me from headquarters. I opened it, and inside: one pony.
I so love these people.
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95, 96: Breitbart's "track" "record" is a pretty damning indictment of anything Breitbart says/thinks/looks at/considers/orders at a restaurant/sews a button on/pets at an animal shelter.
On the other hand, a Congressional "sex" scandal is inherently more plausible than, say, whatever his latest shockingly bald-faced racist allegation about the Obamas is, and the Ween seems to have changed his story several times, which seems a little suspicious.
Conclusion: Twitter is bad.
97: you do realize you'll now be questioned at your next annual review about the $5.99 charge for a plastic pony the library had marked as your request, and what business purpose you had in requesting that? Are you trying to embezzle company funds to buy birthday gifts for your kid, or what? It's just a joke, you say? An internet meme? What, company money is a joke to you? We don't think wasting money on jokes is very funny. Etc.
Unless, of course, you work somewhere that people are sane. Which I suppose is possible, although I haven't ever actually experienced it.
98.2: Again, those quotation marks are really appropriate. I mean, this "sex scandal" is either that he has had an affair with a woman who lives 3,000 miles away, or that he sent pictures of his crotch to a woman he has had no prior relationship at all. (Yes, of course some creepy assholes do that. But a Congressman? Forgive me for giving anyone the benefit of the doubt on anything, but, seriously?) Even granting that a sex scandal in general is more plausible than the usual dishonest Republican smears, this is very implausible as sex scandals go.
100. Hilariously, it came with a requisition form, filled out by the librarian and signed by my department head.
On the other hand, a Congressional "sex" scandal is inherently more plausible than, say, whatever his latest shockingly bald-faced racist allegation about the Obamas is, and the Ween seems to have changed his story several times, which seems a little suspicious.
It seems very likely both that (1) Breitbart is full of shit and this is an entirely manufactured hoax/scandal, and (2) there are personal perhaps-somewhat-elicit sexual matters that Weiner doesn't want out.
the Ween seems to have changed his story several times, which seems a little suspicious.
I get really cranky in this sort of thing about in-depth analysis of the exact wording with which people deny accusations. When a story is breaking, people get confused about exactly what's going on, and people speaking normally say ambiguous stuff. While Clinton seems to have tried the "I'm going to say something literally true under the technical definitions we're using but calculated to mislead" tactic in his deposition, it's pretty rare -- mostly people tell the truth or they lie.
Are you sure the department head likes you? You might want to detonate that pony, just to be on the safe side.
I assume Weiner didn't send this because it is a Breitbart story. But so long as he isn't made miserable and keeps making dick jokes, I don't care if folks discuss it all day. I do not want Weiner (nor anyone caught in a consensual sex scandal) to resign.
My only concern is whether this makes him electorally vulnerable. I don't know anything about his district. Is it all godless New Yorkers who do nothing but sext each other all day? Are they degenerates who will naturally take this in stride so long as Weiner keeps making fun of Republicans? If so, let it run.
Is it all godless New Yorkers who do nothing but sext each other all day? Are they degenerates who will naturally take this in stride so long as Weiner keeps making fun of Republicans? If so, let it run.
Oh, if nothing real breaks, it won't do him any harm in his district. I'm not in his district, but I'm pretty much his average constituent. Any bad political effect will be if the media uses it to fuck him up as a Democratic spokesman, prefacing anything he says from now on with "Discredited sex-tweet Rep. Weiner says that maybe bombing the Middle East into black glass is a poor idea. We know why someone like that would be talking crazy, amirite? Probably trying to get into some Muslim coed's pants."
Probably trying to get into some Muslim coed's pants.
A devout Muslim would probably eschew both co-education and pants.
I do not want Weiner
Maybe you just haven't encountered the right one yet, Megan.
I only posted this because I wanted to use the word "eschew".
Any bad political effect will be if the media uses it to fuck him up as a Democratic spokesman
"Weiner goes off half-cocked again"
So when do we get to see the cock pic?
The really scary thing is that no amount of good advice or changing what women do can protect them from rape.
Jill Filipovic had a good bit on this lately.
"All kinds of women are the victims of sexual assault. Sex workers. Nuns. College students. Little girls. Old women. Women who have had no sexual partners and women who have had 100. Women who are walking alone at night and women who thought they were safe in their own beds. Women who wear headscarves and women who wear miniskirts.
Very few men, on the other hand, are rapists, but the small number who are tend to sexually assault a lot of women.
So why are we so interested in what a victim did, or what she looks like, or what her sexual history is? None of that makes her more or less likely to be assaulted. The scary truth is that women are raped because they had the bad luck of being stuck in a room with a rapist."
More of the answer has to lie with men combatting rape culture, and encouraging the ones who already do (including those who like Hu/go Sch/wyzer are really irritating for hard to explain reasons). There's all that research showing that that small minority of men who are rapists actually think that most men are like them. We need to drain the swamp (/bans self).
109. Depends on your definition of pants.
So why are we so interested in what a victim did, or what she looks like, or what her sexual history is? None of that makes her more or less likely to be assaulted.
1) I'm not actually sure that's true; it would be extraordinary if rape were the only crime in the world whose probability is completely unaffected by anything the victim is or does.
2) Why are we so interested? Because people - quite a lot of people - would rather like to not be raped and are fairly curious to know if there's anything we can do to make it less likely to happen!
Dammit, I risked my job to click that link, expecting to see some cock. What a letdown.
Maybe you just haven't encountered the right one yet, Megan.
That's not for want of trying.
You may have to blow it up a bit for clarity.
95, 96: And (11)-(11+n) there is a fair bit of somewhat confusing information (I might have some stuff wrong and I've not seen this summarized in one place--particularly in the media--gleaned this from some of the DailyKos diaries and other blogs) where apparently some right-wing folks had been harping on the fact that among the 200 or so folks that Weiner follows on Twitter, some are supporters, some of whom are young women--including the young woman in Seattle. In addition to harassing her via Twitter, one of the wingers had sent some tweets several weeks prior that predicted somebody had some dirt on Weiner. And then this was the user who just happened to "see" it (plus the Breitbart drone). So this is what irks me: Although it is much more minor than the ACORN smear and probably won't stick, it follows the same pattern. There is in fact an interesting story for the media here*: How and by whom was this attempted smear arranged? But instead folks like the ever-hacktacular Raymond Hernandez are the ready to type up the even more hacktacular cable interviews.
In an interview broadcast later on CNN, Wolf Blitzer asked the congressman "if he had ever taken a picture like this of himself?"Or Luke "I Suck Worse Than My Dad, Didn't Think That Was Possible Did Ya?" Russert:
RUSSERT: But Congressman, you would remember if you were to take a photograph of yourself like that.And yes, I understand how and why it works this way.
RUSSERT: But Congressman, you would remember if you were to take a photograph of yourself like that.
Joey Lukie, do you like movies about gladiators?
126: Shorter me" "Everyone is talking about the wrong fucking thing."
Because the right thing doesn't involve penises.
Try to keep up, Moby. A "fucking thing" *is* a penis.
130: So, you're saying that they should be taking about your penis?
should be taking about your penis
Don't leave home without it.
Are you sure the department head likes you? You might want to detonate that pony, just to be on the safe side.
My understanding from the Godfather movies (s/b "from the The Godfather movies"?) is that when they really don't like you, they just give you the head of the pony.
So when do we get to see the cock pic?
They linked it on Gawker, unless they were just kidding in that hipster, you-can't-tell-if-I'm-joking way and linking to some random cock pic. It was...unextraordinary. Tame. I don't think, if you were trying to turn someone on, and thought a cock pic would do the trick, you would send them this picture. It was cropped so that you basically saw a square of underwear with an erection-denoting ridge in it. This jaded analysis brought to you by my avid interest in pictures of cock, apparently.
Oh wait someone linked it already.
Yeah, I thought the picture was no big whoop, the girl and Weiner have made it very clear that they've never met, and there is a malicious right-wing stalker who has been bothering the girl about Weiner and sending made-up tips to Breitbart about Weiner's alleged fascination with young girls. Weiner was at a hockey game when he noticed it happening. Why is everyone talking about this like it's a thing?
The media should be taken out behind a shed and put out of its misery.
121: ajay, I'm absolutely sure you mean well, but
1. yes there may be something of an overstatement there but it pales in comparison with the CONSTANT FUCKING BARRAGE of victim-blaming.
2. have another look at 53 again. There are probably certain limited circumstances where an individual person can make themselves less likely to be the target of a rapist (though the rapist might go for someone else instead). Then again there are lots of circumstances where that's not the case.
I personally have been very lucky but I remember realising in college that out of about 10 girls from my home town (whom I knew well enough to know such things about them) I was the only one whose first PIV experience was not date rape (lack of consent ranging from "passed out and woke to find it happening" to a fractured jaw.
107: Is it all godless New Yorkers who do nothing but sext each other all day?
Pretty much. He's safe here.
Weiner was at a hockey game
I think he was watching it at home, because the preceding tweet was his TiVo had just gone out.
Also, Weiner uses Twitter all day long. He's really skilled at it, and very careful about etiquette, only following people who ask him to, etc. He sometimes even seems to police the congressional Twitter back-and-forth when it gets too heated, reminding people to ease up a bit. The most unbelievable part of this story is not that Weiner took pics of his junk or that he might have an affair, but that he would publicly @ someone a private picture on Twitter. That is absurd. People who live in public media stuff don't make mistakes like that. The people who make those mistakes are the congressmen who post nude photos on CL and think no one will notice.
further to 137:
What did you think of all the people who criticised Katrina victims for not leaving NO? (yes I'm really banned now, I know.) We have an urge to convince ourselves that those bad things wouldn't happen to us because we made better choices than those other careless people. It seems like this is becoming more pernicious in all kinds of aspects of life, too.
Is it even clear that the image really did go up on Twitter? The only sources I've seen that claim to have actually seen it are associated with Breitbart. Until I see something dredged out of the Twitter server logs or a credible pro-Weiner source claiming to have seen it live I'm going with the simple explanation: Some wingnut associated with Breitbart just faked the whole thing.
Is it even clear that the image really did go up on Twitter? The only sources I've seen that claim to have actually seen it are associated with Breitbart.
Right. Which is weird given that thousands of people follow this guy.
I just want to express admiration for the phrase "a credible pro-Weiner source."
Ugh, now the line is "if Weiner can't identify his own penis, how can we trust him with the government?" Jiminy Christmas what is wrong with people? Fucking give it up.
Weiner says he saw it go up on his Twitter because he was, at that moment, Tweeting about the hockey game, so he deleted it almost instantaneously. Sources associated with Breitbart can only have gotten the photo from the person who hacked the account, if it was taken down so quickly that exactly zero non-right-wingers even ever saw it go up.
Is hacking the account of a sitting congressman a crime? It seems like it must be. Is the FBI investigating this? (Serious question.)
This ars technca article describes the yfrog exploit that may have been involved (a path since disabled by yfrog). Basically, email a picture from any account to yfrog with a not-too-hard-to-figure-out address and it gets automatically tweeted under your account. (Does not necessarily explain all of the facts in this case, but it is an avenue). So it would not be a direct Twitter hack in that case.
147: I'd ask a lawyer if I knew where to find one.
It seems like it must be.
I don't know -- are there special laws for offenses against Congresspeople? Might be, I'm just non-familiar with them.
Isn't a problem with computer crimes proving agency? Tracing an IP address, great-- isn't "there were other people in the room with the computer" pretty much airtight as a defence? The worst that can be done is to insist that an ISP shut down an offending address, right?
147: Apparently Weiner has not asked them to investigate yet, and upstanding citizens like Rudy Gulliani are giving him shit about that.
Look, I would not be surprised if there is not some legitimate poor judgment by Weiner in there somewhere ("flirty" behavior with followers, whatever) but Jesus H. Christ. Remember when the fact that Senator Ensign paying hush money to his mistress was the lead story for a week in the mainstream media?
149: I'm a lawyer, but cock pictures aren't my area of legal expertise.
"if Weiner can't identify his own penis, how can we trust him with the government?"
Well, at that, I think I'm changing my mind about this story. That is pretty awesome.
some legitimate poor judgment by Weiner in there somewhere ("flirty" behavior with followers, whatever)
I shouldn't be jumping on you for this. But if Weiner's being friendly with followers wasn't an issue before the tweeted picture, and if (not 100% certain, but how I'm betting) the tweeted picture is a hoax, then calling that 'legitimate poor judgment' is letting the terrorists win. Nothing is 'legitimate poor judgment' unless it would have looked bad in the absence of the contrived scandal.
153: I think that's like 25% of torts.
It's a question that all candidates should be asked. How likely are you to recognize your own genitals, if photographed through underwear at an angle? I think I'd be likely to recognize the underwear.
The poor judgment was that he had pictures of his penis? Because otherwise he would be sure that wasn't his, right?
Or the poor judgment was having a twitter account?
Or was the poor judgment not changing his name when he decided to go into politics?
Isn't it obvious? BP's the obvious culprit here. They're known for their junk shots.
"Senator, is this is or is this isn't your genitals?"
"Please choose your own genitals out of this line-up of underwear shots."
121 Pretty easy, and not all that effective for stranger rape avoidance since it's like mugging avoidance. The only one I can think of for date rape is to try to avoid being alone with guys who you have heard make 'she was asking for it' type arguments. But that meme is so prevalent in our society that I imagine it includes huge numbers of non-potential rapist guys.
mcmc: what's so strange about the possibility that there is a pic of someone in their underwear out there, or even stark naked? Taking photos of each other is not the rarest of sexual practices among couples.
157: Hand-sewn by your personal slave, right?
If he is electorally safe in his district, I'd love to see him go with a breezy "oh, who can keep track of one's cock pics? There have been so many and they're always trying to get out, the naughty rascals."
140 and 155 get it absolutely right, and I'm wondering how much of the CNN-y fascination with this ridiculous and contrived story is not just about the fact that they're once again being led around by the dick by Breitbart but also about the fact that they still think Twitter is totally novel and fascinating, because they suck.
The exploit described in 148 is possible only due to moronic levels of security. This is why I am extremely reluctant to give any information to social media services. They typically have an attitude that security is something you sort of slap on as an afterthought.
151: Thanks to the efforts of the entertainment industry some of the issues of agency seem to have been eroded. Intent is no longer needed for certain types of computer offenses*. In my fantasy world that image is in fact Congressman Dong's schlong, the image having been taken by him exclusively to provide solace to his wife during the separations forced by his job. He retains copyright, so he goes after Breitbart hammer and tongs using all the abusive laws lobbied for by the RIAA.
*Don't ask for details - I just copy and paste the sample angry letters to my representatives sent me by the EFF and DemandProgress.
I think what reporters should be asking Weiner is how does Jon Stewart know that your cock is smaller than that.
163: Yes, my alternate theory is that he knows that it's not his genitals, but he's thinking that leaving some ambiguity might help him out with the ladies.
167: Just trying to figure out what was so distinctive about your underwear. On second thought, please disregard.
166; They were roommates way back, right?
I think I'd be likely to recognize the underwear.
"That must be my underwear! How many pairs of sky-blue boxer shorts can there be in the world?"
I don't know the cock size of a single one of my former male roomates.
Or female roommates, for that matter.
What about your formerly male roommates?
In my fantasy world, he is refusing to deny something he didn't do (take private cock pics) on the moral grounds that 1. it isn't wrong and 2. it is no one's business.
They apparently shared a beach house. But generally roommates don't have a good idea of the size of each others erect penises.
Women's underwear is slightly more recognizable than men's.
That's funny. I've seen most of my college friends' cocks, because we skinny dipped and stuff. The one I missed is the one reputed to be ginormous, so I still feel that I missed out.
Also true that I haven't seen my friends' cocks erect.
165: In my fantasy world that image is in fact Congressman Dong's schlong, the image having been taken by him exclusively to provide solace to his wife during the separations forced by his job.
Yes! That's what I imagined as well. Perfectly innocent.
Probably trying to get into some Muslim coed's pants."
I'm pretty sure his wife was well out of college when they started dating.
176 is right. The easy answer would be "I know that's not my cock because I don't own any gray tighties." But that would be humoring them, which there's no reason to do.
Listen, there but for the grace of God go any of us. There are naked digital representations of many people. You can blame people who have ever been photographed in less than formal clothing all you want and feel superior because you would NEVER allow such a thing to occur, I guess. These kids today, etc.
Man, I was a pureminded young woman. I skinny-dipped and naked-sauna'd with people from my college co-op a couple of times, and I don't recall noticing anyone's cock. I think I was feeling modest enough about the whole thing that I kept my eyes above collarbone level, mostly.
How did you expect to recognize them on Chatroulette later if you didn't take notes when you had the opportunity?
I don't recall noticing anyone's cock
I don't see cock.
I kept my eyes above collarbone level, mostly.
I get my kicks above the waistline, Sunshine. But even I don't go that far.
OT: In the form memory of just one computer that I use for this, there are 60 names starting with "Opinionated." Opinionated Murray Head was already there.
The tragedy is that none of those names needed to be Opinionated in the first place.
Opinionated Murray Head was always already there.
OT: Friendship is nice and all, but when I've read and commented on more than, say, five versions of your investor document, it might behoove you to recall that I used to be paid for such work.
194. I haven't even sent you mine yet.
192: There are also two dozen that aren't "Opinionated."
The tragedy is that none of those names needed to be Opinionated in the first place.
It occurred to me once, when slightly more drunk than I am right now, that "Opinionated" should be assumed for all comments on this site unless specifically excluded.
mcmc: what's so strange about the possibility that there is a pic of someone in their underwear out there, or even stark naked? Taking photos of each other is not the rarest of sexual practices among couples.
I don't know--the fact that it's cropped or framed to be a lumpy grey underwearscape? Just not that appealing. This is like the dick photos that hopeful men apparently send to ladies on craigslist--they seem the opposite of erotic to me. If I got one of those in the mail I'd be thinking "Wow--I'm writing back to this guy...never!" But either lots of people don't feel this way, or lots of men are really clueless. I just wouldn't be interested in someone based solely on his amazing dick photo. I'd want to see what the rest of him looked like--like does he have a hairy back or a big wen over his eye? Stuff like that.
like does he have a hairy back or a big wen over his eye?
I am still giggling after like a whole minute. Yes, this.
like does he have a hairy back
I'm not on trial here.
Every woman wants the guys with the hairy backs and big wens. It's hard out there for a playa.
Actually, our wen is great, thanksforasking.
I'M ON ATKINS NOW, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
198: I think you're importing the 'sent to a stranger' aspect of it into your sense of how icky the photo is at all. First, of course, my guess is that it isn't a picture of Weiner and the hedging made sense in his head somehow. But if the hedging is "Shit, that's the picture I texted home to [whatever his wife's name] with the message 'thinking of you' -- how'd they get it off my phone?" or whatever, it's not worse than silly. I admit you'd need really specific tastes to find it erotic.
A bizarre taste for being desired by your husband?
More of the answer has to lie with men combatting rape culture, and encouraging the ones who already do (including those who like Hu/go Sch/wyzer are really irritating for hard to explain reasons).
How do countries with lower rates of sexual assault do things differently, from educating children about what is inappropriate touching to educating jurors out of their magical thinking about drunk girls*?
* Thinking, inevitably, of the appalling NYPD sexual assault acquittal.
the picture I texted home to [whatever his wife's name]
Huma. If I sent a picture like that to my wife, both the intended and actual effect would be teh lulz, not titillation.
Actually, her first response would likely be, "Whose phone are you using to take pictures of your dick?"
207: What if you just sent the bottom half?
Well yeah, I mean if people want to take pictures of their bits all day it's fine with me. But I think mailing a shot like that one to one's inamorata would be quite unstylish, (although of course context would matter) and so although it's none of my business, I would be disappointed in Weiner were I to find out he had done so. I would just expect him to take a better photograph.
Maybe he kept this one around to mail to his defeated enemies, as a form of taunt.
What I'm seeing on certain blogs is that Weiner's wife is irrelevant to this usse, as she's actually Hillary Clinton's lover.
LB! I just found out that that 95-year-old guy isn't the Manhattan D.A. anymore! How has this affected your life?!?
so although it's none of my business, I would be disappointed in Weiner were I to find out he had done so. I would just expect him to take a better photograph.
Not to call you judgmental, but you are a visual artist. Esthetics may simply not be Weiner's area of expertise.
quite unstylish
I care nothing for style! Check your inbox, mcmc.
213: Not at all! I don't work there! What's affected my life is Sandra Lee's boyfriend changing jobs and being replaced by a guy with an eerie resemblance to Congressman Weiner.
Maybe he kept this one around to mail to his defeated enemies, as a form of taunt.
Now that it is out, it'd be a pretty brash campaign poster. Just the pic and a 2014 (or whatever the year.) Considering the pun, it should be enough.
207: And it could have been just that (and somehow escaped into the wild) or something from years ago (as the metadata apparently does not match with any standard camera-phone or digital camera). How does someone end up with a possibly cropped, possibly altered picture of them in their underwear? Many ways.
215: Eh, never mind: "Exceeded maximum inbound message size"
I guess you'll have to settle for a taint picture.
A longer comment giving LB shit for giving me shit in 155 (yes I saw the opening apology) on its way in a bit. Working at work sucks.
I care nothing for style! Check your inbox, mcmc.
Great. Now I'm blind. I'll just have to comment at random.
219, 221: Liars, the both of you!
* Thinking, inevitably, of the appalling NYPD sexual assault acquittal.
To defend the jury, which seemed after the fact to be "Yeah, we think he did it too, just like everyone else, we just couldn't get to 'beyond a reasonable doubt'," it's a real evidentiary problem for some rape prosecutions that alcohol, the drug people are most likely to be wandering around getting fucked up on, can fairly commonly have an amnesiac effect on people who aren't terribly close to passing out. It seems pretty clear that what kept the jury from a guilty verdict was that she couldn't remember anything before the moment of the rape.
220: I thought that was pretty funny. It just goes to show what you get for trying to be serious when there are penis pictures.
No one I've ever been sleeping with has ever sent me a picture of their erection, so I don't know if that's sexy. Maybe it's sexy!
261: I have no idea, to be honest. I don't think my country is any better than yours and might even be worse. Not sure which countries are better - statistics of low rates can hide low reporting. New Zealand, maybe?
I've also never been sexted. And I've never gotten flowers, except at school dances and plays. There is a lot I don't understand about life.
OT: Somebody, apparently on purpose, is using "HISTORIC UNMOLESTED MASTERPIECE" to start the title of their Craigslist ad. They're trying to sell a house.
227 Move to Poland and you'll get flowers every single time you have anyone visit you at home. This is gender equal and is no more an expression of romantic interest than a sixpack or a bottle of wine.
Kevin Drum: "He probably did something slightly skeevy and he should own up to it, but really, who cares?"
Quit fucking saying this. Just quit. Shut up. It is really stupid. Mind your own fucking business.
I've never gotten flowers, except at school dances and plays
Oh good, it's not just me then. Does sexting require photographs? or just dirty talk?
225: If you sleep with me, I'll send you a picture of my erection. Strictly in the name of science, of course.
228: Maybe a non-native speaker of English? Molestar in Spanish can just mean "to bother" or "to disturb".
230: What gets me is that it makes no real sense. If he did exactly what Breitbart says -- attempted to tweet a picture of his jersey-clad-junk to a young woman he's not married to -- that's sleazy. If he didn't, what's the skeevy thing that Drum thinks he did that this kerfuffle is evidence of? I'd think that it's either what it appears to be, or it's nothing at al.
If you sleep with me, I'll send you a picture of my erection.
The thing is, you wouldn't.
228: I got a response today to a housing ad on the DC craigslist that is so incoherent I wonder if it was created semi-randomly with a computer program.
Well, of course he wouldn't. He doesn't even have a phone with a camera.
234: The text of the ad doesn't look like a non-native speaker and Pittsburgh has very few native Spanish speakers.
I have a phone with a camera, laydeez.
I wonder if it was created semi-randomly with a computer program.
I was listening to Radiolab on the subway in to work this morning, and it was a show on, not exactly artificial intelligence, but on humans relating to computers, and it had a segment on ELIZA, telling stories about how people spent hours telling ELIZA about their problems. And I've heard that before, but I don't understand it -- ELIZA sucked really badly. It had to get pretty lucky with your inputs to come up with something grammatically well-formed. How could anyone have found it convincing enough to relate to?
Well, of course he wouldn't. He doesn't even have a phone with a camera. His camera lenses all break from the strain.
Eventually you'll meet your Will Ladislaw, AWB, and he'll tuck a radical and moving cock pic into the flowers. While making you breakfast.
I messed around with some version of an ELIZA program in high school, trying to get it to say absurd things like: "Does it bother you that I don't believe in the ocean?"
The thing that bothers me about arguments over whether this is a hoax (which it obviously is) is that they sort of obscure the fact that there's absolutely zero reason that anyone should care about this at all, even if it were stipulated that Weiner did everything he's being accused of doing.
Oh, I don't know about that. Sending pictures of your genitals to people you're not in an intimate relationship with is weird enough to make a bit of a fuss over. I still wouldn't think it should be a big thing, but if it were real it wouldn't bother me that it was a thing at all.
Man, if someone hacked into my computer, they'd find all kinds of things that would tarnish my political career.
I still wouldn't think it should be a big thing
It's not the size of the thing, LB. It's how you use it. Do you not even *read* Cosmo?
How could anyone have found it convincing enough to relate to?
Said the pseudonym to the chatroom.
In my (limited) experience, sexy texting inversely correlates with SES, and I suspect age. Mysapce vs facebook, as it were. Anyone here over say 35 received spicy words (let alone anything else by phone) from a partner?
I think that pets or stuffed animals are the way to think about ELIZA.
Enough of this nonsense! People should be talking about this C-R-A-Z-Y crazy story. The thing I like best about it is that they gave him bail. Twice.
Sending pictures of your genitals to people you're not in an intimate relationship with is weird enough to make a bit of a fuss over.
Oh, well, I guess I should follow the details more closely before I comment. If that's the accusation, then yeah, I suppose so. I'd sort of inferred that the accusation was that he was having an affair (or intending to have an affair) with the woman, and that "we don't even know each other" was part of his denial of that accusation. But that might be all wrong.
253: I hope "Why is crawfish so important?" doesn't get turned against the store owner. You don't want to drive the non-crazy customers away.
Even if that were the allegation, politician-adultery is still news. I agree that it shouldn't be important news, and no one should be resigning over it, but I don't find it inexplicable that it's news at all.
Well, sure, maybe it *is* news, barely, in the tabloid sense. But it's hardly a fucking "scandal".
247: Sending pictures of your genitals to people you're not in an intimate relationship with is weird enough to make a bit of a fuss over.
Come to think, are those cock pictures people sent to Ogged still around anyplace?
253: That "sovereign citizen" pernicious bullshit is pernicious and bullshit.
260: True, but people usually use it as an excuse for not paying taxes rather than an excuse for shooting up seafood markets.
260: I guess we know who took all the crawfish.
261: That worked great for Passenger 57 Blade Wesley Snipes.
And I've heard that before, but I don't understand it -- ELIZA sucked really badly. It had to get pretty lucky with your inputs to come up with something grammatically well-formed. How could anyone have found it convincing enough to relate to?
Joseph Weizenbaum's insight with ELIZA was that quite a lot of language is just the signalling stuff - the bits that deal with when it's appropriate for one party to a conversation to speak, what one party is expecting to receive. The SS-7 dialler tones, not the phone call. He basically applied good MIT hacker thinking to it - make it return a (roughly) valid interim response to nearly anything, so the other party keeps talking. It, and all the chatbots of its ilk, just give the user permission to free-associate. Of course, he built it specifically to show that people ascribed intelligence to computers even when it was completely, verifiably, and deliberately absent. In that line, of course, Unfogged is just a similar device - other people's free-association into the void encourages you to unload your own repressed material. It's a far better quality of stimulus than canned linguistic help-strategies...but that's all it does. Laydeez. I will now adjust my black turtleneck and look cool.
Tell me more about your troubles with html markup.
Anyone here over say 35 received spicy words (let alone anything else by phone) from a partner?
In long distance relationships some conversations and e-mails and before that, snail mails, got a bit spicy at times. No texts, if only since I don't text, and no pics except in person.
Man, if someone hacked into my computer, they'd find all kinds of things that would tarnish my political career.
Said the unfogged commenters in chorus.
I'd guess that just the things most people have written in comments here would disqualify them from political campaigning in our current prurient right-wing tabloid Dacre/Murdoch culture(s).
Anyone here over say 35 received spicy words (let alone anything else by phone) from a partner?
From the crazy one, yes. Not a recommendation.
269: FUCK DACRE! PUBLISH! COMMENT!*
* In case anyone doesn't know, Murdoch's reputed reply to news of the Hitler diaries' falsity.
re: 271
Different Dacre, unfortunately. Paul, in this case, rather than Hugh Trevor-Roper.
Although I expect you knew that and I've just trampled in a literalist manner over your pun.
253: Bad media! That article should have scare quotes around every use of 'sovereign citizen', and I'll give 100:1 odds that 'AK-47' should be 'semiautomatic rifle styled after an AK-47'.
268.1: What teraz said. When long-distance (primarily), and just via email and telephone -- just those media possibly because I rarely text, or possibly because I imagine it would be difficult to say anything effectively spicy in the short-form messaging that texting invites.
272, 273: I'm sure rangy old cuss Murdoch has had the odd issue with Paul Dacre, too.
267: Alex was given the wire-frame Surrogate AI mother* as a child.
*Link probably NSFW.
274: They always get that one wrong.
277.2: You should try to find a job where Apo works.
277.1: That site has some wonderful moments.
What's the name of the poetry form in which the second line is one (long) word? That was fun on pagers, back when pagers were cool.
Double dactyl. Cecily's been writing them.
Going way back to the OP and Ginger Yellow's comments at 19 and 37, I was fantasizing (utterly) this:
Weiner is intentionally introducing into the narrative unfolding of these types of Breitbart-style manufactured 'scandals' this move: "So fucking what if there might be bulgy underpants pictures of me in existence? That's not to the point! The point is that I didn't send any such thing to some woman I've never met [and I've been hacked, hacked I say]!"
It's true that you have to go through some contortions to make out that that's what Weiner's doing; regardless, if it has that eventual effect on public reaction, it takes some wind out of the sails of what is, after all, a repeated and so-far fairly successful pattern on the part of Breitbart-style shenanigans. Breitbart -- or is it O'Keefe? -- has explicitly stated that he intends to go after Democratic organizations and people systematically.
(There's a notable difference between Weinergate (eww) and other Breitbart/O'Keefe actions, in that in the past the latter have made use of video that can later be viewed in full for the determination that what was aired was problematically edited. In this case, not only is there no video, nobody saw the original freaking photo.)
I realize you guys hashed these things out earlier today, but I was working at work.
my husban refuses to learn to text. in an attempt to encourage him and advertise it's potential usefulness, I texted him from upstairs: "so do u want 2 fuck or what?" it's needless to say I never abbreviate things in this fashion and figured out what 12-button pushing operation was required to dredge up a semicolon from a nokia back in the day. naturally I typed his number wrong for my first wrong text ever.
but then he got it and everything turned out happily, except he still won't text anyone, the fucker.
it's potential usefulness
This is what texting does to people.
Texting makes you want to tweet and we all know where that leads.
I also have questions about the formulation "it's needless to say," which seems clearly formally correct, or at least not incorrect, but is idiomatically unusual in this day and age, and we're all about this day and age.
Of course the poor recipient of alameida's initial mis-sent text now has a sex scandal on her or his hands. Sheesh, al.
220: A longer comment giving LB shit for giving me shit in 155 ... on its way in a bit.
It all seems beside the point now (and I must say Kevin Drum's somewhat similar statement did not help), but I think given my position in 85,86, 126,128 and most of 152, jumping on my "legitimate poor judgment" is how you let the terrorists win. I certainly exercise legitimate poor judgment now and again, and generally get away with it. I do not mean that I think he did anything that is newsworthy or morally wrong, but rather the kind of thing that would be complicated for a politician to explain in the event of the unexpected event (like this almost certain hack/hoax)--particularly for a firebrand progressive (by US Congress standards) Congressman in our current media climate.
I think it was Wolf Blitzer's cock.
I don't even own a texter see text.
Drum's blog appears to be down, so my attempt to find out what he said in context is foiled. Perhaps a lot of people were yelling at him and it crashed the, um, subserver.
This Smoking Gun thread (complete with an e-mail to Breitbart from the guy who got the screen caps) is worth a read.
296: is worth a read
If you're interested in the details.
On Radiolab and Eliza, I found that episode strangely infuriating. Partly because I just don't get the mindset that takes philiosophical zomibes seriously (I mean, it's functionally equivalent to solipsism, no?) and partly because in Jon Ronson's bit, they didn't really emphasise the point that the one time he felt a connection to the robot was the time it was blatantly reading from a script and not doing anything remotely sentient or even intelligent.
On a deeper level, I think my frustration was somewhat to do with my own conflicting feelings: on the one hand, the singularity/cyborg/techno-utopian types are clearly nutters and sometimes frauds, but on the other hand if they weren't it would be fucking cool.
They guy who did the screen caps looks just like Reagan.
The link in 296 led to a screen capture of the photo, which is so ridiculously dumb and unremarkable that I'm now astonished. Sorry -- I just hadn't seen the picture before.
298: Keep in mind that the Singularity people are pinning their entire thesis on exponential growth, and exponential growth has never, ever, ever, anywhere in the universe happened - only sigmoidal growth, which looks like exponential growth at first.
301: Did you dwarf fortress crash and burn?
Hans Moravec is a junkie and sellout.
Oh, okay, he's just kind of insane. Still.
I'd seen those emails from the Dan Wolfe/patriotusa76 linked elsewhere, but upon rereading them, I'm just struck by the seeming inevitability of the bitter custody dispute and the multiple exes who are all apparently psycho irrational bitches out to get him.
The Right-Wing-Blowhard-Deflecting-Personal-Misogyny-And-Misery-Into-National-Politics is such a stereotype that I almost feel sorry for him. Then I remember that he was harassing the girl in the story.
The photo looks like the sort of photo you get when the camera is on and you accidentally snap a picture.
301: no, just that the inflection point doesn't for a while yet.
it was blatantly reading from a script
I was kind of offended that they didn't spell that out -- if you'd been listening to the episode without any background knowledge, you'd have thought that the robot suddenly woke up and started talking about its brother.
306: Yep. No wonder Weiner is saying, "I have no idea" and generally laughing.
297:Or if you are interested at all.
||
10 Year Wage Growth Worse than Great Depression ...Mark Thoma
Over the past decade, real private-sector wage growth has scraped bottom at 4%, just below the 5% increase from 1929 to 1939, government data show.
But My Rich Black Friends are Getting Richer, So Fuck the Workers ...Matt Yglesias
The New Liberalism
|>
Best comment on the whole thing was from Gennette Nicole Cordova herself quoting Oscar Wilde: "The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing."
"Is your reference to the sciences a nod to Planck's aphorism: "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.", or are you making a deeper point?"
The thing with science is that if your career is based on a couple papers arguing one thing, having a different theory/paradigm gain credence is going to be a bad thing. Whereas thats not always the case for being for some political/social 'acceptance'.
Tonight I made gin and tonics with vodka and agua de fresa. It isn't bad, but it doesn't go with chocolate ice cream.
312.2: And having a long fight is a great way to get cited and published. If your work is at all complicated, it will take years for you to figure out you are wrong and others even longer.
"The point I am trying to make is that, contrary to the impression that I apparently gave from my tweet, I am not his girlfriend. Nor am I the wife, girlfriend or mistress of Barack Obama, Ray Allen or Cristiano Ronaldo, despite the fact that I have made similar assertions about them via Twitter."
So are you lying now, are were you lying then? You're just digging bigger holes for Ray, Barry and Cristiano now. The photos must be out there.
Massive Development in Weinergate!
Tonight I made gin and tonics with vodka and agua de fresa.
Does this sentence make no sense or is it just me.
319: If you ever take Moby literally, the errorists have won.
What? Gin, tonic, line, vodka, and whatever agua de fresa ("the water, it mills") is. Makes perfect sense.
Oh, huh, "agua de fresa" is actually the correct name of a particular variety of beverage.
That, uh.
Yeah.
American, over here. Monolingual. How are you?
317: Red herring. The truth is out there.
I put vodka in agua de fresa, which is water with strawberries and sugar. You give it a Spanish name so it sounds better.
326: doesn't have much to do with a gin and tonic, though.
322,last: "Homolingual", you're among friends.
I don't have any gin and the tonic was in the basement.
324: That's exactly what I just had, if for sugar you had honey and for vodka you had cream.
Tonight I drank a sazerac, except I skipped the absinthe, bitters, sugar, and ice, replaced the rye with red wine, and served it in a wine glass.
I substituted vodka for gin and agua de fresa for tonic.
330: you drank a glass of cream with honey? And you're still awake.
People really are different.
Also, my reading comprehension is catastrophically terrible tonight. It's possible I should go to bed.
I had a Manhattan-on-the-Rocks, but it tasted like Diet Dr. Pepper. Perhaps I mixed it wrong.
337: Did you use nothing but Diet Dr. Pepper?
338: thank you for making that as explicit as I apparently need it to be.
Because that's not a Manhattan-on-the-Rocks.
I had egg nog for breakfast this morning. Well, basically. I didn't feel like separating the eggs or adding the sugar or booze or milk or mixing it or eating raw egg.
You can make a fantastic Screwdriver variant by replacing the vodka with ribeye and the orange juice with a generous sprinkling of pepper and a charcoal grill.
I had cold coffee for breakfast, because I made coffee for the assembled and then promptly went back to sleep. When I got back up, it was cold.
Somebody needs to get carafe'd up.
Can you order a gin and tonic up, and ask them to hold the up?
I just had a gin and tonic using grapefruit juice for the tonic and skipping the gin.
One of my favorite summer time drinks is a mint julep, although if I don't have mint there's a lovely variant where I take a picture of my underwear and put it on the internet.
350: I don't think any group I could assemble wouldn't drink the whole pot.
I'm sucking Anthony Weiner's cock this very second, except that he's not here and my mouth is closed and I'm tired and Mazda doesn't make the 323 anymore and words don't always mean what they say and contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text.
I just had a gin and tonic using grapefruit juice for the tonic and skipping the gin.
You should not have skipped the gin. Gin and grapefruit juice is wonderful.
With my mind on my money and my money on my mind.
So it is, but not with ativan.
So it is, but not with ativan.
Rollin' down the street poppin' Ativan
Sippin' on grapefruit juice
agua de fresa ("the water, it mills")
Fresa = strawberry.
Spanish might have cornered the market on cool berry names.
Frambuesa!
Zarzamora!
truskawka (strawberry) poziomka (wild strawberry, fraise de bois) porzeczka (currant), malina (rasberry), ... nope, not that interesting. Talking about which, what's that translucent green thing calles?
368: I didn't know arándano! I don't have Oxford here, but the resources I looked at have both arándano agrio and arándano as "cranberry" and these three for "blueberry": arándano dulce, arándano azul, and, simply, arándano. Fascinating. If nothing else for the antepenultimate accent.
You all know the Spanish are just stealing from the French, right?
Fresa=Fraise
Frambuesa=Framboise.
I learned arándanos (singular) as "blueberry." There's probably some dialectal variation in these.
The initial a makes me suspect an Arabic origin, but I don't know anything about the etymology beyond that. The accent does suggest it's a loanword of some sort.
arándanos (singular)
Huh. Singular. Odd. But interesting, and I had the same thought about Arabic.
Language! So interesting! So not a profitable thing to study!
the Spanish are just stealing from the French s/b the French are just pronouncing Spanish badly.
371: Some early 19th century dictionaries seem to have it as a name for bilberry. One was also wild service-berry.
Arg, I'm trying to find the thread in which we talked about the San Francisco alterna-porn festival where they showed the movie BikeSexual and we made fun of Vancouver hipsters. I just watched Made in Secret, the "documentary" about the East Van Porn Collective, the group that made BikeSexual and... I have feelings about it. Has anyone else seen it?
Sort of OT? But is anything about porn, bikes, hipsters, and movies ever truly off-topic?
Oh, you're on to talking about fruit names.
A quick google isn't turning up any examples of singular arándanos, but I'm sure that's how I learned it. It does seem to refer to various berries native to cold climates that Spanish-speakers would presumably not have encountered in their home countries, so it's hard to say where the term comes from or what it originally meant.
Spanish speakers have 1000 words for "Chuck Berry".
378-9: Was it maybe something on Portlandia?
No, we were actually talking about this porn movie. I thought. Maybe I was talking about it with my real other internet friends.
There is an inaccurate reference to that conversation here but I can't find it. Anyway, I thought I would update everyone on what I now know about the BikeSexual movie, but no one remembers. (They're from Vancouver. The film was only shown once, in San Francisco. It was not made by honest-to-God pornographers, or even by people who seem to particularly enjoy pornography, but by a collective formed for the purpose of making a somewhat faux documentary about collectives and how they work, except the collective in question, which really did make a vaguely fake-queer hipster sort-of porn movie, was created for the purpose of having a collective for the documentary director to film. So they generate drama and the collective has to work out their differences. But I'd imagine they'd have FEWER FUCKING DIFFERENCES if it was a collective made up of people with any interest at all in the project of their collective. Ahem.)
386: No, I didn't mean the VULVA ad. But you were the person who mentioned it, Josh!
Wait, no, I don't think that's it. I remember the thread you're talking about, though, because I saw the listing for the film in one of the alt-weeklies here before nosflow linked it.
Anyhow, if the point of Made in Secret was supposed to get you to want to join a collective or implement collectivist methods in your own group, I don't think it worked for me. It's a documentary that follows the fascinating story of one woman who dares to block a major group decision that doesn't affect her at all for "emotional reasons--I can't explain" before she does, saying "I feel... I just feel... [me, under my breath, "say 'raped'"] violated, you know? Like retroactively?" and everyone smiles really big at her to communicate that they understand.
We were both wrong! nosflow *did* link it, in the thread you found, here.
To be clear, no one was actually raped in this film. It's a film about the kind of people who use the concept of symbolic "rape feeling" to prevent other people from doing what they want. No, it's not like being raped that your friends are proud of a movie they made while you were out of town, which you knew they were going to make.
Now I'm really confused. That link is to the Bike Porn Film Festival, which seems to be a) a real thing and b) not BikeSexual. I suppose this is proof that no matter how unlikely you think a given fetish is, someone, somewhere, is furiously masturbating to it.
I think BikeSexual may have been shown at that festival or one like it. I was trying to figure that out. It is a real short porn film that exists, but it was made by the people acting in the "documentary," who were a group of friends, but not particularly a group of friends interested in making pornographic films, so they made a real one so they'd have something to talk about in the documentary about collectivism.
Everything is so confusing in the 21st century.
Everything is so confusing in the 21st century.
For instance, the Phillips-screw-vs.-conventional-screw debate has gotten only more complicated.
114
The really scary thing is that no amount of good advice or changing what women do can protect them from rape.
This is really wrong, like telling people they shouldn't bother wearing seatbelts because when their number is up their number is up.
301
Keep in mind that the Singularity people are pinning their entire thesis on exponential growth, ...
Actually they are claiming faster than exponential growth as there is no singularity with exponential growth.
300: Actually it's nothing like that, and the post you're replying to makes very clear why it isn't.
95
It really does look like bullshit ...
Of course you believed Edwards when he said it wasn't his kid.
If I was a Congressman and someone hacked my account in this way I would be demanding an investigation (which would probably prove hacking). Since it appears Weiner isn't doing this I think it is more likely than not that he sent the photo.
398
Actually it's nothing like that, and the post you're replying to makes very clear why it isn't.
Not to me, or apparently ajay in 121.
401: And does ajay's 121 actually respond to anything in 114? No. Shocker.
What's not clear to you? The language in 114 is not difficult. Straightforward standard English. The points being made are not abstruse. What are you objecting to? Specifically?
If I was a Congressman and someone hacked my account in this way I would be demanding an investigation (which would probably prove hacking).
Really, James? If you were a member of Congress, you would marshal the resources of investigation, which might include the FBI, the Capitol Police, and countless others for this purpose? I'm deeply confused.
I invite a guest post from James B. Shearer, titled "The State of the Union".
I suppose this is proof that no matter how unlikely you think a given fetish is, someone, somewhere, is furiously masturbating to it.
Perhaps. The other possibility is that some people are basically asexual, but like feeling virtuous, and triumphing over the heinousness of pornography while congratulating themselves for riding bikes seems to be a thing.
My perspective on this has shifted because of Made in Secret, in which I learned that the most sexually squeamish and conservative people in the world are the kind who invent pornography collectives in Vancouver. Sample line, from a man who, in the documentary story claims to have made SEVERAL pornographic films by now: "In the history of cinema, there's never been anything really sexy. I mean, there are movies that make me laugh, and movies that make me cry. But there has never, ever been a sexy film." Also: "Today's scene is extremely difficult for me because I have to kiss someone. I've never kissed anyone I wasn't deeply in love with."
This movie really pissed me off. They seem like sweet kids, but Jesus Christ. It might have been about the East Van Engineering Collective. "We, like, don't really like math? And none of us has ever like made anything? But we're really really into community and being about our community."
Sorry, I'm totally bob-ing this up. Yell at Shearer.
405: Yell at Shearer.
SHEARER!!!!!
AGGHGHGGHBBBLLLLAGGHHLBBAAAGHHHH!!!!!!!!
SHEEEEEEAARRRRRRREEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!111!!!!11!1!111!!!!!!!11!!!
....
There. All better.
Talking about which, what's that translucent green thing calles?
Gooseberries?
370: apo, I love you
shearer: I actually redacted the comment because I felt I was violating people's privacy, but since she's dead I don't think she'll mind too badly: my grandmother got gang raped while she was lying in her bed, asleep, with the door locked. but they climbed up to the second floor and got in a locked french door by forcing it and breaking the glass. if you tell me she should have had bars on the upstairs french doors I will kick your ass so hard your fucking teeth get broken out from the inside.
in another case, a close relative was raped while staying at a friend's house, by the friend's boyfriend, at knifepoint, and she was afraid to resist too much because her toddler was in the next room asleep and she was terrified about what would happen if the baby came in.
do you advise women not to sleep in their beds, or go to friend's houses?
perhaps they should always have bodyguards? no, because those guys might well rape them. some kind of female ninja strike force? this seems impractical.
other societies much like our own have much lower rates of rape (just as others, like congo, have terrifying high rates of rapes, of both women and men). perhaps the effort to lower the rate in our own country should focus not on the mass of women who are the potential victims, but on the small number of men who rape repeatedly? you know, by making it clear as a society that we take it seriously when a woman says "no, stop" at any point? and that it is totally unacceptable to rape women who are passed-out drunk? that it is even unacceptable to rape prostitutes, and that if you knew a man who had done any of these things you would shun him like a convicted child molester? just a thought.
separately: hu/go sch/wy/zer is indeed doing the lord's work on this and many other issues, so why is he so annoying? I mean, I myself find him annoying. remnant misogynist socialization, such that he is so not "macho" that we can't deal? undercurrent of preening narcissism, I think. but you have to love the way he brings out the MRA haters.
Of course you believed Edwards when he said it wasn't his kid.
I had faith you were going to bring that up. IIRC, I think what I was saying throughout the Edwards thing was that I didn't believe anything that I knew about solely because it was in the Enquirer. Which was still wrong, but less wrong.
The good news (we take it where we find it) is that apparently the rate of rape and attempted rape in the United States has declined significantly over the last 30 years. Does anybody want to make a case that women have stopped getting drunk, dressing to kill or having consensual sex with people they fancy over the same period?
You can't make the case. Just stop it.
dressing to kill
Murder is down too, of course.
412: though emergency medicine has got a lot better and therefore there are a lot of people walking around who would have been murder statistics in 1970.
409: I think I perceive smugness, or something. Even in the humility, because it's not self-deprecation and snark. This is probably me not him, though.
411: That certainly is good news. I did see some critical discussion somewhere lately on what exactly is included in these stats for "forcible rape" but yes, we'll take that. A good chance too that this might hold true in other western countries.
I think I perceive smugness
Ya think? And it's the same sort of grating smugness of former smokers who now feel the need to lecture others about it.
402
What's not clear to you? The language in 114 is not difficult. Straightforward standard English. The points being made are not abstruse. What are you objecting to? Specifically?
114 appears to be saying to me (and apparently ajay) that a women's actions don't affect her probability of being raped which is bs.
What do you think it is saying, that you can be raped without having done anything reckless?
409
other societies much like our own have much lower rates of rape ...
Examples?
US 2011 vs US 1979, a society much like our own.
Have you no shame?
114 appears to be saying to me (and apparently ajay) that a women's actions don't affect her probability of being raped which is bs.
Why is it bs? Because you say so? Not good enough.
What do you think it is saying, that you can be raped without having done anything reckless?
Yes, that is what it is saying, and what is obviously attested from countless examples.
I mean, look, I doubt anybody's saying "women should take no safety precautions, ever." But the fact of the matter is that 114 is obviously correct, rape isn't something that just happens to "reckless" party girls or something, it can and does happen regardless of safety precautions and in fact is likeliest to happen in a situation where the victim feels safe around people they should be able to trust (it's estimated that in something like 70-80% of sexual assaults the perp isn't somebody jumping out of the bushes, but somebody the victim knew). So the insistence on victim-blaming is offensive, and false, and you're full of shit, and ajay is full of shit.
(Or rather ajay was full of shit, in the post you cited. He may no longer be full of shit.)
Some instances of rape could be prevented by choices made by the victim. Many obviously couldn't be, as alameida and others have already pointed out, not in any reasonable sense. But one pernicious thing is that even of those that could have been prevented, many of them only "could have been prevented" in the sense of 20/20 hindsight. You shouldn't have gone on a date with that guy, you shouldn't have drank that drink, you shouldn't have walked down this street, you can't call the police about every single asshole you ever meet but you should have known better about that one. Even when it's not actually victim-blaming (and it often is), it's never helpful or constructive. Just telling someone "become a better judge of character" does not magically make them a better judge of character.
But then, this isn't the first time Shearer said he didn't see anything wrong with blaming victims of rape.
418
US 2011 vs US 1979, a society much like our own.
With a much HIGHER level of rape not making it a good role model.
421 is what I was trying in my inept way to get at. And I abhor attempts to blame victims (of pretty much any crime). "There are things you can do to reduce your chance of becoming a victim" is not not not the same is "if you become a victim it's your fault" (hence the general acceptability of, eg, self-defence classes). But in retrospect I should have kept my mouth (keyboard, whatever) shut. Sorry.
Me: Without having heard its context or tone, that comment read much more like a walkback from "I'm innocent and was hacked" and a prelude to a tearful resignation than a defiant riposte. Have I missed something important that suggests otherwise?
Damn I'm good.
