Re: Pants on fire

1

What if they say they want to eat your face?


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 5:58 AM
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2

What if they keep denying global warming?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 6:04 AM
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3

Or, completely hypothetically, saying they have washed their hands when you know they took a shit and couldn't possibly have have washed their hands that fast and they're eating crackers with you?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 6:05 AM
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If Hawaii comes out of the bathroom after two seconds, and I call to her "Did you use the bathroom or just flush the toilet?" and she says "Used the bathroom!"...I'm just going to roll with it

Huh, my approach is/was more "get back in there dumbass, if you're going lie to me show a little respect and do a better job".


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 6:06 AM
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Or say there's no lying involved whatsoever but they just love rubbing everything in their bare butts, including their siblings' hands, (not Ace's), because it gets such a predictable reaction out of Mom and Dad?


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 6:07 AM
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4: I couldn't quite come up with the right example. I'm thinking if she just spontaneously went to the bathroom, not if I asked her to try before we left the house or something.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 6:08 AM
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Anyway, we're mostly past the phase where he says batty/cute things that are lies and getting to the phase where he says true things that are rude.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 6:15 AM
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We had a whole slew of "Grandma Geebie is icky" style truthful statements, nevertheless inappropriate, over the past two weeks. Ugh.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 6:17 AM
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1: Jesus. I never want to have kids now. Those comments are all far too similar to "Thus I Refute Beelzy".
http://ciscohouston.com/docs/docs/greats/refute_beelzy.html


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 6:20 AM
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I detest my in laws and will always cherish the memory of my younger daughter climbing to the top of the playhouse at a family gathering and shouting at them "you can't get me, you're too faaaat."


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 6:21 AM
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He keeps saying things like "all power grows out of the barrel of a gun" or "if you drive poorly enough that the difference between a .08 and a .1 BAC matters, you're going to crash sooner or later regardless."


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 6:23 AM
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Now and then I would call my kid out on a lie, just to remind her I knew they were lies -- I'd say something like, "Oh, COME NOW. Really?" -- but yeah, mostly just let it go.

A big part of parenting, IME, is selective deafness.


Posted by: delagar | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 6:28 AM
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13

A big part of life is selective deafness.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 6:29 AM
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Having one deaf ear is pretty helpful for staying asleep when there are noises all around you. I assume it will be less helpful with somebody jumping on me.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 6:34 AM
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We also certainly call her out on the "I have no idea how Hokey Pokey got hit" lies. (Smack. Wail. "It was on accident!")


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 6:36 AM
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Having one deaf ear is pretty helpful for staying asleep when there are noises all around you. I assume it will be less helpful with somebody jumping on me.

...your wife about to murder you for conveniently sleeping through the cries all night long.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 6:37 AM
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17

16: it's okay; I can't usually sleep through somebody punching me.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 6:41 AM
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I mean, as far as I know.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 6:42 AM
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19

"I only read Highlights for the articles."


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 6:43 AM
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I'm dealing with older kids, but their elaborate lies almost always get a deadpan "That's an interesting story" or something. If they're blaming someone else for something, I can ask if they want me to contact the principal or something similar.

Mara is a stone-cold liar and probably wouldn't even care if I bust her, and she also tends to say creepy things about wanting to see people's bones come out and peel their skin off and "make them blood." Nia's lies are not very plausible and she's not good at telling them yet. It was really cute when she was shocked that I'd figured out that she was lying about being sick every single Monday morning on the hopes she'd someday get to stay home from school.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 6:52 AM
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she also tends to say creepy things about wanting to see people's bones come out and peel their skin off and "make them blood."

Sounds like someone's ready for Call of Duty.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 6:55 AM
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It was really cute when she was shocked that I'd figured out that she was lying about being sick every single Monday morning on the hopes she'd someday get to stay home from school.

I knew a guy in his twenties who was surprised that our boss didn't believe he was sick every Monday after a payday. The rest of us just planned that this guy only worked every other Monday.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 7:00 AM
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21: She's really into Wii Boxing for that reason, which I think is more than enough. It's the only Wii game she'll play because she doesn't like the noise and movement of the controllers, but apparently it's worth putting up with that to be able to punch imaginary people and yell creepy trash talk.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 7:03 AM
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Have you tried her on Wii Swordfighting? There's a mode where you are running down the beach slashing at people at all sides. It's great.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 7:06 AM
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22: A five-alarm hangover is a kind of sickness, I guess.


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 7:09 AM
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Moby, is that in Sport Resort? We just have the regular Sports, plus Fit and now some of the Just Dance games that are supposed to be Mothers' Day presents to us and a Cooking Mama that's too hard for them. And then Lee confiscated the tv, so right now no one's playing anything.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 7:09 AM
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Right around age 2 the kid of a friend of mine got in this phase where he thought it was hilarious to say things that weren't true. Not lying exactly, more saying the opposite of what is the case.

- "Mom, you know what that is?" (Gestures to his glass of milk on the table.)
- What is it?
- "Not milk!!!" (Collapses into hysterical laughter.)


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 7:10 AM
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I'm dealing with older kids, but their elaborate lies almost always get a deadpan "That's an interesting story" or something.

"Everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at your rear end!"


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 7:11 AM
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I went for the approach that treated some lies more as wishful thinking, along the lines of, "It would have been nicer if that's what had happened, wouldn't it?" So you get the benefit of acknowledging that you know it's a lie without the conflict of calling them out on lying or having to deal with lying as an issue when it's normal behavior. Bonus end result: a 17-year-old who lets me know that he tried gin last night and didn't think it was as bad as rum. (I suppose one could argue that knowing your minor is drinking is a problem, but I'm pretty sure that any parent around here who thinks their kid is not is delusional. And frankly, as long as he's telling me about trying gin, he's probably not trying meth, so that works for me. Digression! But yeah, not over-reacting to lying is good, IMO.)


Posted by: Sarah Wynde | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 7:14 AM
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26: Yes, it's in sports resort.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 7:15 AM
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31

And then Lee confiscated the tv

Maybe they'd like what I bought my nephews.(small swords and shields from here)


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 7:28 AM
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29: I think I did basically the same thing, trying to establish a distinction between lying-for-deception and storytelling, and disapproving of the one but not the other. (Because I have no moral core, I think I emphasized the practical disadvantages of lying over the "it's just wrong" part -- that if you lie frequently, you will get busted and develop a reputation, and then no one will believe you when you need them to.)


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 8:27 AM
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33

I basically never lie. I evade and omit, sure, but telling flat-out lies is very rare for me. It's not so much an ethical thing as mostly because I've found lying to be a huge pain in the ass and doing it gives me trepidation far beyond the scale of whatever the lie itself is. The one time I submitted a resume with a minor fib on it, I ended up freaked out for weeks that I would lose my chance at the job if ever it was detected.

Contrastingly, I recently saw a copy of my grandfather's resume from the late 1950s. It was amusing to see that he had adjusted his birth-year as to represent himself as half-a-decade younger than he was. I guess you could get away with that in the 50s.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 8:49 AM
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34

33: There was a wonderful conversation here a while back in which LB expressed puzzlement at why people ever lie. The commentariat expressed puzzlement at her puzzlement, since, as a lawyer, LB should have plenty of experience with liars. LB explained that her job as a lawyer was to do everything but lie, and that she didn't see why more people didn't follow that policy.

The conversation stuck with me. I think of it every time I teach about the value of truth telling.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 8:58 AM
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35

19 cracked me up.


Posted by: Sir Kraab | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 9:03 AM
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36

Attorneys and politicians have a different calibration for honesty than many. Compare the legal definition of "colorable" with the English one. Intentional but vague deception is understood as lying by most listeners.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 9:03 AM
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I should say that I came to that position partially through professional experience, and partially from having lied an awful lot as a kid and teenager, generally out of trying to avoid uncomfortable situations, rather than having been scrupulously honest all my life. To this day, if I'm caught in an even moderately difficult spot, lying my way out of it is my first reaction, and I have to consciously remember that it's a poor idea and not do it.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 9:04 AM
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Good discussion of lying here:

No fact is more firmly established than that lying is a necessity of our circumstances, -- the deduction that it is then a Virtue goes without saying. No virtue can reach its highest usefulness without careful and diligent cultivation, -- therefore, it goes without saying, that this one ought to be taught in the public schools -- at the fireside -- even in the newspapers. What chance has the ignorant, uncultivated liar against the educated expert?


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 9:12 AM
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39

Compare the legal definition of "colorable" with the English one

As far as I'm aware the English definition of "colorable" refers to a simple picture drawn in outline which may be given to a small child together with a packet of crayons. What's the legal definition?


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 9:15 AM
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34, 36: "Everything but lie" isn't quite the sort of thing I'd think of as okay in a legal-practice context -- like, if I were crafting a literal truth that I intended to have the effect of causing my opponents to believe a falsehood, I'd count that as basically lying just like normal people. The sort of thing I was thinking of is more the distinction between telling the truth and telling the whole truth: remaining silent on matters that aren't helpful to my ends.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 9:15 AM
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41

39: Bullshit that isn't physically impossible as far as the other guy knows.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 9:16 AM
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39: A "colorable" argument is one you don't buy yourself, but you can make without shame. An argument that passes the laugh/blush test, in that you could make it to a judge without doing either. But it has the strong implication that you're really not convinced by it.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 9:17 AM
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I tend to use 'colorable' to describe opinions that I don't necessarily subscribe to: "I'm not sure that Will Saletan should be dismembered and fed to hogs, but there's a colorable argument to be made."


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 11:44 AM
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In the OP, I don't see why you'd ask true/false questions when you're going to slope on the answers. Other than that, seems to me one of the big risks of lying is that it's not just hard to keep track of what you've said but eventually of what's true. Next thing you know you have tenure on invented datasets.... Oh.

ALso, I realized in my 30s that I'm an incredibly incompetent liar and should just stick to misdirection when needed. I'm not sure I'm any better at that, but people don't always follow up.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 11:59 AM
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45

I would say that a colorable argument is one that the client believes, and I can't conclusively rule out.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 12:02 PM
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46

I don't see why you'd ask true/false questions when you're going to slope on the answers.

"Describe to me what you did in the bathroom, and where."


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 12:12 PM
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47

Nods yes, smiles.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 12:14 PM
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48

LIAR!


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 12:20 PM
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49

eggplant are you going to the supremacistcon?


Posted by: read | Link to this comment | 05- 1-13 12:21 PM
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