Random Thoughts Showcase Spectacular

Status
Not open for further replies.

Iskanderia

-member-
-member-
Joined
Jan 30, 2007
Messages
2,506
@SailorKa: As you acknowledge, it's completely different here. We don't live in the same kind of fear of having our right to vote taken away from us, so it's not as sacred to a lot of us. I'm sorry your country is so corrupt but please don't try to shame me for not seeing the point in casting a useless vote for a candidate I don't feel very strongly about to begin with. Not voting can be a sort of protest on its own too.

I thought I was clear about this before, but I'll say it again just in case: the main reason I am not voting for president this time (as I said, I will be voting for everything else though) is that my vote literally does not matter. I live in a state that always votes Democrat and I can't imagine that changing any time soon. CT's electoral votes will go to Obama no matter what, so it doesn't matter whether I vote for or against him. If I lived in a swing state, where I was not automatically disenfranchised, it would be different, but that's not the case.



Alright, I'll see you guys after the election. I hate the person I become when we start talking politics around here. I'm very sorry.
 

sailorKa

-member-
-member-
Joined
Oct 15, 2004
Messages
1,887
Location
Venezuela....
@Iska: no, yeah, sorry I wasnt trying to shame you or anything, just trying to understand. I would personally still vote Republican if I were you because it would be useful in the future when it came to counting how many ppl they have on that state, etc. but I guess if its something you feel strongly about, then you should do what feels best.

In slightly different news, I'm about to go to a friend's house to visit him. He came back to Venezuela to vote and is staying for a couple of weeks so I get to say hi.

--k
 

Iskanderia

-member-
-member-
Joined
Jan 30, 2007
Messages
2,506
sailorKa wrote:
I would personally still vote Republican if I were you because it would be useful in the future when it came to counting how many ppl they have on that state, etc. but I guess if its something you feel strongly about, then you should do what feels best

Okay, one last thing...

Yeah, I've thought of that and I would do that if I actually liked the Republican candidate enough that I could feel good about voting for him.

Ya know what though? It still might not be a bad idea for me to vote for him just to add to the non-Democrat numbers in my state. If Republicans and Republican-leaning independents see a larger number of votes for Romney than expected, maybe they would be more willing to bother to vote next time since it wouldn't seem quite so futile. I don't necessarily want CT to turn red, but I'd love for us to become a swing state where more people would turn out to vote because they feel that their vote might actually count for once. Also, it might result in our local politicians being more moderate because they would have to appease amd take seriously the now more visible contingent of right-leaning voters.

Ha ha look what you've done. I think you just convinced me to vote for Romney.
 

PureElegance

-eternite-
eternite
Joined
Jul 5, 2006
Messages
4,655
Location
In Klaha's Closet
Iska told me you defended Biden and I had to see it for myself XD

Berserk wrote:
Oh, and Biden gave Ryan the respect he deserved. Ryan really thought he was going to get away with criticizing the stimulus after personally requesting funds from it for his district? Ryan was really going to tell Biden of all people about a tragic car accident? And then Ryan starts dropping all this chain e-mail bullshit like: "Did you know Biden visited China and openly supported their one-child policy and forced abortion?" or "Did you know that Obama snubbed Netanyahu in New York to go on The View?"
No, he didn't. I can't BELIEVE you would even defend Biden. Come on, Berserk. Not even Obama laughed at Romney throughout the entire debate neither was it the other way around. Here you had Biden laughing, interrupting, smirking, the entire time Ryan was talking. How would you like someone laughing as you're speaking? Multiple times? Come on, this has nothing to do with what Ryan said but with common courtesy, so be quiet. No matter WHO is talking or what they are saying, especially in this type of discussion, you need to show respect and not do stupid things like LAUGH as they're speaking. (Have you ever been in mock trial or any debating team? That's like a rule.)

You just proved my point that people will defend Biden/Obama no matter what they do :P But not even Obama would be that disrespectful or at least I don't believe he would be.

Iska wrote:
@PE: I agree with every word of what you wrote (as I'm sure you know from our FB conversations). I can't shake this feeling that while most Americans have finally become ready for a (half)black president, we still aren't ready for a female president. It just saddens me so much.

I'm not saying, of course, that all Obama supporters chose him over Clinton simply because they're misogynists (that would make me as much of an asshole as the people who suggest that everyone who supported McCain did so because they're racists) but all the examples you gave (and plenty of others I've seen personally), should make it pretty obvious to anyone with the tools to spot sexism that a lot of people (yes, even liberals) still have problems with assertive and confident women, women who are not conventionally attractive, women who are conventially attractive and just the general idea of a woman having that much authority over men.

(I originally wrote a couple more long paragraphs here delving deep into feminist theory in an attempt to explain why this is, but I deleted it because, dear Christ, who do I think is really interested in reading all of that?)
Yeah, I agree basically with everything you've said too. I think the gender thing is harder for people to overcome than race, TBH, at least in the USA. It's as if people don't want to admit that it's there, but it's definitely still there. The 2008 elections were a perfect example of that, and that's also why I resented the whole Obama campaign as well since it had also fed off of the sexist attacks by the media (who were pretty much with him from the start) and the people against Clinton/Palin. I don't like how we arrived to him being president at all when it comes to these things. It's one thing to make attacks about Clinton's character, her policies, but her body and things related to her femininity, even her PERIOD? (And jokes about how Palin's baby should've been aborted, TOTALLY FINE!) That's not politics, it's sexism. It wasn't even coming only from that "evil" Republican party, those "woman haters," but all sides.

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/ ... 012258.jpg
^ true.

I'm not even someone who sees sexism in all things, every day, all the time (I don't want to become that), but I think it's so blatant when it comes to Hillary Clinton and women in politics.

even a political cartoon like this:
http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/no_sexism.gif
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/20 ... st-images/

That's not even the horrible stuff. It's just really disheartening for any woman who wants to be in politics.

I'm interested in reading! XD I actually read this long article that was about the sexist attacks against Hillary Clinton sparking a feminist awakening, and it was really interesting. If you have time you can look at it.
http://nymag.com/news/features/46011/

EDIT:
And I can't seriously be the only one who is really disgusted by how the Libya attack has been handled, can I?
You're not.

EDIT2: DON'T GOOOO~

And the voting thing, I think here in the US it's "okay" to not vote, and I'm partly glad there's the option of not voting although I will always vote as I feel privileged to have this right. I will say though that government does run on a certain amount of apathy, but also it's hard to actually educate yourself on every single candidate, that sometimes you just don't want to vote. My friend was telling me today how embarrassed she felt because she didn't even know any of the judges or any lower-level people, she wasn't even sure she should be voting at that time because she was picking at random. It's not easy to study up on these things, especially if you have a job, children, etc etc...

If someone is honestly unsure, doesn't know anything, or doesn't like either candidate, I wouldn't force them to vote. It's not about taking elections for granted, but why would you want a person who doesn't believe in their vote to vote? Just to say they participated in the process?
 

faith

-ok-
-ok-
Joined
Aug 5, 2004
Messages
5,388
God those Hillary things make me so mad.
Also the one of her using the urinal looks like Gackt.


So I joined the holy ranks of Mana and made my own salad dressing yesterday, since all there are in France are Balsamic Vinagrette, some nasty as hell mustard junk, and this...cream...thing.

It was so-so. But at least now I know I can do it :)
 

MissUMana

-member-
-member-
Joined
Nov 28, 2008
Messages
2,367
Location
Far away
@faith : I never use ready-made vinaigrette, it's awful, and making your own is so easy! The proportions are 3 spoons of oil (whichever you like), 1 spoon of vinegar (any kind) and salt and pepper to your liking. The best is to start with the vinegar and salt, that way the salt will dissolve instantly. Then you can add whichever herbs you like, or shallot. :cool:
 

PureElegance

-eternite-
eternite
Joined
Jul 5, 2006
Messages
4,655
Location
In Klaha's Closet
faith wrote:
God those Hillary things make me so mad.
It makes me so annoyed along with the ones about Sarah Palin.
palin1
palin2
palin3

God, it makes me want to go like this:

EveryMaleChauvinistPig.jpg


but then again women can be just as bad as some male pigs so.

Bringing this in from the reading thread:
Wandering_Fox wrote:
According to the new iPhone map, I'm in Nairobi.
Now my phone keeps saying I'm in Weehawken NJ or some other city in NJ like Garfield (it's like condemning me to hell ::gaku::). It's not as bad as Nairobi, but it's annoying when I try to check in on facebook and it keeps showing me places in NJ rather than NYC. I think it fixed itself, but really, it was weird!


You guys have inspired me to buy some scallions for my cooking today. I loooove scallions, why don't I ever get them? Gosh. I pretty much like anything onion-y.
*drools at pictures of scallions*
 

Demanufacturer

-senior member-
-senior member-
Joined
Nov 29, 2004
Messages
1,957
Location
The Hague
Last weekend i took a long weekend off to fly to Switserland and visit the H.R. Giger Museum.
It was fucking awesome <3

247719_446862868682241_452999558_n.jpg


598922_446862605348934_2104978765_n.jpg


545617_446862548682273_1738798298_n.jpg


545383_446862792015582_2001953251_n.jpg
 

PureElegance

-eternite-
eternite
Joined
Jul 5, 2006
Messages
4,655
Location
In Klaha's Closet
Oh my gosh, if any of you go to NYC, go to Ripley's Believe or Not in Times Square!! I always thought it was just a tourist trap or something, but it was so much fun!! :grin: I was like, "OK, we need to go there already because I see it every morning and I wonder if it's any good."

I had a great time and laughed so hard and at times freaked out XD I actually learned a lot too. ^^

I also had to avoid these laser beams in a room by crawling around and I failed miserably ::meev:: Anyways, I just had to tell everyone because it seriously was fun! I really liked the way they made it interactive, so it wasn't just you walking through reading things. It's a ton of nerdy fun and there were really some unbelievable things.

One of the nerdier things was this device used to "get a man" (looked like a giant bear trap), then another to "keep a man," (freaky collar thing) and then another to "keep a woman" ... which was a metal chastity belt XD I also liked the collar put on women who gossiped too much, hahaha. There was just a lot of cool sections to go through, I'm not even sure which was my favorite.

*goes to post pics on facebook* >_> sooo productive~
 

flowersofnight

-moderator-
-moderator-
Joined
Aug 4, 2004
Messages
13,919
Location
Vintage Live House, 1994
Demanufacturer wrote:
Last weekend i took a long weekend off to fly to Switserland and visit the H.R. Giger Museum.
It was fucking awesome <3
Is there much to do in Switzerland? I was originally thinking about going there but ended up not because it seemed expensive and would involve a lot of miscellaneous rail travel.

PureElegance wrote:
I also liked the collar put on women who gossiped too much, hahaha.
Do they sell those?
 

PureElegance

-eternite-
eternite
Joined
Jul 5, 2006
Messages
4,655
Location
In Klaha's Closet
flowersofnight wrote:
PureElegance wrote:
I also liked the collar put on women who gossiped too much, hahaha.
Do they sell those?
Um NO. I don't like what you're implying!
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos- ... 8639_n.jpg
But it seems like this one would fit your head just fine.

They only have this sort of thing on Amazon (OK I was curious!)
http://www.amazon.com/Scolds-Bridle-c-1 ... 007N0LJQY/
Just imagine yourself as the man and the woman is some total stranger.

Wow, imagine having to walk around with THIS on all day? Good Lord. I'm so glad it's not like that anymore ::batsu::


EDIT: OMG my school's "Time Keeper" just died! :( I can't even imagine walking to class without him yelling at us '7 MINUTES UNTIL CLASS STARTS!!!' and telling us to watch out for cars and saving us from cars as we're rushing. Omg. Death is so strange.
http://nyunews.com/index.php/2012/10/16/timekeeper/
http://articles.nydailynews.com/2009-11 ... lass-times
http://www.nytimes.com/video/2009/04/07 ... n-y-u.html

“[John’s] family is the people on 12th Street, the locals and the kids at NYU,” Danielle said. “John loved those kids, and they made him so happy everyday. Even when he was in the hospital, he was upset that he was missing his post at NYU. He had a really big heart and never wanted to miss a day at the school.”
;___________;
 

Berserk

-member-
-member-
Joined
Apr 13, 2006
Messages
2,383
Location
Michigan
@Iska: Well, even if you don't continue the conversation I still gotta respond.

Iska wrote:
I reaaalllly doubt Roe v. Wade will be overturned any time soon. It seems like it would've happened by now if it were going to happen.
You're right that Roe v. Wade probably won't get overturned, but pro-choice advocates have wised up to that now and are using different strategies other than directly challenging Roe.

In states like Kansas, they've passed onerous regulations that dictate the size of the operating rooms, the waiting rooms, the hallways, the janitor closets, etc., dictate the precise temperature that the rooms must be at all times, dictate that 13 different drugs must be in full supply and on-hand at all times (even though they're rarely if ever needed for abortion services), etc. All this was passed because they knew that most abortion clinics would have to completely remodel to comply and would therefore be forced to close down. These regulations are more strict than the regulations for hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers are. This is how Republicans are going to outlaw abortion.

It will be much easier to get a conservative judge to uphold these regulations than it will to get him to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Iska wrote:
As far as gay marriage goes, I feel fairly confident that once it makes it to the Supreme Court, the Court will rule in favor of it because I can't even imagine what kind of crazy mental gymnastics they would have to perform in order to stretch the Constitution into the service of denying gay rights.
Let me just quote Scalia for you:
"The death penalty? Give me a break. It's easy. Abortion? Absolutely easy. Nobody ever thought the Constitution prevented restrictions on abortion. Homosexual sodomy? Come on. For 200 years, it was criminal in every state"

Scalia is a very well-read Constitutional scholar and a very smart man. A Supreme Court Justice, for chrissakes. When he says it's easy to outlaw these things under the Constitution, he's absolutely right. And note, he said gay sodomy, not just gay marriage. Conservative justices will easily find rationale to rule against these things if they get a strong enough majority in the SCOTUS.
Iska wrote:
Also, they upheld Obamacare so how unreasonably conservative are they really?
Thanks for bringing this up. Let's parse the SCOTUS ruling on Obamacare to answer your question.

(I get really wonkish and lengthy here, so I shrunk the text for those who want to skip it. You shouldn't skip it, but to put it briefly: we have three hardcore conservative Supremes and two moderate conservatives as it is. Ginsburg is likely to retire during the next administration, as are possibly Kennedy, Breyer, and Scalia. If we have a Republican president, you can bet your sweet titties that he's going to stack the court with more conservatives, which would shift the institution very far right-ward. This would exclude any possibility of federal support for gay marriage and would also be a huge victory for pro-lifers.)

You have the four justices that are generally considered "liberal", who all supported the mandate both as a tax as well as a legitimate extension of Congress' power under the Commerce Clause.

You have the three reliably "conservative" justices and Justice Kennedy who is supposed to be the moderate swing vote (and who was expected to rule in favor of the law) who all struck down the mandate entirely. They all said it did not fall under the purview of the Commerce Clause, nor could it even be upheld as a tax.

Then you have the moderately conservative Chief Justice Roberts who ruled that, no, the mandate is not upheld by the Commerce Clause, but don't be ridiculous. A tax by any other name is a tax, and taxation is one of the fundamental functions granted to Congress by the Constitution.

This ruling means way more than people give it credit for. It was not a big victory for liberals. Roberts upheld the tax, mostly for institutional/political reasons that I'll get to momentarily, but he used the healthcare law as an opportunity to significantly narrow the power of the Commerce Clause. To anyone interested in political science, this is a big deal and quite a conservative move, because it's a strike against what has been considered an inexorable shift away from federalism and towards a unitary national government.

Chief Justice Roberts has a unique opinion on the SCOTUS that I really respect, because all the other justices are in denial about the politics of the institution. All they ever say is "politics? What politics? There aren't any politics involved in the Supreme Court!"

Roberts said, "I do think the rule of law is threatened by a steady term after term after term focus on 5-4 decisions. I think the Court is ripe for a similar refocus on functioning as an institution, because if it doesn't, it's going to lose its credibility and legitimacy as an institution."

He recognizes that the SCOTUS is highly partisan and political, and he doesn't like that. So his vision for what he wants the institution of the SCOTUS to become under his tenure is really the reason why he upheld Obamacare. He was hoping that he could avoid the 5-4 split, and he was hoping that he could change the perception that the SCOTUS is ready to overturn Congress' legislation willy-nilly for political reasons even if it could be justifiably considered Constitutional. The other conservative justices had no such compunction.

And word has it that his ruling pissed off the other conservative justices. I think gay marriage might be upheld because Kennedy and Roberts might vote in favor of it, but it's just as likely that they'll vote against it. We'll find out soon enough, because DOMA is probably going to come before the court this term.

If it comes to the SCOTUS after a Republican president has appointed new justices, you should bet that they would rule against gay marriage. As Scalia said: homosexual sodomy? It's easy to outlaw.


*phew*

So that's why the Supreme Court does matter in this election.

I have a lot more to say to other points people have made, but I've stayed up too late already. I might make another post tomorrow if I have time.
 

flowersofnight

-moderator-
-moderator-
Joined
Aug 4, 2004
Messages
13,919
Location
Vintage Live House, 1994
Berserk wrote:
He recognizes that the SCOTUS is highly partisan and political, and he doesn't like that. So his vision for what he wants the institution of the SCOTUS to become under his tenure is really the reason why he upheld Obamacare.
I think the reason he voted for Obamacare (and let's not call Supreme Court decisions anything but "votes", let's be real) is because he didn't want to go down in history as the next "That guy who was chief justice on the Dred Scott court".

Also, don't count out attempts to overturn Roe v. Wade. The debt ceiling crisis last year shows that pedestrian concerns like "practical considerations" and "consequences" don't factor into things anymore.
 

faith

-ok-
-ok-
Joined
Aug 5, 2004
Messages
5,388

faith

-ok-
-ok-
Joined
Aug 5, 2004
Messages
5,388
Nope, this is all new. I have 3 sweaters in the same cut, but one is purple with butterflies, one is watercolor striped blue and white, and the other is yellow and beige with flowers so...
 

MissUMana

-member-
-member-
Joined
Nov 28, 2008
Messages
2,367
Location
Far away
faith wrote:
Aw man the Gieger museum looks soooo cool. But yeah, it's also in the middle of nowhere in one of the most expensive countries in the EU :(
Switzerland is in Europe, but it is not "in the EU" and never will be.

What think you of these?
I like the last one best too.

@Pure Elegance : how sad about that man. I'm sure he'll be sadly missed.
 

~Z e n c h o u~

-current-
-current-
Joined
Mar 17, 2008
Messages
612
Location
In a suburb
so i'm at work and i am doing insurance reports and what not when my supervisor came in and asked me if i was getting anything done.

"Vera has no faith in you"

UM. Okay. I get more done than she does in one day and just because she's my superior I get shit. >_>
Then my supervisor actually called Vera into my office to show her that I was actually getting crap finished.

Work and the people here can really grate on my nerves sometimes :|
/scapeblogs
 

PureElegance

-eternite-
eternite
Joined
Jul 5, 2006
Messages
4,655
Location
In Klaha's Closet
faith wrote:
My favorite is the first one because of the style. I don't like the second one because of the pockets on both breasts and the third one is just not my thing. I think if the first one had the colors of the second (I love that red) and third (it's a cute pattern even though I don't like flower patterns usually) it would've been cute, but I don't really like that button down w/o a collar thing going on. I sometimes (emphasis on the word sometimes) like cardigans, but just not this one a whole lot.


Anyone hear about the website http://hetexted.com/texts/popular? I'm addicted to it now XD It's a website for girls to post texts they get from guys when they're not sure what the texts mean. You can vote 'he's into you' 'he's not into you,' and 'jury's out.' You can also help a sista out and comment. Oh my gosh, some are really awful though XD

Maybe I should post one I got recently from a guy in class responding "Yes mistress" and then telling me to forget he had said that when I replied something like "uh what???" Some other day I asked him something about the syllabus and his response had a whip crack.
I was like, fifty shades of pink. I mean, we hadn't signed a contract or anything so I wasn't sure of the terms and conditions...

....... *RUNS* Is he into me? ::meev::


@Missumana: We're thinking about commissioning a clock memorial where he used to stand! It's really sad and just shows you don't appreciate people until they're gone forever. He was there forever and now he's gone forever, and I'm so fascinated by this.
But anyways, yeah, we're all (and I mean ALL) pretty bummed out about it and talked about it all night long. I hope there's some sort of memorial or funeral ceremony we can go to. It's really hard to find people who do things like this for nothing at all, just out of happiness. He died doing what he wanted to do, and I think that's amazing.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top