TheRoyalFamily's Profile

TheRoyalFamily
Name:
TheRoyalFamily
Joined:
Nov 29, 2010

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TheRoyalFamily

I had the good fortune of having at least OK teachers/professors my entire academic life. I don't know how that happened; I've had some I disliked (mostly English teachers), but they weren't bad teachers, I just disliked them personally.

I guess the worst one was my 9th grade PE teacher. We were graded on three things: attendance, "citizenship"/participation, and the weekly mile run. My first semester I had perfect attendance, and I was one of the fastest runners in the class. But I made the horrible transgression of wearing a blue jacket, when that wasn't one of the approved colors. That semester I had a really gnarly breakout of some skin condition - weeping, oozing, crusty rash, fluid-filled blisters, the works (I figure it was either a nasty outbreak of eczema, or shingles) - and thus I wanted to hide it - even wearing jackets in 100F+ weather. My family was poor, and I didn't want to burden my parents by requesting a jacket of a different color (they would have - we weren't that poor - but I didn't know that). I ended up getting a B- that semester, just for that wrong color.

TheRoyalFamily

Sci: [...]The United States of America did not become a democracy until 1965.

TheRoyalFamily  America, Britain, etc, are not democracies. They are republics. America's system of government in particular was set up to prevent a democracy, as democracies invariably turn to the tyranny by the many.

No, the American government was initially set up to be anti-democratic because the wealthy elite were classist, sexist, racist plutocrats who believed that political power should not go to their inferiors.
[...]

democracies invariably turn to the tyranny by the many

I hear this ridiculous claim every now and then and always wonder where it comes from -- especially since democracy did not exist in any meaningful sense before the mid-20th century. God knows the anti-democratic status of the American republic before the 20th Century -- a government founded on the backs of slaves, predicated on the theft of land from Native American nations and the violent imposition of its imperial and commercial will on the Western hemisphere -- can hardly be said to have been a paragon of freedom.

Edited on May 18, 2013 at 9:08pm
TheRoyalFamily

Here's one from just a couple days ago! To set the scene: It's the Trek BBS, and the thread is a question on whether there has been an imperial democracy in Trek (obviously comparing it to the modern US, of course). The thread had gone back-and-forth over what democracy really is, was the US really a democracy before the Voting Rights Ace, etc. I chimed in to say that the US, GB, etc are actually republics, not democracies, and, well, see for yourself: (next post, as the whole thing needs to be seen; the poster has a pure red flag for his avatar, and I think he's the one that generally has the hammer and sickle...)

TheRoyalFamily

Part of the reason is that the money supply isn't increasing as much as the Fed is printing. Banks are sitting on the cash - not only decreasing (or not increasing) velocity, but also preventing the money multiplier effect of loaning the cash. If banks were acting as normal, the money supply would be a lot higher, and inflation probably would be, too (though hyper? who knows).

TheRoyalFamily

I actually got both my tie pin and tie clip in one of those bundles, too. But yah, washing doesn't do you any good until you get home. Sometimes that can be a few more hours of social/professional times.

TheRoyalFamily

tabula rasa

I'malogger: Actually many years ago Jonnie Carson made a joke about a shortage of TP and the stores ran out with the resulting "panic"buying. He had to say several times that it was a joke. I remember the empty shelves, of course no one ran out of TP for a few months after that! It was a perfict example of panic buying not unlike the current ammo shortage! 

A good reason to store corn cobs.  Be prepared for the rare market failure. ยท

That's funny for reasons that are quite the opposite of COC-compliant.

TheRoyalFamily

[Cont]

Two: A good tie isn't expensive, if you know where to look. I have about 250 nice, silk, stitched-pattern ties, and I paid maybe $30 for the lot of them (And that is only the third I was able to move with!). Almost all required some maintenance, like the above, as most came like this:

DSCN0987

(That's 1000lbs of ties, highly compacted; 95% were complete garbage.)

Now, most folks can't get that sort of deal, but Ross and Burlington both have nice, name-brand ties for significantly less than MSRP. Used clothing stores, thrift shops, and the like, can also have nice ties (though not very often).

TheRoyalFamily
Edward Smith: .  At 18, it is hard to conceive of how useful it is to keep your tie out of the soup so you can wear it for years.  Good neckties are expensive!

One: It's easy to clean them, even silk ties. There are any number of ways. Most expensive, though least labor-intensive for you, is dry cleaning. A few bucks, at most, if they are ripping you off. Or, you can put them in a garment bag (even silk ones), and throw them in the laundry. "Dry clean only" is mostly a suggestion. However, DO NOT put them in the dryer. Lastly, you can wash them by hand - get a white solid bar laundry soap (most latino groceries have them), or Ivory, get a toothbrush, and go along the grain. After either of those, you are going to have to iron the tie, which is a thing you can do! Even with silk ties!

If the color of your tie runs, it was probably junk, and if you paid a lot, it was for the brand, not the quality.

TheRoyalFamily

Thanks for reminding me how much I hate dubstep.

She's good, though. And I always approve putting a violin in a rock band.

TheRoyalFamily

Douglas

If a university allows such activity on its property, is that not an endorsement? Of course it is.

Since when was tolerance acceptance? I thought that was a leftist way of thinking.

Also, this is a drinking club. They should just get rid of that too, eh?

TheRoyalFamily
Fricosis Guy: My dad worked in the Clinton White House, but his pictures with Hillary are hung over the toilet in the front hallway. Common ground.

Your dad has a toilet in the front hallway? Is it just to go with the pictures, or is it actually functional?

TheRoyalFamily

The whole movie of the original The Producers is great, so just picking a random scene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y6ueYqVgXg

This was, I believe, Gene Wilder's second movie, and Mel Brooks's first. Unlike many of Brooks's later movies, this is good, clean fun. Or at the very least, it's tame (by our modern standards).

This movie is basically made of awkward comedy. The original clip I wanted was when they meet their director for the first time, but I can't find that on the YouTube. But here's everyone's favorite musical number.

TheRoyalFamily

Misthiocracy

Keith Bruzelius:

How does the 3rd verse of happy birthday go? I've never heard it.

Happy birthday to you,

You belong in a zoo,

You look like a monkey,

And you act like one too.

I always preferred "And you smell like one too."

TheRoyalFamily

EJHill: I will probably get shot for this (Get in line!) but I see no ads except on the odd occasion that I check in on my wife's iPad.

I browse on Firefox and use their AdBlocker Plus plugin. It cuts down on the load time of every page and declutters my reading experience.

Me too. You can do the same thing with Opera as well. I don't know how well it works on Chrome, because Google doesn't want you to skip/block ads. Internet Exploder, of course, is a no-go.

TheRoyalFamily

Also, why are movies nowadays obsessed with having F-35's in air-to-air combat roles? That's what F-22's are for.

TheRoyalFamily

How did this movie get made? Didn't they hear Card is a Homophobe?

Valiuth: I am skeptical, I saw no indications that the movie will have any of the deep internal psycho drama of the book. I mean in the book you don't ever really get to see the aliens or anything. They are just described. I fear this will be an action romp with a twist at the end, but none of the build up.

It is a fast book because it is a short book, but there is very little action in it from what I recall.

Indeed.

It looks like the aliens even attack Earth. I don't recall that part. It might have happened and I just don't remember, but that doesn't seem like something that would happen (and there be any Earthlings left to do something about it).

Knotwise the Poet:   Just looking at Ender from the outside, he may come off as some sort of sociopath

But he kinda is, at the start. Part of the point, I think, is that he grows out of that.

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