Questions you want answered (P&C Edition)

This question references a story posted in the horrible news thread, proceed or not accordingly.

Spoiler:
sometimesdee wrote:

Baby dies of whooping cough in California. It's so sad because the death was preventable.

From said article

Whooping cough, also called pertussis, and other diseases are making comebacks, because so many parents are deciding not to vaccinate their kids.

This stuff is tragic, surely there comes a point where the government gets to step in and say roughly "Being vaccinated is a requirement of being a member of this society unless you have specific allergies preventing it." ?

Sadly sharing proper information doesn't seem enough to stop the spread of anti-vac crap.

Demosthenes wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:

it's the motive discussion of the hamster wheel discussion that gets things locked, I say as I hope this discussion of a discussion doesn't get this thread locked too.

Yes, the inevitable accusation that someone has said something as a "win button" or "trump card" is silly and gutless, and usually pops up right before the lock.

Then I'd say the best thing to do is not to jump on the hamster wheel with them.

The only way to win is not to play.

Or to perform an overwhelming first strike! As a racist communist Nazi pevert you should know all about that...

Is it possible to have chocolate and coffee connected to me via I.V.?

Are there any good studies out there on the negative side effects of chocolate addiction, besides obesity? I think I'm relatively save from becoming obese, only by genetic predisposition.

Oops wrong questions thread. Silly search.... user.

Why is this permit being granted :/

Kinda answered that in the article.

Officials say the park has a responsibility to make that land available for citizens to exercise their right to freedom of speech, even if the views expressed are contrary to those of most Americans.

I guess I keep erroneously thinking hate speech is excluded from that.

The antidote to speech you don't like is more speech, not suppressing people with opinions you disagree with.

Malor wrote:

The antidote to speech you don't like is more speech, not suppressing people with opinions you disagree with.

Ernst Zundel wrote:

+1

Malor wrote:

The antidote to speech you don't like is more speech, not suppressing people with opinions you disagree with.

Yeah, it's far more effective letting people with idiotic opinions air them so that we can make fun of them, rather then suppressing them as if they had secret knowledge. That's why we let Ted Cruz talk for 21 hours straight this week!

Excellent point, thanks for that.

So I'm on Facebook (for reasons, mostly having to do with keeping up with people scattered around the country.)

I make a particular point to be pretty darn innocuous when posting to FB. So today I decided to post dumb jokes to my own feed when other people are posting about politics, just as a way to improve my mental health. And the response to my first dumb joke?

Why did the cookie go to the hospital?

Me: He felt crummy.

Mr. Katy: I hope he feels chipper now.

Guy I went to college with: Obamacare. He can afford it now.

Seriously? What made him think that was appropriate?

(And I don't really want the question answered. Just wanted it over in P&C instead of Non Sequiturs or Loathes and Minor Irritations. Just. Grrrrr.)

My followup dumb joke, which helped to restore mental equilibrium:

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson went on a camping trip. After a good meal, they lay down for the night and went to sleep. Some hours later, Holmes awoke and nudged his faithful friend. Holmes said, “Watson, look up and tell me what you see”.

Watson said, “I see a fantastic panorama of countless stars”.

Holmes: “And what does that tell you?”

Watson pondered for a moment: “Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Why? – What does it tell you, Holmes?”

Holmes was silent for a moment. “Someone has stolen our tent.”

A baby seal walks into a bar.

Bartender: What'll you have?

Baby seal: Anything but a Canadian Club.

*rimshot*

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C'mon, I learned it from NPR, so it can't be that offensive.

I don't know, Katy, I thought it was funny in a rather non-partisan way. Unless you know particularly about that guy that he means it in a harsh, vindictive way, which I guess would mean he's an asshole.

You're right, Bill, it was probably innocuous... most of my grumpy feeling about it was me as much as anything else.

You mean the joke wasn't about how Obama stole Holmes' tent?

OG_slinger wrote:

You mean the joke wasn't about how Obama stole Holmes' tent?

There's a proposed amendment to the budget to the prevent that.

Edit: Nevermind. Tracked it back to 4chan, so almost certainly trolling.

Why did A&E cave and allow Phil Robertson back on Duck Dynasty? Why wasn't there more support for A&E to confront the backlash from Christians who support his homophobic views?

fangblackbone wrote:

Why did A&E cave and allow Phil Robertson back on Duck Dynasty? Why wasn't there more support for A&E to confront the backlash from Christians who support his homophobic views?

I mentioned it in the media thread - likely it was all a ploy to sell duck dynasty stuff around the holidays.

Seth wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

Why did A&E cave and allow Phil Robertson back on Duck Dynasty? Why wasn't there more support for A&E to confront the backlash from Christians who support his homophobic views?

I mentioned it in the media thread - likely it was all a ploy to sell duck dynasty stuff around the holidays.

I'm a little bit mixed on that. I think part of the appeal of Duck Dynasty was that these guys were supposed to be wise/tame rednecks, basically Ron Swanson with a beard. I think this stuff really limits their appeal, and reveals them to be basically the kind of guys you'd expect to pull out of backwater Louisiana (btw, I was born in backwater Louisiana).

I'm still confused about why there wasn't a bigger uproar about Robertson's beliefs that "black people were happier when they were poor and had no civil rights."

kazooka wrote:
Seth wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

Why did A&E cave and allow Phil Robertson back on Duck Dynasty? Why wasn't there more support for A&E to confront the backlash from Christians who support his homophobic views?

I mentioned it in the media thread - likely it was all a ploy to sell duck dynasty stuff around the holidays.

I'm a little bit mixed on that. I think part of the appeal of Duck Dynasty was that these guys were supposed to be wise/tame rednecks, basically Ron Swanson with a beard. I think this stuff really limits their appeal, and reveals them to be basically the kind of guys you'd expect to pull out of backwater Louisiana (btw, I was born in backwater Louisiana).

I'm still confused about why there wasn't a bigger uproar about Robertson's beliefs that "black people were happier when they were poor and had no civil rights."

IMAGE(https://scontent-a-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/1551673_793839140642735_1707418867_n.jpg)

The son, in particular, is very business-savvy. I wouldn't be surprised if he just had his dad say something in line with their religious beliefs, that would offend liberals, get conservatives offended at their taking offense, and get them to buy tons of merch right before Christmas.

Me too, kazooka. Seemed to be, by far, the more offensive of the two.

Difference is that half my newsfeed apparently didn't need to loudly defend the right of that guy be racist, whereas they definitely did to attack people who like buttholes more than vaginas.

kazooka wrote:

I'm still confused about why there wasn't a bigger uproar about Robertson's beliefs that "black people were happier when they were poor and had no civil rights."

Honestly, just about every initial column on the issue highlighted that. It wasn't until the Conservo-hyrda reared its many chattering heads that it became about the gays, at least as I saw things develop.

Is the general chat in every free to play MMO filled with nothing but conversations about Obama? I swear it didn't used to be so focused on a single topic. Before trolls would have to work to generate long lasting arguments among a couple dozen random people that covered issues of government, race, sexual preference, foreigners and liberals. Now they can just work it all into one topic.

I think the worst general chat I've seen lately is in Rift. It's downright horrid and 99% of the conversations are about Obama. I'm used to general chat being a cesspool and I generally just ignore it but rarely has one been so obnoxious that I'd rather have a combat log screen up than a random chat screen and never have I seen one that can keep going on a single topic for at least a week solid at all times of the day. It's like having a living stream of anonymous comment sections from around the internet being piped directly to you.

Someone hand me a wet wipe...

That's bizarre. Did you see what prompted this line of discussion?

Then again, every general chat I've ever seen lately is like Shut up! No YOU shut up! YOUR MOM! NO YOUR MOM! WTF?!?! So I usually just ignore them as soon as I have a guild to have chat with.

Demosthenes wrote:

That's bizarre. Did you see what prompted this line of discussion?

Nope. Like I said, I usually just ignore but then out of the corner of my eye I just kept seeing "Obama" popping up over and over so naturally I had to look. Car crash phenomenon and all. I'm used to that sort of thinging being tossed out now and again but the fact that it kept going and then was still showing up two nights later just befuddled me.

The only other argument I saw in general chat that wasn't about Obama being a dictator that censors everything, Obamacare being a hand out for the poor, and America going down the toilet because of Obama was one guy ranting about games being too easy nowadays and that no one knows how to really game anymore and that he had 10 years of online gaming experience to support that. Now those kinds of things I'm used to and can even laugh about, especially when it devolved into the "you're an ass!" "no, you're an ass!" back and forth that I've come to expect. I'm just not used to a fantasy MMO general chat being a constant loop of Obama politics.

Kehama wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

That's bizarre. Did you see what prompted this line of discussion?

Nope. Like I said, I usually just ignore but then out of the corner of my eye I just kept seeing "Obama" popping up over and over so naturally I had to look. Car crash phenomenon and all. I'm used to that sort of thinging being tossed out now and again but the fact that it kept going and then was still showing up two nights later just befuddled me.

The only other argument I saw in general chat that wasn't about Obama being a dictator that censors everything, Obamacare being a hand out for the poor, and America going down the toilet because of Obama was one guy ranting about games being too easy nowadays and that no one knows how to really game anymore and that he had 10 years of online gaming experience to support that. Now those kinds of things I'm used to and can even laugh about, especially when it devolved into the "you're an ass!" "no, you're an ass!" back and forth that I've come to expect. I'm just not used to a fantasy MMO general chat being a constant loop of Obama politics.

Maybe Obama is an NPC in the game you're unaware of, and they're just trying to stay in character? /graspingforstraws