Only that the right wing controls the media. The othrs just don't seem to come with a plausible mechanism.
I believe the Garies; Reagan '80-Iran negotiations (Sick), and U.S. cover for Contra coke deals (Webb).
That Nike is behind the Eto'o-Ibrahimovic swap.
That some greater force than my own lameness prevented me from ever seeing the Dead Milkmen live, growing up as I did in the Philly burbs and having many opportunities to do so.
Where did you grow up, WS? I grew up in Philly and I bear the identical shame.
The unfogged main page posters actually know perfectly well that they're repeating each other's posts, but they keep doing it as part of a large-scale social experiment of opaque (but likely sinister) purpose.
6 - No! I googled that one SPECIFICALLY to make sure it was actually different, which it is. Somewhat.
I think expiration dates on food are just a conspiracy to force Brock to replace perfectly good food that really should be eaten.
I think electrical outlets actually don't have anything to do with electricity at all, and instead are mind control devices the government installs in all our homes so Brock won't be suspicious when they use his to make him kill.
That's absurd. Nobody needs to make Brock kill.
10: Obviously, 9 was referring to 'making him kill the specified person.'
Becks, did you ever read this? If not, you should. It'll blow your mind.
I believe pet dogs are not actually taken to "the farm", but rather are unceremoniously disposed of.
I just got an email from a Birther this morning. It begins:
THIS MAIL WAS SENT TO ALL THE FOX NEWS REPORTERS. I GOT YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS ON YOUR SITE FOR WORTHLESS SAXBY CHAMBLISS. THIS IS A SIGNIFICANT E-MAIL.
The HTML is mine. The capitalization is his. I'm glad he told me that it was a significant e-mail -- otherwise I might not have known.
13: nonesense. Dogs make great fertiliser.
5: Trenton-adjacent, PA side. Just on the leafy side of the leafy-non-leafy division in Bucks County. You?
6/7: indeed, this post's title also occurs in that thread.
17: Whaddya know, I've been nursing that theory/regret for a while.
Oh jeez.
That Bush/Cheney/whoever knew something bad was coming down;that major Saudi Prines financed 9/11;that three or more of those Princes were quietly assassinated in 2002.
That the neo-feudalization of America was planned immediately after Volcker and executed at the very highest levels of high finance, the central bank and investment bank level, somehow using currency and credit manipulation. Obama might not be in on it but Bernanke and Summers are.
my life would, I am completely convinced, go much better if I were involved in a conspiracy with aliens. can someone please arrange that?
Oswald didn't act alone, and neither did Jack Ruby.
Someone in the Reagan camp cut a deal with the Iranians.
John Smoltz fucked up today just to piss me off.
Someday my real parents will come to get me and you'll be sorry then.
After reading about some real conspiracies I've found I have to put in real effort to dismiss certain types of conspiracy theories. The story of a rogue Masonic lodge taking over the government of Italy should give anyone pause.
I think it's quite likely that Goldman Sachs has used and maybe still is using their privileged access to the code that controls computer stock trades to game the system. I think it's likely that elements withing the military industrial complex worked to falsify and distort evidence in the decade before the second Iraq war so as to ensure a solid stream of revenue, and that they conspired to do this.
Oh, and something involving the Jews. As a former employer of mine said, they wouldn't have been persecuted for so long if they hadn't done something. Maybe Ari would spill the beans if we got him drunk.
If something is true, it's not something I believe. It's something I know.
If something is true, it's not something I believe. It's something I know.
Not necessarily!
For one thing, many things are true of which you have no idea at all.
25: Didn't I already clear this up?
A lot of people say to me, Why did you kill Christ? I dunno... it was one of those parties, got out of hand, you know. We killed him because he didn't want to become a doctor, that's why we killed him.M
That last year's and this year's free agent markets for baseball feature(d) collusion.
Definitely the Gary Webb one. I don't recall as much about the Sick accusations, although I'd be surprised if they're (entirely) false.
That Reagan started suffering from dementia pre-1984 (the conspiracy is everyone hiding it, obvs.).
The conspiracy of current posters to deny meMcManus front page privileges.
Anyway, Jesus, it's nice to know you've forgotten all that.
Well, Pep don't get along with him, no mystery there. The mystery is why they're willing to overpay.
David Stern and the refs fixed the Dallas-Miami Finals, in order to show Mark Cuban and the other owners the limits.
Further to 23, I've found that observing different subgroups interacting is highly instructive in both a) understanding why some people see a conspiracy in situations where there clearly is not one,* and b) understanding why, when faced with the answer "Power dynamics work in such a way that if everybody in power just follows their own most likely incentives, it's going to LOOK like a conspiracy from the outside," people chose to believe in malign purposefulness. It's much more awful to think that you don't matter than it is to think that people are actively plotting against you.
*And this is also really, really hard to combat. When Group A thinks that the money showed up because Group B has a ringleader who was born with the right bloodline, it's well-nigh impossible for a member of Group B to say "No, it's not bloodlines, it's just a secret handshake, and you can learn it too if you want," and be believed.
Saw a house in the suburbs this weekend with two yard-signs saying "Where's the Birth Certificate?" Professionally printed, not homemade.
It's much more awful to think that you don't matter than it is to think that people are actively plotting against you.
This is insightful.
Also, why are you people plotting against me?
I think there is ongoing collusion between the government and Wall Street money types to drain the American working and middle classes of capital for the benefit of the investment class.
also, fairly often I believe of particular conspiracy theories regarding the right wing that they are either:
1) true
or
2) not true, but only b/c the people trying to execute them are bad at it.
Google is a front for developing NSA data-mining technology.
41: The Internet is for pornography.
I think the NBA fixed the Miami-Dallas finals, but I'm not sure why.
There had to have been a deal between Reagan and Iran in 1980, because otherwise nothing makes any goddamn sense.
42: are you kidding? The NSA is a front for developing google data-mining technology.
The NSA fixed the Miami-Dallas finals for pornography.
16: I'm from Northeast Philly, a short drive from that swimming pool that was showing the city to such good effect two weeks ago.
36: understanding why, when faced with the answer "Power dynamics work in such a way that if everybody in power just follows their own most likely incentives, it's going to LOOK like a conspiracy from the outside," people chose to believe in malign purposefulness. It's much more awful to think that you don't matter than it is to think that people are actively plotting against you.
Interesting. The latter two choices on offer are a tad too black and white, though, I think. There are, after all, numerous cases in which 'people actively plotting against you' is a case of people not caring about you; that is, you and your cohort simply don't enter into their calculations, and this, you might think, is an active rather than a passive way of proceeding on their part insofar as you believe that you and your cohort should enter into their calculations.
I've undoubtedly put that in a convoluted manner, but call this a conspiracy of exclusion, or of omission. (It's really just testing what we mean by 'conspiracy'.) Is the health insurance industry conspiring to exclude those with pre-existing conditions and those unable to pay seemingly exorbitant premiums and deductibles?
God damn you for activating my earnestness subroutine, Witt!
I'll certainly go along with the idea of active collusion among elites to immiserate the rest of us. There are just too many well-documented cases of active delight in cruelty among our political and economic leaders, and too many pundits writing enconiums to the glories of laborers' suffering as a means of compelling their virtuous obedience to their betters.
I've kind of stopped talking about conspiracies, though, because so much of this is done out in the open. Too many educated people dismiss all talk of collusion as woo-woo stuff and simply refuse to look at any sign of chosen, conscious cooperation. I'm not quite sure why, except that something in liberal arts education makes people deeply resistant to the idea that there could be anything like monopoly-building impulses outside the most narrowly-defined economic realm.
OT: Hey, has anyone ever tried using dishwashing detergent (not the stuff you put in the dishwasher -- Palmolive) for laundry detergent? I'm out of laundry detergent, and I need to do a load of wash.
The juxtaposition of 50 and 51 is sorta funny.
Someone in a house where I was renting a room put the non-dishwasher stuff in the dishwasher. At least that's the best guess the housemate who helped clean up the mess and I could come up with for why the entire kitchen floor was covered in a layer of suds after we determined that there wasn't a leak. My grandmother once did the same thing with similar results.
None of this is helpful on whether you should or should not use dishwashing soap on clothing, but I'd be very careful with the amount.
51: The DFH liquid detergents I use typically have directions for use on both dishes and clothes, so I'd say it's probably fine. Is there any way to estimate the concentrations from the ingredients list?
50.2: Too many educated people dismiss all talk of collusion as woo-woo stuff and simply refuse to look at any sign of chosen, conscious cooperation. I'm not quite sure why
I'm not sure why either. "Conspiracy" is admittedly a bad word, carrying all sorts of baggage that works against it. You might do better to just put as you did: chosen cooperation. People will balk at the idea that it's conscious, and we appear, as a society, to believe that just doing what the rest of your cohort does amounts to not much more than a lifestyle choice.
The reference to "elites" is problematic. There are certainly elites here on this blog who are liberals, which means, on the face of it, that they consider addressing the well-being of non-elites to be an extremely important public policy goal. Whether you think liberalism as it currently exists in this country has any hope of or desire to actually do that is a question that's been around the block a few times.
LB, I think it's going to suds up like crazy, and not be rinsed out properly, and make a mess. I wouldn't do it.
51: They're exactly the same, it's just that Big Laundry and Big Dishes have colluded to make us think otherwise.
Actually though, I have no idea. Off the top of my head I think that dish soap is designed to foam a lot because that makes people think it's really working, and that's probably not the case with laundry detergent.
Well, Pep don't get along with him, no mystery there. The mystery is why they're willing to overpay.
This is I believe where Nike comes in.
Google seems to turn up a lot of hits from people who've done it. Maybe dilute it first, before adding it to the washing machine?
Though now that I look at the ingredients of my dish detergent and see things like 'magnesium isododecylbenzenesulfonate', I'm kind of thinking I should never eat of these plates again.
All I know is that I once flooded a mobile home with two feet of foam by putting laundry detergent in the dishwasher.
Anyway, LB should definitely lay in some Dr. Bronner's or other DFH-type soap against any future runnings-out. You can gargle with that stuff, you know.
And it lasts forever, I hope, because I have some that's, like, 8 years old. Dr. Bronner's. Still good, I'm sure. I can wash my hair with it, right? (Where's Brock?)
63: I keep it around for backpacking. It's still good. Plus, the peppermint sort smells so good.
51: A college friend always kept a jar of Dawn and vinegar as a stain pre-treater. Swore by it. Gotta think you're okay with some Palmolive in the wash -- maybe toss is some vinegar, too, in case that's what countered over-sudsing or something
53: Yep, done that.
64: I can buy detergent that will make all my clothes smell minty? Do I have to go to Whole Foods or something to find it?
66: Heh, I've never tried it in a washer, just for handwashing things out of doors and as a personal cleanser that you can use on hair and body. (It tingles, so you know you're getting clean). Perhaps Parsi has tried washing clothes with it?
Okay, well now I feel dumb. A quick google reveals that I've actually used the Dr. Bronner's peppermint bath bar. I didn't know they had liquid soaps, too. But now I really want minty laundry detergent.
Di, if you've never read a Dr. Bronner's label, you're missing out on one of the great literary experiences of the modern era.
But don't be offput, it's pretty useful stuff. Although I don't think it does a very good job of tackling grease on dishes.
67: I haven't tried it in a clothes washer, but I have no reason to believe it wouldn't work. I've only used it for washing clothes/hair/body/dishes when camping, or traveling, and very occasionally for washing hair/body at home when I'm out of shampoo or something.
Oh, and as a general cleaner -- like cleaning the kitchen floor.
66: Di, it may be that you have to search for it these days. The peppermint version is the standard (blue label, with lots of words on it). It's great! Maybe check online; my stash was acquired some time ago, so I haven't looked for it for a while. Camping stores? GOOD GOD THEY CAN'T BE OUT OF BUSINESS!
29: I recently stayed with some (Jewish, we're all Israeli) friends who live in Italy, who told me that a friend of theirs who had visited not long before I was there, and who was fluent in Italian - let's call him J. So, one day, J started talking to the friends' neighbours - an elderly, rustic super-Catholic Italian couple.
J is kind of.. well, lives in his own world, so he thought it would be funny to tell them (perhaps also as an exercise in Italian? I really have no idea what prompted this) that when Jesus was crucified, he (J) was there, eating a peach with great relish.
Awkward moments all 'round!
Um, commenting rather Becks-style, if the whole comment didn't give it away.
a) I had no idea soaps were the kind of thing that could be classified as DFH or non-DFH, but clearly I'm in the minority on that front.
b) LB, unless you're thinking of moving to a new soap regime, aren't you going to need to buy proper new laundry detergent anyway? Isn't there a detergent-selling store close by? We have one right across the street here in bucolic San Francisco.
Otto, LB lives in New York. No way does it make any sense for her to go all the way to San Francisco just for some laundry detergent.
68: And just to be clear, Dr. Bronner's doesn't make a separate laundry detergent. They just have their liquid cleanser, and it has directions on it for how to use it for various things like laundry, doing the dishes, cleaning the floor, melting witches, etc.
GOOD GOD THEY CAN'T BE OUT OF BUSINESS!
They aren't.
I had no idea soaps were the kind of thing that could be classified as DFH or non-DFH
Just take a look at the label linked in 69, if you haven't already, and consider that that really is the label for the stuff.
I'd happily use dish soap or Dr. Bronner's to handwash clothes, but I'd be wary of using either in a machine for fear of the foam explosion mentioned upthread.
Just take a look at the label linked in 69, if you haven't already, and consider that that really is the label for the stuff.
But, the politics of the Time Cube don't really correspond to our traditional left-right axis.
74: Silly me. Perhaps I can overnight her some detergent, then. Though that might mean that Sally and Newt would have to go for one more day with unclean clothes, which could result in their being ostracized by their peers, which could result in lives of alienation and misery and bitterness and WHY OH WHY DIDN'T MOM WASH OUR CLOTHES THAT NIGHT?
I was using DFH as a lazy shorthand for biodegradable, non-toxic stuff like Biokleen, Seventh Generation &c. As opposed to fascist corporate products like Palmolive.
Dr. Bronner's has too much fragrance and too little cleaning power. And too many words.
73b: If the weather in New York at the moment resembles the weather here 40 miles or so away, I can see why LB wouldn't want to run to the store and get detergent right now.
But, the politics of the Time Cube don't really correspond to our traditional left-right axis.
They do, however, closely correspond to our DFH v. non-DFH axis.
73b: If the weather in New York at the moment resembles the weather here 40 miles or so away, I can see why LB wouldn't want to run to the store and get detergent right now.
But in New York, they will deliver the detergent to you!
83: According to the NYT it's clear and 69° F.
86: Yes, exactly. Who wants to go outside in that?
76: I didn't think so.
Damn, I must say that Dr. Bronner's makes me happy. The label washed off my stash some time ago, and in fact I should get a fresh bottle. It's good bathroom reading the first few times around. Good times!
Non-DFH cleaning materials are like when you use bleach on your countertops (cannot find the relevant archive thread).
Looks like there's a pretty big thunderstorm about 40 miles south of here (east of Gallup). I can see the lightning bolts from my front porch. Still pretty clear here, though.
86: A band of thunderstorms has been passing through the area. Weather Underground currently lists New York as "light rain mist" but shows thunderstorms in the Bronx, Queens, and Newark.
I'm jealous of people who have real weather in the summer. So jealous, in fact, that I'm going to go to Ohio with the hopes of seeing some lightening.*
*Well, actually, because my grandpa is turning 90. But I'm hoping for some weather.
92 here, headed above 100 in the next couple of days. Clear and dry. But if you talk to anyone looking to escape from California, tell them it's 60 and raining.
It's 9:45 p.m. eastern time. Either LB has sent the family on its way for Monday in dirty clothes, or she's 'sploded the washing machine.
We will need a report if the Palmolive was used.
I am ignoring 82.
I'm going to go to Ohio with the hopes of seeing some lightening
I recommend getting there just before dawn.
I'd go with hand soap before I tried dish soap for clothes. The issue is suds. Regular dish soap is designed to suds up like crazy because that gives the impression it's really doing something. Lots of bubbles is a selling point for some people.
I tried to take a picture of the lightning in the distance but was unsuccessful.
49: Oh yeah, agree completely, I was just oversimplifying for, well, simplicity.
I see it as a kind of Venn diagram, in which the set of "Injury through ignorance, in the absence of active malice" includes both careless and deliberate ignorance. Different elements of the Katrina disaster would fall into different sets, I think.
There would be other sets too, of course.
Dr. Bronner's label always reminds me of the long, exclamation-point-filled, ALL CAPS cardboard monologues of some people with schizophrenia living on the street. A bit eerie and sad, although I do like the soap.
The storm passed through here about an hour ago. Now the air is lovely and cool, and I am sitting here rueing the day I did not listen to my brother about ordering the router so I could sit out on the porch swing and yet still be online.
As opposed to fascist corporate products like Palmolive.
I was surprised/impressed to hear that Oregon has banned automatic dishwasher detergents that have phosphorous.
Dr. Bronner's label always reminds me of the long, exclamation-point-filled, ALL CAPS cardboard monologues of some people with schizophrenia living on the street.
Street, pool, whatever.
98.last: I've always read the Dr. Bronner's label as tongue-in-cheek, so it's made me smile. It didn't occur to me that it might ever have been serious.
Well, now it's descendants of the original author of the label, keeping it the same for old times' sake, but it was definitely sincere originally.
When I was in middle school the class did a science project testing various soaps and rating them on effectiveness. One of the most important criteria was efficient sudsiness---as in, how much product would produce how much foam. In the years since, I have often pondered the question of whether foam production was in fact a good quality in soap.
Only memorable thing from that class, mind you.
They have a tendency these days to cover very important parts of the message with blurbs about being fair trade certified or whatever. Terrible!
I think they quietly removed the contraception use, too.
106: I was curious about that. Useable as a douche [code for flushing out undesirables], I seemed to recall.
106: I was curious about that. Useable as a douche [code for flushing out undesirables], I seemed to recall.
I think you were supposed to stick some concoction involving lemon juice up yourself to render things too acidic to be hospitable to sperm (theoretically), then douche with dilute Dr. Bronner's to return things to normal afterwards.
11th: Essene and Chinese birth controls must reduce birth or Easter Isle type overpopulation destroys God's Spaceship Earth! God's law prevents all conception below pH3. Therefore, Essene contracepted for 400 yrs. with rosehips, pH2! So, absolute clean, apply vaseline, oil, butter or cream, insert one teaspoonful juicy lemon pulp, pH2. OK! Next day, douche with quart soapy water, pH8, restoring pH5 balance God made! Eggwhite is pH9, Dr.Bronner's Soap, pH8, guarnteed the mildest made; below pH8 soaps biodegrade, synthetic-sulfides cannot. At contraception, 10 grams contain 100 million humans! or...10 humans in 1 invisible microgram - smaller than dust!
I have often pondered the question of whether foam production was in fact a good quality in soap.
Back on the veldt,* I suspect that foam was a decent indicator of whether your soap was functional. See this accessibly written treatise on soapmaking.
*Colonial-era America, that is.
I associate "Spaceship Earth" with Disneyworld or Buckminster Fuller, but Wikipedia tells me I should associate it with Adlai Stevenson. I wonder how early Dr. Bronner adopted the term.
112: The timeline on the Dr. Bronner site says that the labels gradually evolved through the 50s, production stepped up into the 60s. It's likely that the term and its accompanying viewpoint was in the air. You know, if you were a hippie like that, as was, apparently, the Sect'y General of the UN in 1971, according to the Wikipedia entry.
39,49, 50, etc: It's like I've always said: The real conspiracy is in the cash register. Once you've accepted the common sense ideological view that it's perfectly normal for people to charge enough to make a profit on their trades with you, and that letting out money at interest is a good idea, and that money itself is a good idea, everything else follows from that. Of course the Bilderburgers and the Tri-Lateral Commission and that lot are trying to run the world -- they've been put in charge of that task by the rest of us. It's ridiculous to think that some tiny cabal knows everything about everything in advance of when it happens, but its also ridiculous to think that there aren't cabals, and that nobody knows anything about things before they happen.
Was it a conspiracy to reverse Glass-Steagall? I'm sure a lot of bankers met with a lot of congresspeople ahead of time in non-public meetings to present their perspective, which, surprise surprise, wound up winning the day. But that's just the way the world works.
The Godfather Part II was quite persuasive on the subject of a Kennedy assassination conspiracy, I thought.
The first soap was made from the ashes of heroes!
My kid and I rate restaurants according to foamy soap+excellence of bathroom fixtures.
110.---Hey, that's a pretty informative link!
On the conspiracy side of the thread, I've never been convinced one way or the other on Oswald, but the Jack Ruby story sure is suspicious.
Here's a conspiracy of a confederacy of dunces:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/26/AR2009072602857.html?hpid=topnews
From time to time, when I encounter outre/ theories about the murder of John F. Kennedy, or other conspiracy theories (John Paul I), and when I read about the crass fiasco that was the execution of Saddam Hussein, I wonder whether educated Americans have been misled by several decades of assembly-line novels and television programs about the reasons for which people murder one another and how they usually go about it.
There are 52 weeks in a year, and this year there are at least 5 weeks during which events that I want to go to overlap, and about 35 weeks during which I am not traveling at all. It takes planning to misuse the calendar that badly. There must be a conspiracy behind this.
Plus, the peppermint sort smells so good.
But have you ever showered with it? I did, once, and neglected to properly dilute before washing the more delicate parts of my body. Oh god, the burning, the pain...
On the other hand, all things considered, can I really complain about missing an opportunity to go to the Bay Area because I will be in Italy? Probably this is one of those entitled asshole academic things that make people like me deserve to get arrested.
123: The first time I used it, I had run out of soap and went rummaging in my roommate's bathroom - I didn't know you were supposed to dilute it. Like I said, you know you're clean because it's tingling! (Though seriously, without dilution, ouch).
123: So does that argue for or against this?
124: Break the lock on your front door before you go to Italy, so you can see how it goes down when you get back. Be sure to get a large white driver to drive you from the airport.
The first time I used Dr. Bronner's almond-scented soap, it smelled so fucking delicious I wanted to drink it.
128: That's a superhero origin story, if I've ever heard one.
My superpower: experiencing desires to do dangerous and stupid things.
If that's a superpower, someone needs to get me a cape.
speaking of cleaning, i'm really fond of peroxide lately. even though iodine is really the only option for flesh wounds.
You can also wash your wounds with water.
Minneapolia-area Unfoggeders who would enjoy hearing Dr. Bronner's label excerpts set to music may enjoy this performance at the Fringe Festival this week. The writer-performer and director are dear friends. The song "Butte" linked above is also a favorite.
114: And was it a specific group of persons who first propounded the goodness of the money idea?
re: Minneapolitan's 114
It's ridiculous to think that some tiny cabal knows everything about everything in advance of when it happens, but its also ridiculous to think that there aren't cabals, and that nobody knows anything about things before they happen.
Yeah, as a general rule that seems to sum things up for me.
re: 136
IIRC, the proper villains in the history of banking are the perfidious Dutch and their evil British cousins.
I believe that Jeb Bush conspired to throw the Florida 2000 election in his brother's favor.
I believe that the PNAC group conspired to start a war in Iraq, thinking this would be a good way to extend US authority in the Middle East.
I believe that the organizers and fomenters of the pro-life movement in America are conspiring to provide low-income voters with hate-figures to vote against for being "pro-abortion" - even though those same low-income voters are thus voting against their own direct interests in job protection, infrastructure, health care.
I believe that the moon landings were faked in a backyard lot in Arizona.
One of the above statements is false.
I firmly believe that all regular contributers to Unfogged are sock puppets created by a 47 year old balding man who lives in a basement in Kansas. The following exceptions apply:
1. Brock Landers killed Emerson and hid the body in the woods;
2. AWB is IRL a rather conservative scholar who has been contentedly married to an actuary since 1998 and lives in the suburbs;
3. Minneapolitan is a government agent, attempting to distract attention from something we can only imagine.
The view that the elite is conspiring to immiserate the rest of us is actually quite respectable and was fo all practical purposes shared by Adam Smith.
My goodness, "immiserate" is an actual word: I didn't know!
I have a photograph of Adam Smith with a seagull on his head.
The moon is artificial. It was built by Neanderthals, who were not wiped out by savage man, but abducted en masse in the "Triassic Removal Event".
The moonlandings were faked: they were filmed on the surface of Callisto, which rotates against the solar system norm, and is thus self-evidently an outpost of the Hegemony of Malis.
Early lunar visitors travelled by giant moth.
re: 141
I don't doubt that's true, too.
Jesus,
Dr. Bronner's does make unscented soap too.
Di, you can buy Dr. Bronner's liquid peppermint soap at Trader Joe's. You can buy the other scents at Whole Foods (but don't shop there!), the Vitamin Shop or any decent independent health food store.
Dr. Bronner's does make a pine smelling detergent for house cleaning called Sal Suds, but I've never actually seen it.
I'm amazed by how many of you have had the experience of overflowing the dishwasher when using laundry detergent. My mother did that. Multiple times. I yelled at her about it a LOT.
The idea of peppermint scented soap certainly sounds like a conspiracy to bring down civilisation to me.
143.3: That looks more like some kind of beetle.
133: Don't use hydrogen peroxide to clean uninfected wounds. It'll damage the tissue, making healing slower, and it won't kill all the bacteria. When you wash out the wound, all you are trying to do is remove any debris and dirt - and water is just as good at doing this, and less harmful than peroxide.
Don't use iodine either - same reason. (Betadine's OK though.)
I have no idea why some people feel compelled to squirt stuff into their open wounds to cause chemical burns. I suppose it's a bit better than cauterising it with hot pitch. Just another aspect of the American medicalisation of masochism, I suppose (see also: Kellogg's cornflakes).
Or possibly, to stay on topic, a result of propaganda by Big Peroxide.
People of the same Peroxide trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices, induce people to squirt noxious chemicals into their open wounds, and rub them into their hair to make it appear blonde.
Speaking of Kellog's cornflakes, and paranoia about conspiracies, this is somewhat old news, but no more masturbating to by Dash Snow.
When I worked here they used Dr. Bronner's to wash everything, including the horses. I think this helps to solidify it's DFH cred, not like it needed the help.
Salon ran a JFK-assassination piece that I can't evaluate on its merits, but which is refreshing in that it doesn't implicate every second Georgetown resident. "The bigger you make this conspiracy, the less plausible it is." Basically, it says the Mafia did it.
It looks like an owl in this picture. Dr Dolittle could talk to the animals but he could never quite capture their likeness.
re: 154
The last lengthy documentary I watched on it [on the BBC iirc, a few years back] pretty much had me convinced that Oswald did it. But I'm not an assassination buff, so no doubt someone will tell me that that has all been superceded.
Speaking of conspiracies, I'm curious what people (UK mostly, I'd imagine) think of the David Kelly case.
The best assassination theory is the one where the secret service did it by mistake: a shot rang out, the motorcade sped up and an agent in the car behind, jumped to his feet and alertly standing on the back seat, overbalanced and squeezed off a round right through the centre of of John F. Kennedy's head (which split slightly and caused little rhythmic arcs of red to pulsate gently in the morning sun).
155: Surely you mean "listen!". Or "watch!".
157, Sorry, I'm afraid I think Kelly probably killed himself. That he was driven to it by the pressure put on him various government operatives I don't doubt, but although I would think the moral responsibility probably goes all the way up to Blair, I doubt if they did anything technically illegal.
Scratch that, there's probably a case against them for "Counselling and Procuring Suicide". But you'd need a revolution to do them for it.
re: 160
Yeah, you are probably right. I think the stumbling block for me, on the assassination theory, is that I just can't see who benefits. There was little if anything, assuming the facts are all in evidence, to be gained from topping him.
There are certainly inconsistencies in the official story, but then there probably always are even when everything is above board.
148: "I suppose it's a bit better than cauterising it with hot pitch."
Hot pitch is for softies. I heat the blade of a knife in a fire and then cauterise away.
145: "Whole Foods (but don't shop there!)"
That's where I do nearly all of my food shopping.
I would buy that the P2 conspiracy is true. Pace 121, I'd also buy that Pope John Paul I was murdered. In fact, I'd be kind of shocked to find out that he was not, though my understanding of that question is probably incredibly limited and naive. I will note that it does not come from watching the Godfather movies, though.
There are two JFK conspiracy theories that I've liked at one time or another, though I honestly don't care. The first is the theory that a small conspiracy of total Cold War fruitcakes and/or the mafia managed to pull it off and various elements have worked extremely hard to cover that up ever since because they believe it would be too damaging/destabilizing to have anyone find out that such a conspiracy could work. The second is the theory that Oswald was the victim of some heavy-duty psychological experimentation during his time in the military that got him so twisted up that the only thing he could do about it, eventually, was plot an extremely elaborate revenge meaningful only inside the limited boundaries of his personal reality and that, therefore, it is all the government's fault but in an extremely roundabout and unintended way. As I say, though, I don't have a horse in that race. It just isn't real to me.
I absolutely believe that opportunistic authoritarians get a chub every time there's any excuse to strengthen our prevailing climate of fear, enrich themselves and increase their power via the police state. I also absolutely do not believe that extends to, say, the very nice local cop who lives around the corner and whom I'm quite glad to have living in our neighborhood.
Oh, and I 100% believe that Bush was off the wagon within months if not days of becoming President and that he was being puppetmastered for the rest of his administration. This includes believing in the lump under the coat at the debates being a radio receiver, the whole nine yards. I think it in part explains why Cheney has been so vocal with his mean-old-man-isms since leaving office: he's frustrated that Bush would much rather drink himself to death in some brush pile than defend their shared legacy.
Speaking of conspiracies, I'm curious what people (UK mostly, I'd imagine) think of the David Kelly case.
I think it entirely possible that neither David Kelly nor Robin Cook died a natural death. (Yes, suicide is natural. Sort of. Tony Blair can add to the list of people whose deaths he's responsible for, but one more name will hardly be noticed buried among the million Iraqis...)
Then again, given that their deaths in both instances removed a nasty little thorn in the side of the UK and US governments (Robin Cook even more so than David Kelly) it would seem that way whether it was suicide, accident, or other natural causes.
Robin Cook was the smartest guy in the Labour party - smart enough and ethical enough to understand that the justification for the Iraq war was a set of lies and that he needed to resign rather than be tarred with it - and, had he not died, would have been a strong contender for PM instead of Gordon Brown. But still... people do die on the Scottish hillsides, quite naturally, without thinking about CIA interference.
162: Hot pitch is for softies. I heat the blade of a knife in a fire and then cauterise away.
Cautery stops the bleeding, but unless you then debride surgically (and why would you? you'd run the risk of starting haemorrhage again and having to apply some other means of haemostasis) you're left with a lot of damaged and necrotic tissue, which will actually increase the chance of infection setting in.
Wash the wound and the area around it promptly with water or a mild antiseptic, and then apply a dry sterile dressing. That's all you need to do. No need to go spraying corrosive rocket fuel everywhere.
123: Dilute! Dilute! OK!
The almond smells as good as neb says and doesn't need dilution like the peppermint does.
162: Hot pitch is for softies. I heat the blade of a knife in a fire and then cauterise away.
Cautery stops the bleeding, but unless you then debride surgically (and why would you? you'd run the risk of starting haemorrhage again and having to apply some other means of haemostasis) you're left with a lot of damaged and necrotic tissue, which will actually increase the chance of infection setting in.
Wash the wound and the area around it promptly with water or a mild antiseptic, and then apply a dry sterile dressing. That's all you need to do. No need to go spraying corrosive rocket fuel everywhere.
he's frustrated that Bush would much rather drink himself to death in some brush pile than defend their shared legacy.
If true, it's to Bush's credit. I too would rather drink myself to death than defend that legacy.
167, 169: Next you'll be telling me that I should use a combination of counseling and psychotropic medication instead of drilling a hole to let out the evil spirits.
Hmm. Afore-mentioned items, I could go for the Reagan-negotiations-with-Iran item and the Bush-was-off-the-wagon item, and I actively believe that the financial crisis was managed specifically for the benefit of Goldman Sachs. I also wouldn't be surprised to learn that electronic voting machines had been used to fraudulently win one or more elections (forex, Georgia Senate, 2002).
and, had he not died, would have been a strong contender for PM instead of Gordon Brown.
Not in the first place, he wouldn't. But he would have been a formidable candidate this summer. I'm inclined to think he died conveniently of natural causes, but if you want a conspiracy theory, there's no need to involve the CIA. The British spooks, who were, you will recall, were quite widely believed to have tried to launch a coup against Wilson, could easily have done it on their own.
Well, Moby, you should stop out of solidarity The benefits they provide their workers are crappy--much worse than those at other supermarkets in this area--they treated me like crap, and they are virulently anti-union; you will face the wrath of Sir Kraab. Read the archives.
The almond smells as good as neb
I've got a neb-scented votive that we light on special occasions.
174: By local standards (Pittsburgh), Whole Food seems to pay well and I've always gotten very good service. I even have my favorite cashiers. Also, Whole Foods made for a huge improvement in what you could get grocery-wise in Pittsburgh. Giant Eagle, which you might find preferable because it is unionized, had a near monopoly in the city of Pittsburgh proper. They were able to get away with bad service, high prices, and very limited investment before Whole Foods came and forced them to compete.
Actually, Giant Eagle still gets away with high prices. Whole Foods isn't much help there. But, Giant Eagle did have to start stocking organic food, yuppify a couple of stores, stock something besides Wonder Bread, and put in some decent produce.
173 - I've always suspected that some of my relatives were involved in planning that, but I've never wanted to find out. What the hell would I do if I found I was right?
Hot pitch is for softies. I heat the blade of a knife in a fire and then cauterise away.
I gnaw open a few rounds of M60 imitation, pour the gunpowder into the wound and then, in slow motion, set the powder alight, tossing my head in mute, manly anguish.
Real men just suppurate. Fear of sepsis is for the weak.
177 is right. It's maddening that yuppies have so little solidarity with evil spirits.
he's frustrated that Bush would much rather drink himself to death in some brush pile than defend their shared legacy.
In Bush's defense, that's a sisyphean task.
182: After the evil spirits leave, I always give them a Whole Foods muffin.
Their starting pay is higher, but they don't give much in the way of health insurance. Most places here are much less expensive.
I stayed up way too late last night reading JFK assassination material and have come to the conclusion that Oswald did it alone, but that the CIA et al were involved in so many peripheral sordid little conspiracies that they subsequently tried to cover up that there's no way anyone will ever be satisfied with the simple explanation.
I would never have imagined that Giant Eagle was unionized. Most of the people working there seem like they've had their senses dulled by overwork to the point where they're one bad day away from suicide.
I am fascinated to no end by the distinction between ethnic groceries and corporate groceries in the US. Ethnic groceries are great places to shop if you're cooking (not just heating ingredients) in the next day or two, but hard to stock up for a weekly trip. But fresh produce, fresh fish or fresh tortillas depending on the ethnic group, spices an order of magnitude cheaper than Safeway... Where I live, well-organized Korean grocers cater to Asian and central american shoppers; white people's frozen food does not get a lot of shelf space. Probably not union labor.
Conspiracy: the F-22 fighter jet was created solely to destroy the homosexual agenda.
I think there's a book called "The Tears of August" by James McCarren which is not only a great spy novel but presents a very convincing world in which Kennedy was assassinated as payback for US assassinations of members of the Diem family. However, Google searches for various permutations of "Tears of August" and "McCarren" suggest that neither the book nor the author exist. Either my memory of the title is faulty or there's been a massive cover-up to erase the book 40 years after the incidents occured.
re: 190
http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=1585676616
August, Autumn, McCarren, McCarry, James, Charles, whatever. The CIA keeps changing tht title subtly so the book never reaches a critical mass of popularity.
Real men just suppurate. Fear of sepsis is for the weak.
"Pain Pus is weakness leaving the body!"
Oh, and I don't have any problem believing in the Reagan-Iran-1980 conspiracy. That said, for all that I have read endlessly about conspiracy theories I would be willing to entertain extremely few of them.
My main fascination with conspiracy theories is in viewing them as the first secular religion, though. They provide their impassioned believers with a variety of perceived benefits that mimic those experienced by some believers in supernatural religions: Something Up/Out There in which they can believe and on whom they can lay blame, a secret knowledge into which they can initiate others as something only they really understand, debatable orthodoxies that can fuel tribalism within the communities of believers, a way to explain away personal powerlessness, a way to claim some small measure of power over the big unknowns.
My only real interest in the famous and clearly unprovable conspiracy theories - JFK, RFK, etc. - lies in watching how worked up people can get over their pet beliefs. They get the same crazy-eyes look that hardcore full-immersion eye-baby fundamentalists get. It's fascinating and scary and, as cliff-edges of human experience go, important for us to understand as long as the crazy-eyes people have the potential to swing elections.
No more masturbating to Merce Cunningham.
:(
A question posed last night: what conspiracy theories do you actually believe, or at least think may have some kernel of truth?MKULTRA. It's on Wikipedia, so it must be true.
164
the theory that a small conspiracy of total Cold War fruitcakes and/or the mafia managed to pull it off and various elements have worked extremely hard to cover that up ever since because they believe it would be too damaging/destabilizing to have anyone find out that such a conspiracy could work.
I find it very implausible that anyone would do this for this particular reason. Going to great lengths to cover up a conspiracy, in order to... protect society's status quo from the idea that assassination works? Of course, maybe I'm just nitpicking; if you'd said the same groups had done it and were covering it up to protect their own asses I wouldn't disagree.
See here for Horace Walpole's pioneering debunk (1768) of the "Richard III smothered the Princes in the Tower" conspiracy: he basically thinks Henry Tudor did it, and blamed his predecessor.
198: It will always be Josephine Tey for me.
198: Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time is pretty readable on the subject, as I recall.
It's a bit of a "treason shall never prosper" question though. I probably believe lots of conspiracy theories, but I don't think of them as such, I think of them as "history". Like "the French monarchy conspired with a bunch of colonial merchants to overthrow the British Empire in North America". Or "the CIA used to feed people LSD without their knowledge as part of an experiment into mind control". Or "the British intelligence services were reading secret German radio messages by breaking their codes throughout the Second World War".
re: 201
Yeah, I think that's right. Cabals, conspiracies, formal and informal cartels, etc are all going on all the time. The idea of the overarching master conspiracy -- the secret rulers of the world stuff -- is wacky, but the idea that people are conspiring all the time either out of self-interest or for ideological reasons: not so much.
Walpole isn't that readable actually, despite being first-evah debunker -- the books' like huge unedited blog-post rants based round interesting but rather meagre gotchas found in historical documents.
Things that happened to Walpole that didn't happen to Josephine Tey: go on a bracing Gothical holiday in the Alps with your boyfriend and on the VERY FIRST DAY watch in horror as a huge wolf charges out of the forest and eats your pet poodle in one gulp.
"the French monarchy conspired with a bunch of colonial merchants to overthrow the British Empire in North America"
Way to explain away your personal powerlessness (per 194), ajay.
Blaming the French isn't really a conspiracy theory, more a national character trait.
I find it very implausible that anyone would do this for this particular reason.
I absolutely agree. I find it an interesting theory in that it includes the somewhat amusing possibility that some shadowy people said, basically, "Oh, shit, we did not see that coming." I see it as hanging more on the idea that shadowy people said to one another, "Look, fine, people can think a conspiracy took out Lincoln or Taylor all they want but we cannot, in this day and age, be seen as vulnerable to a tiny cabal," which I find very slightly more believable but of only academic interest beyond the way in which beliefs about JFK form a perfect laboratory for conspiracy theory. I do think you're right, though. I think the same forces that might cause people to cover it up to save face wouldn't be quick enough to respond to start snuffing people out and covering up that quickly. I think they also would have been just as likely to see value in having a whole boatload of show trials.
One of the reasons I find the theory interesting is that it creates an opportunity to think about the theory itself and how/why such theories are formed and the priorities they address for their adherents. Perhaps my favorite thing about the covering-up-others'-conspiracy theory is that it tries both to blame the government for the problem and to preserve some purity of intent on the government's part. I'm curious as to what combination of motives causes someone to need both of those things in the way full-stop conspiracy theorists and deniers (and religious zealots of all stripes) seem to be trying to address, by their fervor, some problem other than the assassination itself.
re: 205
Not so much north of the border, no?
205: Uh-huh. You and your fellow tribe members just keep embracing that orthodoxy.
207: I'm fairly assimilated. And blaming the French for stuff has been a family tradition since at least the Covenanters.
Incidentally, has anyone ever published a conspiracy theory surrounding the death of FDR? It would seem fertile ground, if not.
Why? I thought FDR was practically a husk by the time he died. The '44 convention was well understood to be selecting the next President.
210: Yes.
Shocking new evidence indicates that President Roosevelt did not die of a natural cause but was poisoned by Nazi agents, an assassination ordered by Germany's Fuehrer Adolph Hitler. Years of research and interviews of key witnesses eventually revealed how the assassination was carried out and why the true cause of FDR's death was carefully covered up for over a half century.
In his latest book CLOSELY GUARDED SECRETS, author Bill Hanson discloses how the investigation into Roosevelt's death was hampered, from the staff of the Roosevelt Library to the State Department. Nevertheless, his investigation eventually uncovered the hidden facts.I believe I have seen others.
I found that at this site , which although it does not look to be being updated, has some pretty great links.
212: NAZIS? I HATE THOSE GUYS!
211: true, he wasn't going to live very long anyway, but I can see good arguments that whether FDR made it through to the end of the war or not would be important.
Hitler believed in a "Miracle of the House of Brandenburg" - the sudden death of the Tsarina that saved Prussia during the Seven Years' War by splitting up the Russian-Austrian-French alliance opposing it - and he initially thought that FDR's death might have the same effect. (It didn't, but he thought it would.)
Other possible theories: US right-wingers, worried that FDR would give away far too much in the postwar settlement and reckoning Truman might be either more hard-nosed or more easily swayed by domestic political pressure?
French nationalists, worried that FDR would insist on independence for Indo-China and even for Algeria?
The Japanese, hoping that a successor might not feel bound by FDR's demand for unconditional surrender?
The fiendish British (played by Alan Rickman) out of general fiendishness?
I can't let go of the general idea of a Kennedy conspiracy because the protagonists are just so unlikely -- Oswald is a Marxist ex-Marine with a security clearance who had all kinds of contacts with Russian and probably Cuban intelligence. How could this guy NOT be an operative of some sort? Plus you then have him murdered a few days later by Jack Ruby, who has mob and Cuban connections? And Ruby dies before trial as well?
Of course, history is full of unlikely shit.
The fiendish British (played by Alan Rickman) out of general fiendishness?
I'd pay to watch that film.
217: I think you already have, many times.
the French monarchy conspired with a bunch of colonial merchants to overthrow the British Empire in North America
My problem with conspiracy theories in general is encapsulated in this one. It took years of begging, and a whole lot of fighting and dying, for the independence activists (some merchants, most not) to get French support. Without French support, the war might well still have been won -- there's no sign that the Brits were going to be able to bring a whole lot of North America back after Saratoga -- but it obviously would have to have gone quite differently.
And anyway, I thought the Howe brothers were prime movers in the conspiracy. A conspiracy so powerful, that even the counter-conspiracy involving the firing of silver cannonballs into Ticonderoga couldn't defeat it.
Personally I'd like to blame General MacArthur, because I've just finished Halberstam's book about Korea. Let's see... MacArthur wants to become President, so he has FDR killed, because either a) he reckons Truman's not very competent, and so the war in the Pacific is bound to drag on and on, making everyone in the US tired of the war and Truman's bungling, and making MacArthur a shoo-in for the Republican nomination and the Presidency in '48, or
b) failing that, the war will finish as planned in late '46 or early '47 with a great big invasion of the Home Islands, naturally commanded by MacArthur, eclipsing the D-Day invasion in size and recentness, and thus making MacArthur, not Ike, the Big Damn Hero of the US war and the natural Republican nominee - he'd still never win against FDR in a '48 election, but he'd have a good chance against this relative nonentity.
But, of course, Truman psyched him out by ending the war in '45, using the atom bomb, which MacArthur didn't know about, and the murder was all for nothing...
Most places here are much less expensive.
Yeah, see, for whatever reason, Giant Eagle has had a de facto monopoly here for at least 20 years. There are other, smaller, crappier chains, but no other competitors for the middle class's food dollars. Especially in the city proper, GE refused to improve stores, provide top-grade produce, etc. (the fact that they were nonetheless clearly preferable to Foodland should explain a lot). Until Whole Foods came along. So now the quality at GE is lightyears better, but the prices remain high* because, where else you gonna go? Shur-Save?
If we could get Wegmans to move in, it would change things dramatically.
* It's hard to do apples-to-apples** comparisons between the stores, but GE is no more than 5-10% cheaper when you're looking at identical products, and a decent number of staples are actually cheaper at WF.
** HA!
219: sorry, I can't quite see what point you're making.
MacArthur wants to become President, so he has FDR killed
In cahoots with the Japanese, who had obvious motives to off FDR and wanted either to see MacArthur elected or, um, something else.
The best assassination theory is the one where the secret service did it by mistake: a shot rang out, the motorcade sped up and an agent in the car behind, jumped to his feet and alertly standing on the back seat, overbalanced and squeezed off a round right through the centre of of John F. Kennedy's head
I was going to mention this. The linked book is by far the best Kennedy theory that I've read (by which I mean that it's memorable, entertaining, and mildly plausible). Not that I have a lot to compare it to.
223: I think he's saying that conspiracy theories are often so big they could never possibly be kept secret, and/or are often not needed, since the same result had a good chance of coming about by more conventional means.
223 -- Your statement implies that independence was a French idea. (I'm not saying that I think you think this, just that the statement as given is potentially misleading). The undeniable fact that France eventually supported independence gets transformed into an agency-denying theory that the whole thing was a French plot. From the outset.
he initially thought that FDR's death might have the same effect. (It didn't, but he thought it would.)
For 8th grade history, I interviewed our next door neighbor, who IIRC rode in a tank into Germany during the war. He told me that when the news about FDR came out, the German villagers were surprised that the Americans didn't just turn around and go home.
Your statement implies that independence was a French idea
How so? He didn't say that the French convinced the colonists to rebel.
187: I'm pretty sure at least some of the Giant Eagles are, but there may be a difference between those owned by the corporation and those that are independent.
222: Of course, plenty of Giant Eagles still suck. And, this may be a conspiracy theory, but I'm guessing the reason there is no Whole Foods in the South Hills is because Giant Eagle paid-off the local zoning officials.
re Walpole's wolf-gobbled poodle: nope, a black King Charles spaniel, and it was called "Tory"!
Next you'll be telling me that I should use a combination of counseling and psychotropic medication instead of drilling a hole to let out the evil spirits.
I believe that psychotropic medications are just sedatives for evil spirits.
It was Eleanor.
Because Franklin had gotten wise to her lesbian affair with Vince Foster?
I believe that Big Tissue is spraying me with a new virus every time I start to beat back the last one.
"I believe that psychotropic medications are just sedatives for evil spirits."
The older ones were just sedatives for the person with the evil spirits, so progress is being made.
231: I feel bad for thinking it, but that story's awesome.
232: Succumb to the power of Big Neti Pot.
Some things I believe:
1) The Iranian elections were rigged.
2) Putin had Anna Politkovskaya, Natalya Estemirova, and numerous other journalists and human rights activists assassinated.
3) The US is not somehow magically immune from all of the forms of consipiracy and corruption we easily recognize in other nations.
235: Done, but the relief doesn't last that long. It's particularly unfair that I didn't have any nasal congestion to speak of until the last few days. Before that the tissue was sopping up the crap I coughed out of my bronchia. Now the bronchitis is finally pretty well resolved but I've come down with a plain old cold.
OT (unless you can build some sort of linguistic conspiracy around it): Amateur and semi-pro etymologists, I have a question that isn't very important but struck me while editing this document. Is there a reason "resistance" ends with ance, but "persistence" ends with ence? Or is it a just 'cause sort of situation?
238: It has to do with the way "resistant" and "persistant" are spelled.
They both come from the same root -- "sistere", to cause to stand (though that maybe has the root "stare", to stand?): Chambers says "resistent" is rare but OK.
Isn't there a distinction in French between "ence" words and "ance" words?
(The only reason I think this is Derrida inventing the word "différance" to mean something subtly distinct from "différence": the first means something a bit more like the "inherent capacity to establish difference": but I can't see how to extrapolate from that example to this one...)
Chambers says "resistent" is rare but OK.
But what about "persistant"?
Actually I can try extrapolating: resistance is a quality of the thing (or persons) acted on; persistence is a quality of the person(s) acting...
This suggests that it may have to do with long-ago orthographic reform.
Nope, Chambers won't countenance "persistant" -- and "sistere" does derive from "stare", so it may be that one or other just got orthographically set via (corrupt?) late Latin (or French) and the other didn't.
243 won't fly: perseverance is a quality of the person(s) acting...
Also OT: Besides cancer (and ATM), how might one get an intestinal blockage that ends up being fatal?
There are a lot of congenital intestinal blockages. It is actually a common source of passive infant euthanasia. If a Downs baby is born with an intestinal or esophageal blockage, the parents will decide not to fix the blockage, letting the baby die, because they don't want a disabled child.
248: Why, are you in the market for an intestinal blockage?
Asking the Mineshaft can cause a fatal intestinal blockage?
Also OT: Besides cancer (and ATM), how might one get an intestinal blockage that ends up being fatal?
You could have a benign tumor, or a hernia. Or you could get some kind of adhesion after your abdomen was bothered surgically for some other reason. You could have really really awful constipation, or you could swallow something that gets stuck in there.
Then, to make it fatal, if you have a blockage and it goes untreated, it could cause some of the nearby tissue to die and then you could die of sepsis.
This was a mid-40s adult who seemed healthy enough when we last saw her (a couple of years ago), and who reportedly was ill for a period of months before she died. Obituary said "complications of an intestinal blockage" or words to that effect.
This people my age dropping dead shit has got to stop.
251: "At," not "ask." RTFA!
The internet tells me you could also have inflammation or scarring from Crohn's disease, or diverticulitis, or volvulus (colon twisting!), or intussusception (rare in adults).
250: I CAN HOOK YOU UP BUT YOU GOTTA PUT YOUR MONEY AWAY UNTIL WE GO INSIDE.
255: Or you could go old school.
It seems like they shuold be able to treat almost any kind of blockage surgically--if only by putting in some kind of stent. It makes me think that there must be more going on there. Obituary causes of death can be very euphemistic.
259: That's what I was thinking too, but if it was colon cancer I don't know why they wouldn't just say so. She was a physician herself so you would think her husband would be able to describe clearly if he wanted to, but maybe the local rag just garbled what he said.
248: My Dad died from a blockage due to cancer. I've been hospitalized due to a blockage that resulted essentially from God's Own Constipation. That was fun.
The OED says the difference goes back to the Latin forms ending -antia or -entia depending on the stem vowel in the verb in question (which for sistere is e). The words which were inherited from Latin into Old French were uniformly changed by processes internal to French into -ance endings regardless of the initial stem vowel. Subsequently, however, many words were borrowed directly from Latin into French; the spelling of these follows the Latin stem vowel, so they can end in either -ence or -ance. Many of these words, of both sorts, were taken over into Middle English unchanged. Other words were similarly borrowed from Latin directly into English, where they retained the Latin stem vowel. At the same time, in response to the Latin loans, some but not all of the -ance forms that passed through the leveling in Old French were changed in English to conform to the original Latin stem vowels. This was all pretty chaotic and random, so many words with the same Latin root ended up with different spellings in English.
257: Coming soon to an "ex-gay" ministry near you!
257: Coming soon to an "ex-gay" ministry near you!
Can someone who is less vanila than I explain how anyone could introduce the idea of pouring concrete in someone's anus during sex play? "Hey, honey, lets try something different!"
Step two, explain to me who says "Why sure" when they receive an offer to pour freshly mixed concrete into their anus? "What could go wrong?"
261: It's possible she died of post-operative sepsis (which you'd think would be manageable, but these things do happen). An acquaintance of mine died not long ago after stomach surgery which resulted in kidney complications, and the obituary simply said "post-operative complications."
A fellow I knew in college almost died of some kind of complication of Crohn's. And this was while he was in the hospital. I and some others were just showing up at the hospital to visit when there was a bunch of "stat!"ing on the intercom and everyone rushing into his room and they made us leave.
260: I can see how someone might think that they'd just end up with a cast about the size and shape of a turd. The ping-pong ball is there to prevent the concrete from flowing too far up, into the large intestine. They just failed to allow for the fact that the rectum is really quite flexible, so the cast ended up being way too wide to extract comfortably.
268: The guy was 20 years old. "What could possibly go wrong?" is a pretty standard mindset for guys that age. The evidence is all over youtube. Frankly I'm much happier with guys pouring concrete into their anus than I am with street racing, for example.
Rob is like totally squaresville.
Yeah, I missed the part about the ping pong ball. That does at least indicate that they were thinking about safety. Add in that they've probably been testing the limits of what they can put up there, and it makes some sense.
||
Obama uses the following terms: ratcheting, calibrated, maligning, resolve, garnered, extrapolate, fraught, teachable-moment, portfolio.I submit to you that some or all of these terms are on the periphery of, perhaps even entirely outside, the familiar universe of discourse of most self-proclaimed "ordinary" Americans. You know, the kind that live in West Virginia and environs. The kind that voted for Hillary Clinton in the primaries.
Further comment unnecessary, and anyway, ER's getting pushback on his own blog. Apparently ari thought this was just fine.
I voted for Edwards.
|>
271: I envision a place for a television show not unlike "What Not to Wear" entitled: What Not to Do.
Episode One: Okay, guys, here's the deal: you will think that you can just remove that concrete plug, and that you've been clever in employing the ping pong ball, but seriously: no. Tell your friends. No.
275: Rauchway didn't write that. He was sent it by a commenter, charlieford.
276: Some advice then: if someone offers to "square your circle", don't do it.
Also OT: Besides cancer (and ATM), how might one get an intestinal blockage that ends up being fatal?
Shortly before I met him, UNG had a potentially fatal intestinal blockage resulting from adhesions that had developed from a childhood appendectomy. My understanding is the backup resulting from the blockage eventually led to sepsis or something like that.
I envision a place for a television show not unlike "What Not to Wear" entitled: What Not to Do.
281: And then the power of love opened more than his heart. Unlock My Colon. In theaters this fall.
281: So he already was had a rotten asshole when you met him?
278,279:My apologies, it wasn't Rauchway who wrote it, but ari and Rauchway who approved it on the front page.
This is good fun and all, but I still don't think Labs is coming back.
self-proclaimed "ordinary" Americans. You know, the kind that live in West Virginia and environs get concrete enemas.
How so? He didn't say that the French convinced the colonists to rebel
Well then it would have been explicit, not implicit.
"the French monarchy conspired with a bunch of colonial merchants to overthrow the British Empire in North America" is a whole lot different, in conspiracy terms, from "after years of their war of independence (including an attempt to conquer Canada), colonial representatives were finally able to talk the French into supporting them -- despite having listed the accomodation to former French citizens as one of the cardinal sins of the British Empir."
And then the power of love opened more than his heart. Unlock My Colon. In theaters Modern Love this fall.
274: I'm really glad you said that. For a moment there I was afraid I'd be ostracized as an ass-casting apologist.
Doesn't concrete heat way up as it sets? That may have been part of the goal, but it doesn't sound like a good idea.
Also, these was no re-bar mentioned. Without that, the cast wouldn't hold-up to any lateral pressure.
285: Cripe, bob, putting a commenter's post on the front page as something worth discussing isn't a sin. If you think the points raised introduce a false dichotomy between elite and non-elite language patterns, say so over there, at the very least.
289: "But then the years, like his stools, passed. I learned that working to clear the blockage in a man's heart would ultimately, like clearing the blockage in his intestinal tract, only allow the shit to flow more freely. And in the end, that just stinks."
Obama uses a teleprompter to read his birth certificate.
295 -- I find it useful to think 'trollin' in Ike Turner's voice, just like he sings "Rollin" in the nice and easy part of Proud Mary.
269: She might've died of post-operative pneumonia, which is more common in elderly patients and patients treated for an emergent condition.
298: I prefer it in the voice of Clarence Carter singing "Strokin'".
Without that, the cast wouldn't hold-up to any lateral pressure.
That's not quite it.
Doesn't concrete heat way up as it sets? That may have been part of the goal, but it doesn't sound like a good idea.
It's a bit exothermic, but not very much. It that it hydrates as it hardens, which could have led to real nastiness if there were not enough mucus present, I suspect.
293:They've banned me over there, parsimon. I can't comment at EotAW.
Hey people, it's is just a link and a quote. I keep looking for anything I added that was nasty or hostile and I can't find it. People post interesting links all the time, see 295.
I don't understand the reaction. It is increasing my paranoia.
And 302 I hear in the voice of Tina Turner, just like when she says "but we don't never do nothin nice and easy."
Apparently Bob thinks 275 is just fine.
302.1: Ah. I almost offered that possibility as an afterthought.
And bob, you added the remarks that 'ari thought it was just fine' and 'Rauchway is getting pushback,' which suggest that you think there was something very wrong in its having been posted, because, y'know, its sentiments were, if not egregiously offensive, deeply problematic. Yet you don't say how or why.
Anyway, I'm not really inviting you to say more now unless you feel inclined; just explaining why it was clear that you were linking with negative intent. There is no need for you to be paranoid about the reading you got.
bob, I got deleted and banned from Teresa Nielsen Hayden's journal at LJ, for posting explanatory links in response to a question from another commenter.
Sometimes an earnest pursuit for truth, justice, and integrity is not easily distinguishable from being an asshole. Other times, you just have to figure that some people really are assholes. Either way, I find it a better solution to commit snark and move on...
TNH is well known for being a complete ban-happy loon, of course.
307: She wouldn't need to be if people would just respect Cory Doctorow in accordance with his oft-rehearsed merits.
"Sometimes an earnest pursuit for truth, justice, and integrity is not easily distinguishable from being an asshole."
Jesurgislac, can I borrow that to use with my court-appointed anger management therapist?
I think Bob's point is that even liberals are now admitting that they screwed up by nominating an unelectable elitist who is transparently unable to identify with or communicate with the common man.
309: No, because the copyright belongs to Cory Doctorow and Trs Nlsn Hydn dsmvwld t n then remvd vn th
I'm hearing 310 as sung by a mariachi band.
This beats the crap out of disemvoweling.
281: Just plain old dehydration can do it. Nether the blockage nor the removal were fun according to the sufferer.
310:You should go to EotAW and read the post. It is worth a close reading, I think, for what it reveals about the poster, and those who approve of it. For instance, another possible class-marker:
I think (I tend to cringe when the rhetoric gets too poetic......Charlieford at EotAW, op cit 275 ... My "point" is that in a thread here Satiruday night I was called psychotic by multiple commenters, especially ari, for suggesting that there might be elitism in academia, discussions of the Gates incident, or even within the unfoggedetariat. Called psychotic. But I don't think there is a consiracy, just a like-minded group.
Re 275:I'm kinda curious about how bankers, "" (investment) managers, and economists in West Virginia and/or Clinton voters discuss certain aspects of their work if they don't know use the word "portfolio." EotAW is a respectable academic blog, so I am sure they have the fact right. Larry Summers or Robert Rubin don't use "portfolio?" That's fascinating.
I don't think that's how "op. cit." works, bob.
Called psychotic. ... for suggesting that there might be elitism in academia
I probably missed something, bob, but I'd be very surprised if that were true.
You may well have been called psychotic for some other reason, mind.
I think Bob's point is that it's patronizing and elitist to think a giant chunk of the population is unable to comprehend pretty straightforward vocabulary. With that, it can still be a bad speech if it contains a lot of polysyllabic management-type jargon, even if people do understand it. "Teachable moment" in particular made me cringe, that's patronizing.
But I don't think the decline in Obama's poll numbers are about rhetoric. More like the crappy economy, participating in too much business-as-usual in DC.
declining poll numbers -- check out Reagan's poll numbers during his first term . Dropped like a stone during the 81-82 recession, took off like a rocket during the unusually strong recovery of 83-84.
318:You may well have been called psychotic for some other reason, mind.
Comments like 295 & 298, without any quotes or numbers, I think I should be allowed to attach to any comment. So apo thinks my comment about the Dallas-Miami series wayupabove, is trolling.
319:a giant chunk of the population is unable to comprehend pretty straightforward vocabulary.
He says "use, not "know", and I think it is an important distinction.
We have been over Obama's multiple rhetorics many times before. An example is the speech he gave in a black church during the campaign.
The speech Obama gave about the Gates incident, using the words "ratcheting, calibrated, maligning, resolve, garnered, extrapolate, fraught, teachable-moment, portfolio" within 5 minutes, is more interesting than Charlieford gives it credit. This is not, is C seems to think, Obama's "natural language" To whom can we imagine that speech was really addressed? Not the press, and not the cops.
Well, "fraught" struck as a word one might encounter in a sermon.
Called psychotic.
Care to produce a link, my good fellow.
But "calibrate" "teachable-moment"?
Doesn't really fit the black religious constituency, I think. That "Charlieford" the academic historian thinks this is Obama's "natural language" might be a clue.
Gates himself? Would any of us be able to recognize an affectionate parody of Gate's less-formal speaking style if we heard it?
Bob, are you forgetting that Obama was a Professor of Con Law at U Chicago? After having editing the Harvard Law Review? After having received his BA from Columbia? I mean, I know that to you he's just another bourgeois black man serving his paymasters at Goldman-Sachs (the Jews, of course), but he has a background in the academy and speaks academese fluently.
Or, given phrases like "natural language", do you just want someone to call you a racist so you can explode in indignation?
Hey, ari and bob, could you guys cool it a bit? I know I may be overstepping here, and if one of the front-page people wants to speak up I'd appreciate it, but I'd rather not see another thread turn into an unproductive back-and-forth that gets personally dismissive and hurtful.
I mean, I'd much rather people were debating the appeal of Harrison Ford vs. Viggo Mortenson in Witness. C'mon, people, did you look at that link?
Calibrate is, of course, a reference to Caliban. Obama learned to curse from a teleprompter.
Witt, are you serious? The back-and-forth between me and bob troubles you enough that you head over here from the other thread to say something? When, as you rightly point out, this isn't your blog? Huh, I'm really a bit flummoxed, is what I am. I'm also sorry to have upset you, of course, and I'm happy to "cool it". But really, more than any of that, I think you're totally out of line, given the history here.
do you just want someone to call you a racist so you can explode in indignation?
I was seriously thinking about it, but figured it wouldn't generate anything useful.
326.2:Both wrong.
The real studmuffin in Witness was Alexander Godunov
Wanna fight about it?
331: And here I was thinking you were going to come out with some finely calibrated praise/critique of Kelly McGillis.
No, based on your link I can't really argue with you, bob. That's one pretty dude, no doubt about it.
No, but I'd like to see Harrison Ford and Viggo Mortensen fighting about it. Naked.
Over a hobbit called Bobo Maggins, perhaps.
Godunov/Hochleitner is the Amish dude who is going to give McGillis what she really needs after the story, the things Ford couldn't deliver.
I think it's the very last scene of the movie in which Ford & Godunov pass each other and give "The Nod". Much contained in the nod.
Godunov also has one of the great fight scenes in film history, on the stairs in Die Hard
Funny in The Money Pit and Waxwork II
Died of alcoholism at 45.
"he's just another bourgeois black man serving his paymasters at Goldman-Sachs (the Jews, of course)"
--so "ari" is a(mi)ri baraka! what an appropriate thread in which to reveal this!
326: Witt, I've thought about this. Honestly, around here people feel pretty free to vote with their feet: if a thread is not of interest, they shut up, say nothing, move on, make sarcastic remarks, or variations thereon. People can do this on their own.
Sorry. It's one thing to ask for a quiet time if things have become explosive already; it's another to try to head it off at the pass.
I won't say anything more about this, though.
My mom swears that Harrison Ford is my biological father. I'm sure it must be true.
||
Before I go to bed, since the thread died anyway:
Was walking the two monsters around the neighborhood this morning when we encountered a puppy rope-tied to a chainlink fence in an obvious abandonment. I called animal control and sat down with my dogs to wait and keep the puppy company..
Great little puppy, around seven months. Clean, healthy, intelligent, active but very calm and quiet. Very attractive.
After a half hour the AC hadn't come so I had to take the bigdogs around the block, but came back and we kept the puppy company for another hour in the rain.
When the Animal Ccontrol woman came she was very brisk and all business and unfriendly. Just had an expression, a carriage that made us stay away.
Got home and told the Lady. Shouldn't have done that. The big dogs are terrific but not at all cuddly and she's been thinking she would like more of a lapdog. So we go to the website and look at the picture and talk about the committment and money and stuff. Probably not. Maybe.
But for me it's not about the dog. There were 35 pictures on that website from today, and I can't stop thinking about that Animal Control Officer.
|>
Now you've killed the thread, text. You and bob's little dog too!
"I can't stop thinking about that Animal Control Officer"
I can't seem to forget her. Her Windsong stays on my mind.
