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Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
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quote:
Originally written by Kelandon:

quote:
Originally written by Le Martyre de la Terreur:

quote:
Originally written by Toasty Warm:

F. Scott Fitzgerald, should be shot by Shakespeare.
Apart from the fact that your misuse of commas does little to grant you credentials of literary criticism, I'm not sure how melodramatic and nonsensical fru-fru dramaticism with overtones of traditional morality and metaphors as opaque and open as your mother's legs actually beats masterfully crafted writing with seemless metaphor and pertinent comments about the market economy.

That has got to be the single most under-informed opinion posing as intellectualism that I have ever read. And I'm not sure how much your inability to spell "seamless" does to grant you credentials for literary criticism, either. (Unless you were deliberately using a metaphor that could only be described as Shakespearean.)

Fitzgerald wrote, what, one good book?

Yes, Shakespeare looks like crap if you judge him by Titus Andronicus or Comedy of Errors. Read a three or four of his late works (ideally post-Hamlet and pre-Pericles) in close proximity, read some good recent criticism on them, and then you can talk. And no, reading a few of them spaced out by several years in school doesn't count, especially if you didn't get modern criticism on them mixed in. My professor, Janet Adelman, has written a number of good books on the subject that I highly recommend.

I have to admit that I didn't really understand why Shakespeare was at the center of the English-language canon until this year, when I took a full year of Shakespeare and read about fifteen of his plays in a row. Then, after Much Ado, Hamlet, Othello, Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and particularly Troilus and Cressida (a personal favorite), I started to get it.

I recommend these to anyone who likes to read (or watch plays, if you can find a good production of one), although you may have to force yourself to slog through the first play or two to get used to the language.

I don't think he should be the central icon of the language, mostly because I despise closed form and consider it stultifying, and find closed-form prose particularly loathsome.

But then, being as how you and Shakespeare share a fetish for a language in which the only thing assigned any poetic merit was form and austerity, I can see where the two of us might disagree on that.

[ Wednesday, April 13, 2005 17:16: Message edited by: Bad-Ass Mother Custer ]

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Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
Phaedra in Blades of Avernum
Bob's Big Date
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Profile Homepage #91
I think, again, that society places an unreasonable emphasis on nubility in the woman, which in turn shapes the standard of attractiveness in unreasonable ways and leads to nonsense like chain-mail bikinis. I also think that TM makes a piss-poor advocate for that side of the debate, because he's sensationalist and irrational and has managed to get just about everyone picking on him out of a sense of irritation with his deranged ranting about sexism.

It is a real problem which needs to be addressed candidly. And no, there's nothing wrong with dressing sexily, but there's a thin line and the fantasy genre in particular does a disgusting amount of crossing of it. Phaedra is a perfect exhibition of that; she pretty much sits on the line.

I also have no problem with TM participating in the discouse so long as he doesn't veer into lurid Dworkin-style shouting and crying again. It's asinine, contributes nothing in particular, and gives the neanderthals a fine opening to butt in.

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Two years to the day. in General
Bob's Big Date
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Profile Homepage #94
The human race couldn't be wiped out by overpopulation / undernutrition. Yes, large numbers of humans would die, but the species would continue.

Same goes for a catastrophic plague or even a nuclear war - there are relatively few disasters so very big as to destroy the entire human race. Destroying a human being is trivial and destroying civilization is easier than most would prefer, but rendering the most stubborn, resourceful living species we know of extinct overnight is never going to happen.

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The Universe in General
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
Profile Homepage #115
Here is the scoop on power that seems too good to be true: it is. While it would certainly be spectacular (if more or less pointless) to create a black hole artificially, there would be no way to exploit it to create more power than had been invested into the black hole itself.

The reason setting things on fire or fusing them works is that the energy trapped up in atomic, molecular, etc. bonds is, so far as we are concerned, 'free'; it was caused by natural forces outside of our control. This is as opposed to stuff like antimatter and black holes, which could be created by CERN or something like it - but CERN has to get juice from somewhere...

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Do you think there is a Hell? in General
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
Profile Homepage #193
quote:
Originally written by Bad-Ass Mother Custer:

quote:
Originally written by 1001011001000:

Miracles are all according to God's will. However, he may leave the desicion on whether to perform a miracle in the hands of the people of the Earth. That's where prayer comes in. If people are honestly praying for a miracle and it's in God's will, it will happen. But people not praying may cause God to not perform the miracle because people didn't care and/or people didn't have enough faith to pray.
Hello, welcome to my entire argument for the last five pages! It's no stultifying physical-science quibblery or fun, meaningless shoutfest with earnest agnostics or pagans, but I'm sure you will have fun with it anyway!

Here is my question for you, and if you would not mind I would like for the remainder of the audience to hold off on the ontology for a bit while we clear this up: if God isn't going to save a Nigerian boy who believes in God as fervently as you from dysentery, why is he going to help you with anything? How is there justice in that?

Bump. Address this. I'm not going to let you cop out by getting into a pointless debate with Stareye or TM on the nature of free will.

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Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
Do you think there is a Hell? in General
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
Profile Homepage #190
quote:
Originally written by 1001011001000:

Miracles are all according to God's will. However, he may leave the desicion on whether to perform a miracle in the hands of the people of the Earth. That's where prayer comes in. If people are honestly praying for a miracle and it's in God's will, it will happen. But people not praying may cause God to not perform the miracle because people didn't care and/or people didn't have enough faith to pray.
Hello, welcome to my entire argument for the last five pages! It's no stultifying physical-science quibblery or fun, meaningless shoutfest with earnest agnostics or pagans, but I'm sure you will have fun with it anyway!

Here is my question for you, and if you would not mind I would like for the remainder of the audience to hold off on the ontology for a bit while we clear this up: if God isn't going to save a Nigerian boy who believes in God as fervently as you from dysentery, why is he going to help you with anything? How is there justice in that?

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The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
Two years to the day. in General
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
Profile Homepage #84
Humanity will survive forever. We can be devastated, but not destroyed; even against a giant meteor impact we'll have a few years' warning, easily enough time to high-tail it elsewhere with enough colonists to propagate the species and, with any hope, the civilization. If the sun started dying now, we'd have enough time to make it to the nearest remotely habitable planet outside its range on a generation ship, with the sum of human experience in a redundant mainframe.

Someone like us, or a recorded voice forever floating out of human lips, will survive forever, fighting off the fire and the cold and the entropy, long after everything we have ever concieved of is dead and gone and pulverized into atoms floating in a lukewarm sea spanning the cosmos.

It is the destiny of our race to dance on eternity's grave.

In the meanwhile, let's talk Israel.

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Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
Do you think there is a Hell? in General
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
Profile Homepage #176
I still think that the belief God intervenes in day-to-day affairs is callous and self-centered, especially considering the exceptional number of good people God apparently afflicts suffering upon for no particular reason.

Then again, I have pretty powerful Deist leanings, in addition to my subscribing idea that God represents an inherently and universally good force in the universe; against the affirmative crowd, I might as well be preaching to Aztec pagans. There's a powerful disconnect in basic mores and worldview.

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Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
Do you think there is a Hell? in General
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
Profile Homepage #146
Regarding the tumor thing: nothing is universally fatal. Saying medical science 'has no explanation for it' is fallacious, because medical science sees the occasional case in which something overwhelmingly improbable occurs and acknowledges it.

Nothing occurs with 100% probability, because the body is not a precise instrument and it does all kinds of screwy things. Crediting odd occurrences to God leads down a slippery slope which ends at blaming plagues on moral turpitude.

The big question to those who believe in an active God is this: why would the Almighty help you find your keys, recover from a flu, or enjoy a happy marriage when there are people in this world who are more or less innocent and are starving to death almost entirely because of the country into which they were born? There seems to be an obvious clash of priorities there.

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Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
The Universe in General
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
Profile Homepage #98
quote:
Originally written by Ammmmp:

Gas in vacuum expands infinitely, too, much like the universe. We're gas!

—Alorael, who wouldn't like to get either lava or strong acid on his face. Cold lava wouldn't be so bad, though, though it might hurt if thrown with enough force or dropped from a significant height. Weak acid is only bad when it's in your eyes, unless it's very hot weak acid, which may cause burns.

Weak acid and strong acids don't differ in corrosiveness. What you are thinking of is molarity.

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The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
Phaedra in Blades of Avernum
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
Profile Homepage #26
Whenever it's not Kelandon with his subconscious-fuelled leather bondage fetish feisty sex kitten, it's TM with his subconscious-fuelled manga schoolgirl fetish feisty sex kitten.

If someone's business is beating ass, chances are they are not going to be particularly attractive to most people. Likely over-muscular, scarred and deformed by physical combat. The closest they're going to come to a bikini is field plate, and they are not going to be some busty hippy supermodel because that is a liability. Bits that stick out have a nasty habit of getting hit, and a woman composed of more parts sticking out farther than usual is not going to perform as well in combat, especially if 'combat' involves, as it does with a BoA tech level, the other guy trying to punch your teeth in.

The physical traits our society demands for social success on women's behalf mirror the physical ideals of fertility and motherhood, and making a woman physically designed for a baby machine into a frontliner is incongruous and ridiculous.

Not to mention crypto-sexist in a bad way - which was what TM was getting at (though hamfistedly and inaccurately as usual).

Mind you, sex appeal is all mental. A character who is not even visibly female is perfectly capable of being your typical vixen if characterized right, and would certainly be more consistent with reality and the universe in which you're working than a character who is a sex object because of incongruous, artificial appearances.

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The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
Do you think there is a Hell? in General
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
Profile Homepage #129
Mass Hysteria

Sometimes, people just want to believe. Whether or not what they believe is right doesn't seem to matter; they just want to be convinced that it's true.

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New Abortion Laws in General
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
Profile Homepage #260
I find it unfair you're trying to pidgeonhole people into supporting abortion where they're explicitly advocating freedom of conscience on a scientifically dubious issue. It would be like, in a debate on freedom of exercise, claiming that those in favor of f.e. were actually advocating potentially dangerous cults.

The disjoint here comes of you believing your essentially unscientific view on when human life begins ought to legally supercede anyone else's essentially unscientific view on when human life begins. I'd like you to precisely and concisely explain why you believe that without relying on lurid analogies or quoting pro-life researchers and publications.

[ Wednesday, April 06, 2005 02:51: Message edited by: Bad-Ass Mother Custer ]

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The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
5000 Posts! in General
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
Profile Homepage #26
quote:
Originally written by -:

Such as?
I smell a 'canned' title coming on.

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What Movies Are You Looking Forward To? in General
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
Profile Homepage #7
IMDB, motherfscker. Do you use it?

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The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
What Movies Are You Looking Forward To? in General
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
Profile Homepage #5
I'm waiting to see Sin City.

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Why? in Tech Support
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
Profile Homepage #1
Are you sure you gave them the correct code? If not, call them, tell them what happened, and they'll give you a new one.

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The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
Two years to the day. in General
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
Profile Homepage #60
quote:
Originally written by Drakefyre:

"They" refers to Palestinian militants. They knew that attacking Israel would bring about the death of Palestinian civilians.

I'm not saying that Israel is not at fault for some of the present situation, but all of the military actions have begun from the Arab nations and Palestinians. Multiple invasions and intifadas have been reacted to, and Israel has not been the one to start with military might.

The whole situation could have been different from the beginning if, instead of starting a terrorist campaign against Israel, matters were settled in a civil matter. But they weren't.

Doesn't Judaism pretty frankly say that sons are not accountable for the sins of the fathers? The 'terrorist campaign' you mention started decades ago. The men who started it are politicians now; it's their sons doing the suicide bombings and their grandchildren getting killed in IDF 'counterterrorist raids' and similar nonsense.

If Israel wants peace, it has to take initiative: it has the forces and the resources to survive on a purely defensive footing, and very few Palestinians are going to support the 'terrorist campaign' in question if it's clearly one-sided.

I'd also like to note that the U.S. political discourse falls to the sharp right of the Israeli one. The Israeli people on the whole don't want any part of the kind of containment/retribution doctrine we spout on their behalf. A lot of them have, living near the 'front line', come to the sensible conclusion that the hardliner strategy won't end until one or both of the races living in Israel's borders has been exterminated.

[ Monday, April 04, 2005 17:07: Message edited by: Bad-Ass Mother Custer ]

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The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
BOE "tough Npc" "Tournament in Blades of Exile
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
Profile Homepage #12
The Dream Team from SPS versus the Mirror Party from NoE.

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Furries are horrible in General
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
Profile Homepage #0
Discuss.

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Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
Dislikable in General
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
Profile Homepage #6
You sure are pissy.

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Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00
Le pape est mort. in General
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
Profile Homepage #14
quote:
Originally written by Mind:

Don't dramatize the situation; The Pope's role was not that significant.
Right. Because having the fourth-longest Papacy in history, being the first Pope to set foot in Greece since the Schism, the first Pope to set foot in Israel, a synagogue, or a mosque period, putting more ecumenical outreach programs than previously imagined possible into action, and serving as a visible, personally vital and powerful symbol of the biggest single Christian Church on Earth for almost three decades is nothing much.

He fought war, he fought the Soviets and the excesses of capitalism. Yeah, he also fought abortion, contraception, and ordainment of women, but he was the frigging Pope. What are we supposed to expect?

No matter what you think about his personal politics, you have to admit that John Paul II was a good man, a great Pope, and quite likely the single greatest public figure we will have seen in our lifetimes. And that's worthy of a little respect.

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NUMA-NUMA! in General
Bob's Big Date
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IMAGE(http://www.infothuis.nl/smc/FreeWave/images/Kinks.gif)

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The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest.
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Do you think there is a Hell? in General
Bob's Big Date
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Profile Homepage #78
I am a Quaker - or consider myself one - for precisely that reason. The Society of Friends does not turn away homosexuals; it used to marry them before people started getting a fire under their backsides about that in the 50s.

It's a lot closer to the message of Jesus than the entire bowing-scraping-following deal most Christians got.

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April Fools in General
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IMAGE(http://www.thismodernworld.org/gra/gra_bReagan.jpg)

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