Displaying comments 1 to 50 of 335
MeFi post:
Khadr judge removed
"Why in the hell are there so many kangaroos hopping around in this courtroom?"
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 8:31 PM on May 29, 2008
MeFi post:
Snipers in Iraq
Why would these elite American soldiers kill an unarmed prisoner in cold blood? The answer: pressure from their commanding officers to pump up a statistic straight out of America's last long war against an intractable insurgency.
Bullshit. Of all the reasons men do horrible things in war, I refuse to believe that "padding the numbers" accounts for them committing a crime for which they may well spend the rest of their lives in prison.
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 10:43 PM on May 8, 2008
MeFi post:
How to catch and eat a rat
I'm not sure if he doesn't understand, or just doesn't care, that if humans had to survive as hunter-gatherers, the world could support probably fewer than a tenth of the people it supports now.
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 9:53 AM on April 23, 2008
MeFi post:
Bad Company
Er, it's "extraordinary rendition," not "extreme rendition," no matter how much we want to make this sound like a reality TV show.
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 12:23 PM on April 22, 2008
MeFi post:
Screw this
digaman, your concern is most definitely not rarely voiced. Not all CFLs are created equal, as you know. But it's true that even the best ones don't reproduce colours as well. You might try giving energy-saving halogens a shot. I'm not sure how much they cost, and they aren't as efficient as CFLs, but they produce light that's just as nice as incandescents and they use, according to Philips, 30-47% less energy. CFLs use, I think, 75% less, so the gain isn't as dramatic. But like you, I'm not a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 9:12 AM on April 22, 2008
MeFi post:
Abortion as Art
I think that everyone, no matter what they do, should commit to doing it in such a way that they don't bring disrepute on their profession, trade, craft, occupation, whatever. I know that's tougher with art, because art should challenge people, but this seems to fail even the most basic test: is this going to turn people off art altogether? Is it going to cause people to view artists as nothing more than dilettantes out to "produce a reaction," irrespective of the independent value of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 9:58 AM on April 17, 2008
MeFi post:
botox bad
I'm paralyzed with shock.
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 6:16 PM on April 15, 2008
Clay201, I don't think anyone would say that a small risk isn't worth it for a real medical condition - after all, every drug can have side effects - it's the cosmetic applications that it doesn't make sense to use Botox for (just like it doesn't make sense to go under a general anesthetic to make your tummy flatter).
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 11:38 PM on April 15, 2008
MeFi post:
In Soviet Russia, pinhole camera eats you
That doesn't look like a man's fingernail.
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 8:40 PM on April 15, 2008
spec80, interesting how we see different things. I thought, what's that metal thing in the background, but when I think about it like you do, it freaks me out, too.
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 9:12 PM on April 15, 2008
MeFi post:
Dubloons still the go
Canada didn't take full advantage of this opportunity. Their ship would have made great target practice for our subs.
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 6:29 PM on April 14, 2008
MeFi post:
Bridging the Green Divide
Fine post, but a complaint: did that all have to be one big link? It makes it harder to read.
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 2:15 PM on April 14, 2008
MeFi post:
Scientific publishing and names
Jia Wei, associate dean at the pharmacy school of Shanghai Jiao Tong University can remember hundreds of metabolic pathways by heart, but he gets confused by his graduate students' publications. Three of his students — Wang Xiao-yan, Wang Xiao-rong and Wang Xiao-xue (pictured above with Jia) have completely different two-character given names in Chinese, but all publish under the abbreviated name X.
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 6:11 PM on April 13, 2008
Man, looking at that pdf, I am so glad I don't have to read a language that isn't alphabet-based. (What's the word for the other kind?)
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 6:42 PM on April 13, 2008
MeFi post:
Free Range Kids
I'm listening to the NPR story linked above. She seems like a very thoughtful and articulate woman who's thought this through and who is a careful parent. I think she's got a good point about how we assess risk, and about the problems from over-protecting kids.
Does it strike anyone as strange that fat kids are mercilessly mocked, but we don't let our kids go out and play on their own? Seems like a bit of a contradiction.
It seems to me that more... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 10:13 PM on April 11, 2008
MeFi post:
That's that-there yell.
I'm trying to decide if this is a bad thing. Are snapping turtles a native species we want to protect, or an invasive species this guy's doing us all a favour my depopulating?
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 8:03 PM on April 9, 2008
MeFi post:
The Next Big Threat?
It's all the same root: Too many people for the planet to support.
Er...no. Too many people for the planet to support if (a) lots of those people are poor and can't afford to buy the food at market prices and (b) the market is being distorted by subsidies that divert massive amounts of farmland to the production of biofuels.
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 5:12 PM on April 9, 2008
MeFi post:
Alas! regardless of their doom, the little victims play!
I'm sure this will convince Pakistan and India to give up their nuclear weapons.
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 1:52 PM on April 9, 2008
Well, I hate to break it to you, but not everyone knows that water is wet. That is, not everyone is aware that even a limited nuclear exchange would most likely doom life on planet earth.
Well, if most people aren't aware of that, it's because it's completely wrong. In fact, most people have a seriously exaggerated impression of how bad a nuclear war would be for humanity. Even at the height of the Cold War, a full nuclear exchange would not have... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 4:52 PM on April 9, 2008
MeFi post:
"I'll blow yer f**king head off!"
A few of those clips were pretty freaky, actually. Hard not to believe no one got hurt.
I'm not sure no one did. Apart from the woman who had burns/temporary hearing loss, that guy getting hit by the horse could have been in some pretty serious trouble. And what the heck happened to the guy after him, who looked like he got hit by - what was it, chalk balls or something dropped out of the plane? What was up with that?
I... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 8:52 PM on April 8, 2008
Er, should have previewed.
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 8:53 PM on April 8, 2008
Oh, shit! He didn't get hit by the dropping things - he got hit by the wing?! And lived! What a lucky guy.
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 8:54 PM on April 8, 2008
MeFi post:
That's a lot of green
I don't give a fuck about the Clintons' tax returns. What's really outrageous is this:
According to the most recent data available from the IRS, in 2005 taxpayers earning $10,000,000 or more paid on average 20.8% of their adjusted gross income in taxes.
What the fuck? Somebody needs to have their tax rate tripled.
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 9:00 PM on April 4, 2008
MeFi post:
Should Assholes be Let Off the Hook?
C-38 was not a whipped vote for the Conservatives. Jim Prentice, James Moore, Belinda Stronach and I think Gerald Keddy, and possibly one or two others, voted for it.
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 8:37 PM on April 4, 2008
MeFi post:
Famous photographs re-shot with Legos
The smiley faces creep me right the fuck out in this one.
I fully agree. It's like the Lego men are expressing the callousness and brutality deep in the souls of all men through their little plastic smiles.
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 8:29 PM on March 31, 2008
MeFi post:
This was Jeopardy!
Okay, I must be an idiot but:
The hint sometimes makes the clue gettable.
Obscure: MILLARD FILLMORE DIED IN THIS CITY
Better: MILLARD FILLMORE “SHUFFLED OFF” THE PROVERBIAL MORTAL COIL IN THIS CITY
Millard Fillmore died in Buffalo. I don't see how the clue helps get Buffalo. Do they play a lot of shuffleboard in Buffalo?... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 5:38 PM on March 31, 2008
dersins - thanks.
Dizzy- Ahhh, of course. Sorry, didn't get my mind around contestant-specific questions. Thanks,
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 5:52 PM on March 31, 2008
Aaaand, I managed to read Dizzy's first answer as from dersins because dersins was replying to me too.
I will have my head examined, and then check back. In the meantime, if someone wants to explain why his joke on the third page is funny, I am apparently losing my capacity for language today.
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 5:58 PM on March 31, 2008
MeFi post:
Try Spelling These
A lot of these words aren't actually words. They're made up, transliterated from other languages, or technical names of chemicals. Antidisestablishmentarianism is the only actual English word there.
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 6:36 PM on March 28, 2008
MeFi post:
Fitna
This post would be a lot better if the film weren't in Dutch. What, exactly, are we supposed to take away from it without subtitles?
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 2:46 PM on March 27, 2008
MeFi post:
WSJ - New Limits to Growth Revive Malthusian Fears
Doom is at hand! But if you join my cult/give money to my environmental NGO, things will be okay.
Snark aside, high oil prices will make a lot of things more difficult, including farming. But there's lots of arable land, and if farmers are forced to, they can move to more organic forms of farming that don't use petrochemical fertilizer. We might have to get over our irrational aversion to GMO crops and realize they could be part of the answer. And really high oil prices... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 1:24 PM on March 25, 2008
George_Spiggott - take a look at the link in my previous comment. GMO foods can be good or bad. Monsanto modified its canola so that it would be the only living thing capable of surviving its Roundup pesticide/herbicide. But we could also use genetic modification to make crops more drought-tolerant, more naturally resistant to pests (requiring less spraying), etc. Technology alone is not an evil - it's about what you do with it. We've been selectively breeding crops and animals since forever -... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 5:23 PM on March 25, 2008
MeFi post:
Why the US is collapsing
I always love it when Europeans, who can't seem to run economies in ways that create jobs, prophesy the imminent doom of the world's most resilient and innovative economy. Has the US been ill-served by 8 years of Bush? Absolutely. But it's been through much worse, and has remained the largest and most creative economy in the world. It will take more than a recession, or the ranting of some Eurotrash pseudo-economist, to change that.
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 8:29 PM on March 22, 2008
MeFi post:
Hitler Speaks
Sukiari seems to have some issues, but I don't think we should ignore the point about demonization of Nazis. It's really important to remember that tens of thousands of ordinary, otherwise decent people participated in some of the most unimaginable crimes in history. People who could be loving fathers at home could spend their days gassing Jews. They were humans, not monsters, and if we forget that then we can forget the potential for evil that lurks in all of us, and in every society. This is... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 4:34 PM on March 22, 2008
MeFi post:
How can we forgive and forget things that happened just yesterday?
Yahoo Answers reveals the wonderful power of the internet to bring people together:
I wonder if Reverend Wright has ever questioned his "blackness" that is the lightest skin black man I have ever seen?
Rev. go ahead and carry that chip and make sure your congregation does too- people who fail to own their failures will never own their successes.
And today blacks kill... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 12:28 PM on March 21, 2008
MeFi post:
God Hates Obama
This post would be better if it linked to an unknown comedian making lame jokes about Obama.
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein
at 7:29 PM on March 9, 2008
