MetaFilter

It's a cheap shot, but I've said it before and I'll say it again -- we gays are so NOT what the sacred institution of marriage needs defending from.
posted to MetaFilter by MCMikeNamara at 9:06 AM on July 25, 2008

There's a word for the kind of weasel barista in the linked screed: satrap. A petty autocrat in a subordinate position whose only power is drawn from the position he or she holds. Like a meter maid, or a parking lot attendant, or a puffed-up security guard. The sweaty, mustached turd in the stained short-sleeved shirt who manages the 7-11 and chases the kids away. The sleepy-eyed receptionist who files her nails and makes you wait while she yaks with her friends.

Always... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ten pounds of inedita at 4:56 PM on July 14, 2008

People are always trying to tell you how best to do your drugs. Really, any recommendation other than 'cook it down and bang it up' is one based on personal proclivity rather than efficiency, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let someone else's preference get in the way of my decision for a specific type altered consciousness.
posted to MetaFilter by solipsophistocracy at 12:42 PM on July 14, 2008

Certainly Justine Joli is beautiful, but for a real blow-your-mind experience, listen to Sir Richard Burton read all of Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood here:


http://www.undermilkwood.net/prose_umw1.html

Put on a set of headphones, close your eyes, and have a real mind movie.

...To begin at the beginning:
It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Tw33z at 7:11 PM on June 27, 2008

i've always found it interesting that the typical naming convention for domains has the effect of "normalizing" anything located in the US, and largely using regional designations for everything else... ie: cnn.com vs skysports.co.uk, harvard.edu vs oxford.ac.uk, etc...
posted to MetaFilter by modernnomad at 3:01 AM on June 27, 2008

It's a great thing to look for strong resonance between who you are and what you do for work on a daily basis. Some people accomplish that; some don't.

One must go deeper, past Bronson.

Here's a resource that one could use to augment Bronson

Here's Book V, with opening text, below:

"In he morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present- I am rising to the work of a human... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by MetaMan at 11:58 AM on June 26, 2008

Oh good, this again. Thread ground rules:

1) Don't let the ideal be the enemy of the improvement. Sure, it would be great if we all had carbon-free pony transport and Jesus and Satan could be best friends. In the meantime, how about we just slow down the destruction a little?

2) No solution has to blow away all possible problems. That is, it's OK if electric cars don't solve the winter heating problem. It's OK if electric cars can't power... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DU at 8:59 AM on June 26, 2008

She's 24 and she's had FAME!!! land on her like a ten-ton weight. Acting up and going a bit crazy is part of the package.

I've had a very small dose of fame, and it reached me around the time I turned 40. I can usually go out in public without being recognized and accosted by total strangers (although it happens, from time to time). I'm probably two or three orders of magnitude more obscure than Amy Winehouse, and I've had an extra two decades on her... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by cstross at 4:47 AM on June 23, 2008

That's payback.

Payback != justice. We have rules for a reason.
posted to MetaFilter by dirtynumbangelboy at 8:55 AM on June 19, 2008

The real leason here is that the police will lie to you as part of their job. And that's an important leason to learn early.
posted to MetaFilter by Ragma at 5:21 PM on June 12, 2008

Here's what my robots.txt file looks like:

User-Agent: *
Disallow: /

User-Agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /magicdir1/
Disallow: /magicdir2/
Allow: /

User-Agent: MSNBot
Disallow: /magicdir1/
Disallow: /magicdir2/
Allow: /

User-Agent: AskJeeves
Disallow: /magicdir1/
Disallow:... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Class Goat at 9:03 PM on June 9, 2008

Ah, a religious component also exists. If you read the Christian Bible, the End Times will not occur until a certain set of criteria come to pass regarding Israel. First, the Jews will return to it. The Antichrist will make a pact with Israel. A temple will be rebuilt. So on and so forth.

I don't believe a word of it, but a politically connected segment exists who do believe that, to make sure Jesus comes back, Israel will have to fulfill these prophecies.... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by adipocere at 11:25 AM on June 6, 2008

the little rollers get flat spots and they get stuck
posted to MetaFilter by disclaimer at 5:44 PM on June 3, 2008

The world uses 85million barrels of oil A DAY, which is an extraordinary number.

The USA military is the single biggest consumer of oil.

So there's one way oil consumption could be radically decreased.
posted to MetaFilter by five fresh fish at 7:38 AM on June 1, 2008

What has the middle east contributed to modern civilization, besides energy?

Mathematics (and the number zero!), literature, pretty much anything from ancient Greece, religious tolerance as a concept, and on and on.
posted to MetaFilter by blue_beetle at 7:23 PM on May 31, 2008

It doesn't make me selfish to want to keep the money that I earn

ARRRGH. When you see on your paycheck that a portion has gone to taxes, that's not you paying the taxes, it's your employer paying tax on what (s)he pays you. In other words, you didn't earn that. You earn the net, not the gross. And, you know what? Poor people generally work a lot harder, for more hours, than rich people, so you can stuff... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Sys Rq at 7:06 AM on May 30, 2008

wait a second... a 19-year old pot-smoking high school dropout can figure out how to do this shit?

Who do you think built the first personal computer?



Also, teh haxxor kids these days are crazy. I'm at once jealous and contemptful. Back in my days we were impressed when someone could crack a single computer running Major BBS over a phoneline, or write a small assembly demo ware, or build a redbox or... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious at 5:56 AM on May 31, 2008

Call me when I can sell my spare cycles (to someone who will actually pay).
posted to MetaFilter by DU at 9:08 AM on May 28, 2008

There are two trul prophetic presidential speeches in the second half of the 20th century that really matter, and both of them have been ignored: with disasterous consequences.

The first was Eisenhower's famous 1/17/61 "military industrial complex" speech (see here), and the other is less well remembered: it is Carter's 4/18/77 speech on his energy policy (you can read the full transcript here). Here are some excerpts from that speech that would seem to apply... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ornate insect at 10:36 AM on May 22, 2008

Pater Aletheias, what does the "charismatic" in charismatic Christian refer to?

Speaking as someone who dislikes charisma, especially since the henchmen rules have been absent from the game since 2nd edition.
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 10:27 AM on April 28, 2008

"I love the Kennedy assassination, but people... they say to me, "That was a long time ago, Bill, get over it. It was a long time ago!" "Oh yeah, well, then, don't come up talkin' about Jesus to me, if shelf life is your concern."
-Bill Hicks
posted to MetaFilter by Pope Guilty at 6:56 PM on April 25, 2008

SassHat (and others): you can donate reusable menstrual supplies here - Goods4Girls.org Right now, they are primarily supplying reusable cloth pads, but may add menstrual cups as the need arises. (Sorry if this is a thread derail, but I think it's for a worthy purpose...)
posted to Ask MetaFilter by judith at 9:20 PM on March 23, 2008

To keeper/cup users, apologies on the washing out factor, I was told at some point that you have to give them a rinse after dumping the blood itself into the toilet, so I've always worked on the assumption that's the way it worked. You learn something new every day.

However, I stand my statement that they simply are not an option for many women - there are many parts of the world where they just aren't available, because there aren't stores that carry them (yes... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by SassHat at 8:12 PM on March 23, 2008

thus, I give this an over all rating of "kinda"
posted to MetaFilter by es_de_bah at 10:30 AM on March 21, 2008

Also the Old Ones and Skexees merge today too
posted to MetaFilter by poppo at 12:00 PM on March 21, 2008

Regarding Keyes, I don't think he's an idiot; I just think he's completely bugfuck crazy.

From Kung Fu Monkey: The Crazification FactorJohn: Hey, Bush is now at 37% approval. I feel much less like Kevin McCarthy screaming in traffic. But I wonder what his base is --

Tyrone: 27%.

John: ... you said that immediately, and with some authority.

Tyrone: Obama vs. Alan Keyes. Keyes was from out of state,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by [expletive deleted] at 10:24 PM on March 14, 2008

An oldie but a goodie:

I never said, "Thou shalt not think."
—God


Okay, you've got multiplying down. Now let's try replenishing for a while.
—God


I don't care who started it. Just stop it.
—God


If you seek to know my ways, read a damn science book.
—God


You'd... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by KevinSkomsvold at 9:11 AM on March 14, 2008

I honestly like doing nothing. Standing in line at the grocery store doesn't bother me. I don't even look at the magazines. I do one thing at a time, if possible, and I take my time doing it. Maybe I'm just old.
posted to MetaFilter by The Light Fantastic at 8:36 PM on March 12, 2008

It's just the election of a politician.

Tell that to the 600,000 civilians who've died in Iraq.
posted to MetaFilter by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:24 PM on March 4, 2008

A spiritually empty society inevitably overestimates the benefit of raw immediate pleasure.
posted to MetaFilter by koeselitz at 1:39 PM on October 30, 2007

Whenever free marketers get on their high-horse about healthcare and the "evils" of universal coverage, I like to remind myself that it's the free market that put us in this position in the first place.

Corporations and their investors built this broken system for their own profit. And now they've pushed their profit-taking to the point where Americans are fed-up. Well...too fucking bad for the corporations. They had their chance to build an equitable, fair... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Thorzdad at 10:58 AM on December 19, 2007

I don't understand why socialized health care pisses so many people off. You hardly ever hear anyone object to America's socialized roads, police departments, fire departments, military, or food and drug regulation. Some folks object to education, but even there, hardly anyone proposes total privatization. So why is health care so objectionable? What line does it cross?

People always reach for the moral hazard argument, but there are moral hazards in many of those... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by equalpants at 10:50 AM on December 19, 2007

Or pooping the rich out after you've eaten one? It hexayurts. oy, that's a stretch
posted to MetaFilter by wemayfreeze at 10:25 PM on November 15, 2007

Have we even tried eating the rich?
posted to MetaFilter by Astro Zombie at 10:17 PM on November 15, 2007

Pope Guilty: "Yes, if people were more in tune with the right spirituality (i.e. yours), they wouldn't want more pleasure in their lives."

On the contrary, I wouldn't endorse my lifestyle to anybody. It hasn't been very successful. But the proliferation of strange drugs culminating in injections to the vagina aimed at +5 orgasms indicates to me that people have a pretty funny sense of their own pleasure. I don't believe... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by koeselitz at 2:04 PM on October 30, 2007

So yeah, you need to lighten up.

Torture is not something that you "lighten up" about. Torture is not something that good men will agree to disagree upon. There is no middle ground to torture. If you are a torturer, you're out of humanity. Out. Gone. You're not one of us anymore. You're something else. Some other kind of creature.

You offer us these scenarios wherein we might be tempted to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Avenger at 10:41 PM on October 10, 2007

I am a mother pheasant plucker.
I pluck mother pheasants.
I am the most pleasant mother pheasant plucker,
to ever pluck a mother pheasant.
posted to MetaFilter by Samuel Farrow at 9:20 PM on October 10, 2007

I wonder if one day someone could make a pill/treatment/machine that would trigger religious experiences by stimulating the proper parts of the brain. You could pay to have the experience of an epiphany or transcendence or oneness with all things.

For best results, this pill or whatever should be able to combine with two other ingredients that have been integral throughout history in many kinds of mystical religious & spiritual practices - music & dance.
posted to MetaFilter by UbuRoivas at 8:36 PM on October 9, 2007

How many cops does it take to push someone down a flight of stairs?

None, asshole - he tripped. Now move it along!
posted to MetaFilter by KevinSkomsvold at 12:55 PM on September 27, 2007

So, as a twenty-two year old American, just how fucked am I?

Not particularly. Or rather, there are lots of reasons you might be fucked, but the falling dollar is small change compared to your own decisions about your own life.

And is there I can do to become less fucked?

Live your life normally. Get a job, and try to do well. Try not to spend more than you make. Increase your... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:05 PM on September 20, 2007

STOP MAKING WATER A COMMODITY! Get a filter if your water tastes bad out of the tap. Carry a bottle of water filled from your tap on your daily travels. Nestle, Coca Cola and Pepsi are making obscene profits selling you something you can get for free. This gives them and other corporations more financial incentive to buy up public water systems and turn it into profit. WATER IS A HUMAN RIGHT!!! Every bottle of water you buy is another step toward privatizing the water supply.
posted to MetaFilter by any major dude at 7:05 AM on September 10, 2007

Seems like one's perception of quirk is dependent on one's own cultural velocity. It's all framed by the speed of cool, which is a constant.
posted to MetaFilter by BitterOldPunk at 2:01 PM on September 5, 2007

Augie Busch has an advance team that goes ahead of him to bars, making sure that everyone's drinking Budweiser, so that he never sees anyone drink a Miller. (I am not making this up.)
posted by klangklangston at 8:17 PM on August 22

That reminds me of this:The biggest beer producers in the world meet for a conference, and at the end of the day, the presidents of all the beer companies decide to have a drink together at a bar.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by caddis at 7:21 PM on August 22, 2007

Coaches also work a lot more hours than teachers, and many of those hours are extraordinarily inconvenient.

I take it you've never graded a stack of 80 essays or exams.
posted to MetaFilter by bardic at 3:26 PM on August 9, 2007

Here's the thing. Philosophers have been refuting Rand's claims and philosophies for fifty years. We're done with it already. Philosophers arguing against Rand is like scientists arguing against Creationism- the arguments are old and there's no new arguments to make, but goddamn if another hundred rubes don't show up every day who haven't heard them yet.
posted to MetaFilter by Pope Guilty at 10:56 AM on July 15, 2007

Michael Moore is a douche

You know what? We need more douches on our team. We need an army of douches. We need a bunch of pricks, a huge number of fucking assholes, and a couple handfuls of absolute cocksuckers. It wouldn't hurt to have a few bitches and cunts distributed throughout the country as well. This is why we've been losing for years, their team has them in spades and we have a bunch of nice guys who can't even use the word... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vito90 at 5:49 PM on July 10, 2007

Psychedelics can be wonderful or terrible. For me, they were mostly wonderful even when they were terrible (which is one of the most useful lessons I learned from them.) Broad sweeping statements like "they fuck you up and for a long time" should we swept where they deserve to be: in the anecdotal rubbish bin. Ram Dass took as many psychedelics as any mortal could, and was one of the clearest, most compassionate, most awake, and most articulate people I've ever had the pleasure of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by digaman at 2:52 PM on May 26, 2006