California's top court has ruled that a state law banning marriage between same-sex couples is unconstitutional.
This is great news, for couples in California, as well as hopeful couples in other states.
What, if any, do you think will be the repercussions of this event on the presidential election?
Scientists have launched a new game site designed to make computers smarter by harnessing the cognition of the humans playing the games. Gwap.com, short for games with a purpose, takes a Tom Sawyer approach to solving age-old computer problems by repackaging normally mundane tasks as online fun.…
A Blue Dog Democrat (in all but name) presumptively wins the Republican nomination. Ann Coulter endorses Hillary Clinton over him, because Coulter says — truthfully — that Clinton is a better conservative Republican than McCain. Then Limbaugh campaigns for Clinton, occasionally switching to Obama to keep "chaos" going. An actual Republican throws his hat in the ring — on the Libertarian ticket. And now, California's bellwether supreme judicial body declares that monogamous gay bigotry must be coequal with monogamous heterosexual bigotry.
2008: a year to remember!
Morphicon's on. I can't make it there until Friday due to academic obligations, but it should be fun, if surreal. I'm not on staff even though the hotel keeps calling me with questions (grr).
Anyway. In case you missed it, CNN now has a feature where you can purchase a t-shirt automatically to commemorate your viewing of one of their news videos:
This is somewhat ridiculous given that the videos are only up for a short period of time, and there isn't a person on Earth other than Ted Turner who would want to waste money to advertise the fact that, at some distant time in the past, they saw this one video on CNN about this one thing that isn't news anymore because it wasn't even really newsworthy in the first place.
But wait, it gets better. Some of the videos don't have shirts attached to them, because they're too sad or violent. For example, currently you can buy, "Lawmakers say it's time to tax porn", or "Navy plebes scale greased obelisk", or even "Secret UFO files released to public". But CNN wants no part of shirts that say "'I helped O.J. get away with it'".
This means that somewhere, wherever people actually upload the videos to CNN's main page, there's a checkbox like this:
[ X ] Video name inappropriate for t-shirt
...and God help them if the baby-eating gator story ever slips through the cracks.
Trickster
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drainedThis is from an email that I got from a good friend of mine who will be turning 36 this year and has never registered to vote (primarily because of the electoral college) but is strongly considering registering and voting for the first time in the upcoming Presidential election.
I may vote in this election. I should have known better than to say I would never (or most likely) never vote after the outcome of the 04' election since I pride myself on refraining from using the words never or ever in regards to making personal predictions or pledges about my behaviour (or others for that matter). Even though I still believe that Obama will lose (unless some scandal unhinges McCain) there's something fitting about a former racist white boy from the South making his first vote for the presidency for a black man from Illinois that just seems right in my life. And if I do I have a feeling that I will get a sense of coming full circle in my life in regards to just how wrong I was for so many years. I can't guarantee I will vote, but I'm leaning towards it right now. And besides, now that they're pulling potential jurors from the DMV lists there is really no incentive to not vote. It's much more about exercising demons for me though. Even if he gets drilled on election night I'll know I did the right thing, on more than one front. I truly believe Obama is a good man. As for most white men in the U.S......they need some work. Big time.
Thoughts?
I'm looking for info about Buddhist nuns. Setting is the Serenity 'Verse, so I'm prepared to make changes/adaptations from present-day reality as necessary, but I'd like to know where I'm diverging, if that makes sense :) For what it's worth, though, this character is of Chinese descent and follows the Mahayana tradition. The way I'm envisioning her right now, she is in her sixties or so, and was not especially devout until about five years ago, when she suddenly retired from her previous career as a physician and entered the nunnery.
I guess what I'd like to know is, is this plausible in the first place? (Not her change of heart so much as the idea that a nunnery would accept someone in their sixties who hadn't previously been especially devout...) What sort of things would she be doing at this stage in her training? Would she likely be a full-fledged nun after five years, or still a novice, or some other rank that I don't know about? I don't need to know too much about the religious aspects of Buddhism, as I think I have a pretty good handle on that side of things and it won't be a major factor in my story in any case, but any info about daily life as a Buddhist nun that anyone can provide would be useful.
In particular, I need to set up a scene where a young man of her former acquaintance comes to speak to her - is this likely to be allowed, or would it not be permitted? Would it be more plausible if they met somewhere outside the nunnery? If so, what might she be doing that would take her out into the world? Would it make any difference if it was a woman coming to speak to her?
Search terms include "buddhism", "buddhist nun", "bhikkhuni". I've read the relevant wiki articles as well. There's a lot of information about the history of the different monastic lineages and the Buddha's teachings about women, and I've found some articles by/about Westerners who've become Buddhist nuns, but I suspect their experiences might not be typical. Any help is appreciated!
Tired of shrill cries of RACISM! and SEXISM! in the 2008 Presidential campaign... all aimed at conservatives and democrats not supporting the favored candidate of the opposition identity?
Tolerant and thoughtfully nuanced liberals across the Internet proudly proclaim their interest in diversity by creating a list of things younger than John McCain.
http://www.thingsyoungerthanmccain.com/
Re: SCRABBLE, What might very well be the world’s most boring game is actually younger than might very well be the countries most boring Senator...
I don't even need to make an argument.
Hello Everyone! I'm new to the group here and just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Caryn, and I'm from the suburbs of Philadelphia. I'm literally weeks away from turning 30, and I'm having a bit of a problem with it. So that brings me to team_fatty! I've never weighed this much in my life. So it's time to make a change. I'm joining Weight Watchers online tomorrow. But here are my stats
| Start weight in pounds | 246.3 |
| Start date | 5/16/08 |
| Current weight in pounds |
246.3 |
| Starting Pants Size |
Probably 20... |
| Weight lost to date | --- |
| Current Pants Size |
---- |
| Goal weight | 10%...and beyond! |
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chipperSetting: Somewhere between 1999 and 2002. Takes place somewhere outside of normal geography, but the character in question is from Moscow.
Searched: "Russian pet names," "Russian nicknames," "Russian terms of endearment." Found lots of stuff on how to make Russian names into nicknames, but nothing about non-Russian names.
I have two characters, Dmitri from Moscow and April from Oxford. They work together, and while they are not officially involved in a romantic fashion, they are very close and have acknowledged mutual crushes. Dmitri has given April a nickname in Russian, but I have no idea what this nickname might be. It should be somewhat affectionate but not overly flowery or sappy.
Can anyone help?
do you know about loving day? It's coming up June 12th and isn't nearly as smaltzy as it sounds. As a black man married to a black woman it's not personal for me in that way but as the product of a interracial marriage it's very personal in another.
When: Some time in the mid to late 1990s. No exact date is ever given
Where: Generic English speaking country, never actually named. The city in question doesn’t have a particularly high proportion of Spanish speakers – definitely some, but it’s not exactly Los Angeles.
Searched: I’m not sure how to search this. I’ve googled ‘Spanish to English mistakes”, “Spanish to English common mistakes” and “English as second language mistakes”
Situation:
One of my characters is a moderately intelligent nine-year-old girl. She’s originally from Buenos Aires but her family’s just moved to Generic English Speaking Country and been there for about a month when she’s got to start at a new school. School is essentially a total immersion environment – her classes are in English, the kids in her year mostly speak English when they’re on the monkey bars…
She does speak English – she’d been learning English at school for nearly two years before they left, and her parents are educated enough to know more – but she still tends to think in Spanish and then translate before she opens her mouth.
Questions:
What kind of things might she have trouble with or get wrong when she speaks?
If she’s talking to another nine-year-old - the girl who was told to help her find her feet in the first few days – instead of an adult, what difference would that make? Are there things that the other girl would pick up on specifically, or that she might miss and the teacher would see?
( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )
We'll see how this weekend goes; sleep issues might blow Sunday. But, apparently, the world is going to keep throwing this kind of choice at me until I can't work around it at all. One weekend at the end of June is going to be my social contact for the rest of the year with one of two groups of friends, and I have to pick. Skipping Anthrocon would certainly take the pressure off as far as what work needs to be done in the next month, but it would just be to chat politely for a day with people from my past about how I still haven't done anything with my life.
I should probably start traveling on my own terms. I should just go somewhere saying "I'll be in __ from _ to _ if anyone wants to see me" and see if anyone does.
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