Just gotta love that phrase. So mellifluous. "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys."
They talk loud, but carry a microscopic stick.
Oh, yeah, and they’re rude as heck.
Sounds to me like they need a lesson in manners that their mommas didn’t give them.
Allies, my foot.
Le Worm turns (its back), does it not?
Just gotta love that phrase. So mellifluous. "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys."
They talk loud, but carry a microscopic stick.
Oh, yeah, and they’re rude as heck.
Sounds to me like they need a lesson in manners that their mommas didn’t give them.
Allies, my foot.
Le Worm turns (its back), does it not?
Was checking my referrer log and found that we’d been linked from the SF (Speculative Fiction) Reader Forum, where a bunch of blue state folks are actually talking about secession.
Maybe this time the North will secede from the . . . well, almost everything else.
CHECK OUT WHAT THEY’RE SAYING.
Incidentally, welcome SFReader Forumers! We may tend to be red state on this blog, but we’re SF fans, too! (As you can see from several of the below posts. We also thought of the secession idea, as you can also see below–and above.)
Separated at birth?
Separated at birth?
ROSWELL (DAILY PLANET) – President Bush scored big among recent immigrants to the United States, earning ten percent more Hispanic votes than he did in the 2000 election. He also scored well among the Extraterrestrial immigrants who have been living in the Roswell region since 1947. As the following county-by-county map shows, the part of New Mexico where Roswell is located (the southeast region of the state) voted solidly Republican.
A reader writes:
I have a question that popped into my head while watching the Sci-Fi Monday marathon.
If all energy/data is one-way in a worm hole, how is it possible for an off-world team to communicate with the SGC?
Please don’t underestimate that a reasonably mature ____ year old man, who evidently doesn’t have enough things on his mind, is asking. Please don’t tell my wife!
Will do! (Or perhaps that should be, “Won’t do!”)
Happy to oblige on this question. Here’s the answer:
When a body made of matter approaches the event horizon of an active wormhole, it is instantaneously translated into patterns of energy that can only travel one way (whichever way the wormhole is flowing, to or from a particular stargate). Trying to force matter through a wormhole the wrong way results in it being disintegrated (as normal) but the resulting patterned energy stream can’t flow backwards through the wormhole and so it is never reintegrated.
(Also, wormholes normally only transmit bodies in their entirety, not parts of them, so you can pull a partially-disintegrated object back out of a stargate and have it reintegrated. It’s only when the object wholly goes within the event horizon that it is transmitted along the wormhole–assuming that it has entered the “transmitting” end of the wormhole.)
This is what happens with matter, but ordinary energy (i.e., not energy that is matter patterend by the stargate for transmission) isn’t affected by the one-way rule that applies to converted matter. As a result, normal E/M energy can travel two-ways through a wormhole, as when the M.A.L.P. communicates with Stargate Command by radio.
Got it?
A giant bowl of California Cornucopia Vegetable Jubilee slithers towards a man on all fours, it’s hellish maw gaping . . .
[Actually, it’s a wire photo captioned: "A man looks at a Chinese soup sculpture displayed at a shopping mall in Hong Kong. (AFP/Philippe Lopez)."]
Props to the first person who can point out in the comments box where this joke is from.
A debate strategy that I learned a long time ago was that when your opponent is doing something unreasonable (e.g., trying to hog all the time, refusing to address your arguments) that the thing to do is point out what he is doing. This alerts the audience to the behavior he is exhibiting and leads them to think about why he is doing it. It also may motivate him to change his behavior.
I recently had two occasions to use this tactic on a couple of radio shows.
The first was on the KPBS stem cell debate. In this debate my opponent kept doing the "oh, one more thing . . . " tactic for hogging the airtime and preventing me from responding, and the host let him get away with it. This was unfair. At one point he said, "I don’t want to ramble on, but . . . " and I jumped in with "But you are. And at such length that I haven’t been given remotely equal time to respond," which I said while looking the host in the eyes, signalling that he wasn’t doing his job.
I started getting more time.
After the show the host tried to justified his mishandling of the situation by saying (off the air) that "from an editorial perspective" it was "justifiable" that my opponent got "a little more time" because he had to sell people on the stem cell proposition.
I responded: (1) It wasn’t a little more time, it was a lot. (2) That I disagree: Both viewpoints should be explored equally.
If I’m confronted with a similar situation in the future, I will add: (3) I didn’t know our purpose here was to sell the listener on his viewpoint. And I may even add: (4) And people in the media wonder why the public thinks that they’re biased!
The second time I had the occasion to use the tactic was on Seattle talk station KIRO. Guest host Allan Prell–an excitable leftist attack dog of an interviewer–had me on to talk about the voters guide. First, though he had me explain what an apologetics is, because he learned a new term when his producer told him my title. Most of the interview was pretty low-key because I kept sidestepping the inflammatory things he wanted me to say. Here’s a paraphrase of some exchanges:
PRELL: You’ve got these five non-negotiables in your voters guide–abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, and gay quote marriage enquote. Who knew George W. Bush was such a good Catholic!
ME: (Reeling from the fact that the host has put to me an absurd statement rather than a question) I couldn’t comment on that one way or the other except to note the point of fact that he is a Methodist.
He then went on to accuse us of putting out a disguised endorsement of George Bush over John Kerry and I had to be rather firm with him pointing out that this was not the case and why it was not the case (e.g., the guide says not to vote based on party, the guide is a set of general principles to be used in all elections rather than just the presidential one, the guide was written long before the candidates for this election were known, and that we will be teaching the same principles long into the future).
He thanked me, and that was the end of my segment.
But then I got a voicemail from his producer saying that a question had arisen from their listeners ("Why wasn’t the death penalty non-negotiable #6?") and could I come back on the air to talk about it.
I did.
He put the question to me on the air and I said:
ME: The death penalty isn’t listed because it isn’t a non-negotiable in the sense that the guide uses the term. The Catechism of the Catholic Church points out that the state has the right to use the death penalty . . .
I was going to go onto to say " . . . but it counsels that it be used infrequently" but couldn’t because at this point the host FREAKED OUT and interrupted me and kept interrupting me each time I tried to finish the sentence. After repeated tries, I decided it was time to point out the host’s behavior.
ME: I’m sorry, but are you going to let me finish my sentence or not? Is that the kind of host that you are–that won’t let a guest finish a sentence? Do you want a serious answer on this or do you want me to hang up right now? [This was the first time I had ever threatened to walk out on an interview.]
PRELL: Well, I dunno . . .
ME: Well, while you’re thinking about that, why don’t I finish my sentence?
I did, and it got the interview back on track. Yet the excitable attack dog host wouldn’t take the fact that the Catechism acknowledges that the state has the right to use capital punishment (despite the fact that he declared "I’m not a Catholic–in fact, far from it"). He also would not take the fact that most people in world history have seen a difference between killing a guilty person and killing an innocent person.
At this point he turned personal again.
PRELL: What is your view of the death penalty?
ME: I’ll be happy to tell you the Church’s position . . .
PRELL: (interrupting) I don’t want the Church’s position! I want to know what you think!
ME: I’ll be happy to tell you the Church’s position, but it is a matter of my professional ethic that I stick to stating the Church’s position rather than advancing my own opinions.
PRELL: (hyperactive) Profession! What’s you’re profession???
ME: I am an apologist. [I had explained this in the first segment, one will recall.]
PRELL: (incredulous) You get paid for that???
ME: I do. And I try to be very scrupulous as a matter of professional ethics to state the Church’s position without putting my own spin on it.
PRELL: (mocking) Sounds to me like hy-po-cri-sy!
In fact, abandoning all pretense of observing normal ettiquite, he mockingly repeated this accusation of hypocrisy (at one point repeating it in a way that led me to think he was also accusing the Church of hypocrisy). This led to a second instance of my pointing out the host’s behavior.
PRELL: (mocking) Sounds to me like hy-po-cri-sy!
ME: (calmly) Sounds to me like you need a lesson in manners that your momma didn’t give you.
At this point Prell said thanks and hung up abruptly, ending my second appearance on his show.
Afterwards I got a voicemail and a couple of e-mails from KIRO listeners thanking me for my appearance on the show and telling me about how leftist the station is and how much ugliness followed both of my appearances.
I doubt I’ll be invited back anytime soon.
A debate strategy that I learned a long time ago was that when your opponent is doing something unreasonable (e.g., trying to hog all the time, refusing to address your arguments) that the thing to do is point out what he is doing. This alerts the audience to the behavior he is exhibiting and leads them to think about why he is doing it. It also may motivate him to change his behavior.
I recently had two occasions to use this tactic on a couple of radio shows.
The first was on the KPBS stem cell debate. In this debate my opponent kept doing the "oh, one more thing . . . " tactic for hogging the airtime and preventing me from responding, and the host let him get away with it. This was unfair. At one point he said, "I don’t want to ramble on, but . . . " and I jumped in with "But you are. And at such length that I haven’t been given remotely equal time to respond," which I said while looking the host in the eyes, signalling that he wasn’t doing his job.
I started getting more time.
After the show the host tried to justified his mishandling of the situation by saying (off the air) that "from an editorial perspective" it was "justifiable" that my opponent got "a little more time" because he had to sell people on the stem cell proposition.
I responded: (1) It wasn’t a little more time, it was a lot. (2) That I disagree: Both viewpoints should be explored equally.
If I’m confronted with a similar situation in the future, I will add: (3) I didn’t know our purpose here was to sell the listener on his viewpoint. And I may even add: (4) And people in the media wonder why the public thinks that they’re biased!
The second time I had the occasion to use the tactic was on Seattle talk station KIRO. Guest host Allan Prell–an excitable leftist attack dog of an interviewer–had me on to talk about the voters guide. First, though he had me explain what an apologetics is, because he learned a new term when his producer told him my title. Most of the interview was pretty low-key because I kept sidestepping the inflammatory things he wanted me to say. Here’s a paraphrase of some exchanges:
PRELL: You’ve got these five non-negotiables in your voters guide–abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, and gay quote marriage enquote. Who knew George W. Bush was such a good Catholic!
ME: (Reeling from the fact that the host has put to me an absurd statement rather than a question) I couldn’t comment on that one way or the other except to note the point of fact that he is a Methodist.
He then went on to accuse us of putting out a disguised endorsement of George Bush over John Kerry and I had to be rather firm with him pointing out that this was not the case and why it was not the case (e.g., the guide says not to vote based on party, the guide is a set of general principles to be used in all elections rather than just the presidential one, the guide was written long before the candidates for this election were known, and that we will be teaching the same principles long into the future).
He thanked me, and that was the end of my segment.
But then I got a voicemail from his producer saying that a question had arisen from their listeners ("Why wasn’t the death penalty non-negotiable #6?") and could I come back on the air to talk about it.
I did.
He put the question to me on the air and I said:
ME: The death penalty isn’t listed because it isn’t a non-negotiable in the sense that the guide uses the term. The Catechism of the Catholic Church points out that the state has the right to use the death penalty . . .
I was going to go onto to say " . . . but it counsels that it be used infrequently" but couldn’t because at this point the host FREAKED OUT and interrupted me and kept interrupting me each time I tried to finish the sentence. After repeated tries, I decided it was time to point out the host’s behavior.
ME: I’m sorry, but are you going to let me finish my sentence or not? Is that the kind of host that you are–that won’t let a guest finish a sentence? Do you want a serious answer on this or do you want me to hang up right now? [This was the first time I had ever threatened to walk out on an interview.]
PRELL: Well, I dunno . . .
ME: Well, while you’re thinking about that, why don’t I finish my sentence?
I did, and it got the interview back on track. Yet the excitable attack dog host wouldn’t take the fact that the Catechism acknowledges that the state has the right to use capital punishment (despite the fact that he declared "I’m not a Catholic–in fact, far from it"). He also would not take the fact that most people in world history have seen a difference between killing a guilty person and killing an innocent person.
At this point he turned personal again.
PRELL: What is your view of the death penalty?
ME: I’ll be happy to tell you the Church’s position . . .
PRELL: (interrupting) I don’t want the Church’s position! I want to know what you think!
ME: I’ll be happy to tell you the Church’s position, but it is a matter of my professional ethic that I stick to stating the Church’s position rather than advancing my own opinions.
PRELL: (hyperactive) Profession! What’s you’re profession???
ME: I am an apologist. [I had explained this in the first segment, one will recall.]
PRELL: (incredulous) You get paid for that???
ME: I do. And I try to be very scrupulous as a matter of professional ethics to state the Church’s position without putting my own spin on it.
PRELL: (mocking) Sounds to me like hy-po-cri-sy!
In fact, abandoning all pretense of observing normal ettiquite, he mockingly repeated this accusation of hypocrisy (at one point repeating it in a way that led me to think he was also accusing the Church of hypocrisy). This led to a second instance of my pointing out the host’s behavior.
PRELL: (mocking) Sounds to me like hy-po-cri-sy!
ME: (calmly) Sounds to me like you need a lesson in manners that your momma didn’t give you.
At this point Prell said thanks and hung up abruptly, ending my second appearance on his show.
Afterwards I got a voicemail and a couple of e-mails from KIRO listeners thanking me for my appearance on the show and telling me about how leftist the station is and how much ugliness followed both of my appearances.
I doubt I’ll be invited back anytime soon.