Doom Shepherd

I believe you can find his name on the rolls next to "Teamsters," "United Auto Workers," and "American Federation of Teachers." Yeah, that's right, if non-person groups shouldn't have political rights... what are we ever going to do about the massive hypocrisy of the fact that we already allow non-person groups to have political rights? I know, in the interests of Democracy, let's advocate for stripping ALL such groups of these powers! Not just the ones that will donate mainly to our political opponents! (I won't hold my breath.)

I believe I have very little empathy, actually. I really do feel like I have to fake it most of the time. Other people usually don't believe me when I say this, because among the people I know, I am usually the one people come to to comfort or console them, because I "exude an aura of calmness." But it's not calmness, not really. It's more like... detatchment. I actually had a discussion with my girlfriend about this, in which I said "to be horribly honest, it may seem like I'm being calming and comforting, but what I'm really doing is engaging in the behaviors which I have determined make other people be quiet."

Well, from a certain point of view, being anti-abortion and pro-death-penalty requires less cognitive dissonance than being pro-abortion and anti-death-penalty. It all depends on whether you prefer killin' 'em before or after they've done anything wrong.

I don't have a problem with an attention-getting swat on the backside, or a single disciplinary smack. Anything more than that is overkill. With particularly active children, especially once they start running, sometimes a swat (which does not even have to be painful) is the only thing that will grab their attention long enough for you to impart the actual lesson. For instance, if the child is reaching for the stove, in immediate danger, calmly explaining the situation to the child will only result in a burned child. In my case, I would occasionally recieve a backside swat with a paddle as a child... not so much for misbehaving, as for LYING about misbehaving, once I was caught. (If I admitted wrongdoing or screwing up, I usually got off with more standard - even lenient - disciplinary measures.) My parents, who were teachers, held this opinion about public school discipline, as stated by my father: "If he misbehaves, paddle him, then send him home and we'll paddle him again." Needless to say I was NEVER paddled at school. (Not that I never did anything against the rules, but the few things I did always ended up ruled "justified" by the attending teacher - swearing at the guy who illegally hit me in the face in dodgeball, or throwing the guy who cut in front of me in the lunch line across the room.) However, there is a fine line between "not beat enough" and "beat too much," and it can be hard to find... probably better to err on the side of caution if you're not sure. One last thought... the only parent worse than the parent who "hits" their child, is the parent who threatens to... then doesn't. Kids pick up on that REAL fast, if you're the kind of adult who can't be counted on to live up to their promises or threats. And once you fail at that, it's almost IMPOSSIBLE to win back their respect. The biggest failures as parents I ever saw were always the ones who would threaten disiplinary measures, and then pull back: "If you keep that up, We're not going to McDonald's." "WAAAAH!" "Okay, we're going to McDonald's." ALWAYS leads to uncontrollable brats. You MUST keep your promises. If you promise a reward, you must deliver. If you promise pain, you must deliver. If you're not willing to deliver, NEVER MAKE THE PROMISE. Seriously, folks, if you learn NO other lesson before you become a parent, learn that one.

*NOTE: Before you get mad at the following, please remember that I'm PRO gay rights. What I'm ANTI is bad arguments. "Other animals do it, therefore it is natural and good" is actually a really bad argument, if you examine it closely. Other animals EAT their offspring. Gorillas practice infanticide. Orangutans rape. Chimpanzees regularly fight each other and batter their females. I'm pretty sure we all agree that none of these "natural animal behaviors" are accptable for humans.

BOO.

Now that we've learned that biofuels are a far less viable replacement for fossil fuels than previously thought, a lot of politicians with "our best interests at heart" are still pushing for them. Let's replace Big Oil with Big Corn! Oh, and more and more people seem less and less able to tell their fantasies from reality nowadays. And more and more people use random pages off the internet as "News" as though the entire internet was factual: hence, we have people believing that posts on "The Onion" are real, or that sites about the Nibiru hoax planet are credible.

How long do you reckon that "kid's" rap sheet is? You think he was much interested in the well-being of the actual kids whose home he was breaking into? I've heard stories of kids who were home alone during break-ins. They don't generally end well. This is a clear case of "Nex Bardibus."

Gun control is being able to hit your target. Meh, I grew up surrounded by firearms, I was about 7 when I shot my first rifle and handgun. And yet nothing bad ever happened to me because of these facts. Mainly because from even earler than that, I was taught about exactly what guns are and what they can do to you if you misuse them. My father used jello-filled gallon jugs to great effect - not to mention my observing what happens to a groundhog when it's hit by a high-powered rifle bullet. EWW. The only thing that I think should be required for gun ownership is training in the responsible use of said weapons. When you go to buy a weapon, you should have to show your training certificate that says "I am not a moron." Morons, crazies, and felons should be prohibited from owning weapons. (In reality, they already are - but it's hard to identify the crazies 'cause we don't mark'em, and the felons, being felons, don't care.) As to whether an SMG is useful for home defense... ask in Afghanistan and Iraq, then remember the words of Pastor Niemoller. (Personally, if the Fundies ever start rounding up Atheists, I want access to nuclear fuckin' weapons.)

Banned for... no, wait, I agree with that. Original L4D forever! BILL LIVES!!! So, instead... Banned for being scared by a kzin. (My avatar.) Don't you know they can smell fear?

Today I saw a Lambourgini parked outside of a Quizno's. One of the most incongruous things I've ever seen. (For the non-Americans, Quizno's is a hoagie shop.)

Screaming Orange Leaper, my omniscient and omnipotent pet cat created the universe, complete with the illusion of age, a week ago Tuesday. Everything you think happened in your "PAST" is just part of the illusion. He speaks to me, and has directed me to write the "Gospel According to Leaper, a True and Acurate Account of How the Universe Is and How to Properly Obey your Cat Master, and why Photons are carried on the backs of Infinitely Tiny Invisible Unicorns, and the Way in which Teapots Orbit the Sun." which should be out sometime in 2012, assuming I can gather up enough gold to emboss the pages. YOU CAN'T DISPROVE IT, SO IT MUST BE TRUE. OBEY THE CAT GOD.

Because it is the foundation of 99.999999% of dates used in supporting Evolution. Now, where did you get that? I believe it's called "making up facts." Some creationist probably lied to him and told him that. They tend to do that a lot.

The Chevy 789... (hope this link works...) Link to page, if that pic link fails... http://www.57classicchevy.com/789-chevy.html

Banned for no discernable reason whatsoever. (I got banned from a site for that reason once. For real.)

Is that a belly or a tumor?

Just so you know, the first post is not an original thought. It's lifted directly from a Red Vs. Blue "PSA."

Wishing I hadn't woken up and 4 AM and been unable to get back to sleep.

Who needs bluegrass when you've got Metalocalypse?

I just blame them for acting like climatology is an exact science, and that all the questions about global warming were "settled." If they were, we wouldn't still be launching climate-measuring satellites to fill in the GAPING holes in our understanding of how the climate actually works. Among the problems with global warming forecasting is that we've now been doing it long enough to see that the data now doesn't match the models we started with. Clearly, there's more study to be done. The other thing that turns me off is some folks' massive hypocrisy. They want to force other people to change without making any real changes themselves. Al Gore is a good example of this... HUGELY energy-inefficient mansion the guy lives in... Bush's Crawford ranch house was FAR more eco-friendly. So what does Gore do? Nothing... except that he buys some "carbon credits" to "offset" his energy use. Buys them from a company he partly owns, and chairs. Little more than transferring money from one pocket to another.

Banned for failing your DEX save.

We're only "smart" (more or less) because smartness was a survival characteristic for our ancestors. For some reason, being smart gave our ancestors an edge over their less-smart relatives. We're not the "most developed" life form, we're just adapted to our original surroundings. It's very likely that if climate of the part of Africa where our ancestored originated hadn't changed, leading to less trees and more grassland, we would never have come down from them in order to forage for food, never needed to evolve the ability to walk upright (to see over high grass, and to avoid predators), and remained more physically and mentally like our ape cousins.

Only if they haven't been squeezed through a uterus yet.

I already mentioned some before... Panentheism, Pantheism, Satanism.... I hadn't heard of Panentheism till just now. Pantheism - the believe that everything is God... hrm, I don't know if you can call that Monotheism honestly. (Especially since there's probably more than one universe.) Satanism... which kind? The LaVeyist kind that shoukd really be called "Self-ism," or the really deluded nutballs who actually worship the Loser in Christian Theology? The former would be more like arrogant semi-atheists, and the latter are essentially really dumb monotheists.

Who needs Dr. Pepper when you've got Dr. Zhivago?