Mrebo

[TV Frink’s turn to post.]

I enjoyed the story.

DuracellEnergizer said:

He must be in a state of quantum superposition.

This.

I’m not sure if I’m here or not.

TV’s Frink said:

Mrebo said:

It would have been nice to know that AT&T is useless in the Colorado mountains.

That’s weird, aren’t the mountains closer to space?

You’d think so but apparently not! 🤷🏼‍♂️

It would have been nice to know that AT&T is useless in the Colorado mountains.

Mala’s post made me wonder what the French are saying.

Nothing surprising, but a line in the newspaper LeMonde amused me, attributing the meeting in part to:

La rhétorique belliqueuse de Donald Trump…

Which sounds like it could mean (but sadly doesn’t) “the belly language of Donald Trump,” which is what I think may bring about peace.

Where is everybody lately? mfm has seemingly taken a break, makes it too quiet.

The bellies are getting closer.

TV’s Frink said:

And they will do nothing.

Pretty much. Ultimately Congress borrows the money if we want the program to continue as it is. Likewise nobody cares about the federal debt until it blows up. We don’t elect people because they’re good legislators, they’re just good at getting elected.

In 16 years, Social Security will have to cut benefits by 21% if lawmakers do nothing to cure the program’s long-term funding shortfall.

Hope you’re all doing well as to be expected.

suspiciouscoffee said:

I’ll spare you the details, but some recent dreams have the common message of “you need to get laid.”

A dream you’ll always have.

TV’s Frink said:

the bump can’t be deleted.

Turning air into gasoline?

What is the right of indigenous people to govern themselves, including killing children considered defective?

Only family funeral I’ve been to was my grandmother’s. There never feels like a sufficient way to express condolences. My own experience with death was it felt like there was a room that was always open but now is forever shut. Just doesn’t make sense for someone to be gone.

Thought of your project when reading the following passage in book on translation:

It has become conventional to regard average moviegoers as capable of reading only about fifteen characters per second; and in order to be legible on a screen as small as a television set, no more than thirty-two alphabetic characters can be displayed in a line. In addition, no more than two lines can be displayed at a time without obscuring significant parts of the image, so the subtitler has around sixty-four characters, including spaces, that can be displayed for a few seconds at most to express the key meanings of a host of sequence in which characters may speak many more words than that. The limits are set by human physiology, average reading speeds, and the physical shape of the movie screen. It’s really amazing that it can be done at all.

TV’s Frink said:

Mrebo said:

TV’s Frink said:

It also continues to baffle me that some people see discrimination as a valid religious belief.

I think that the most significant things the Court did was to reject the ideas that religion doesn’t have any place in commerce and that discriminatory religious views are categorically incompatible with civil society.

I was speaking more generally, I haven’t read the details of the decision. But discriminatory any views should be categorically incompatible with civil society.

I wasn’t arguing with your statement, I just saw a connection with what the Court did. Individuals can express the sentiments you write of course, but now if the government does it might violate religious freedom. I think that’s a pretty significant ruling exactly for the reasons you give against it.

TV’s Frink said:

It also continues to baffle me that some people see discrimination as a valid religious belief.

I think that the most significant things the Court did was to reject the ideas that religion doesn’t have any place in commerce and that discriminatory religious views are categorically incompatible with civil society.

CatBus said:

Mrebo said:

The idea that courts can decide whether a law is legal or not based essentially on perceived motivations is dangerous and impractical.

Motives are taken into account all the time by courts for all sorts of reasons – criminal, civil, administrative, sanctions. Sometimes they get it wrong, I’m sure, but in cases like this, I’d say the evidence of illegal motivation has to be so ironclad that I’m not terribly concerned. I’m sure if the courts feel there’s any doubt at all about motivation, if there’s any sense at all that they’re dealing with perceived motivation rather than actual motivation, they would let the law stand. It would have to be the once-a-century unicorn case where some buffoon left around ample documentary evidence of illegal motivation for the courts to intervene.

Supreme Court decided today that the decision to punish a baker’s refusal to make a cake for same-sex wedding discriminated against his religious freedom. The Court held that this was so because his religious objections were not treated in a neutral and respectful way by the state.

The state still may be able to compel bakers to bake, but only if they adjudicate these cases without showing hostility to religion.

chyron8472 said:

Mrebo said:

moviefreakedmind said:

Mrebo said:

moviefreakedmind said:

TV’s Frink said:

moviefreakedmind said:

meds I don’t want.

Why?

Medication helped me a lot after we lost our daughter. As did group therapy.

I don’t want to spend money on medication and I don’t want to be medicated. As for group therapy, I don’t know why I would want to be in a group with anybody, but especially not group therapy. I credit them for the business model though. You can see a lot more customers rather than one at a time.

Mrebo said:

moviefreakedmind said:

Therapists are a waste. I don’t want to sit on a couch and pay some bastard hundreds of dollars to listen to me tell him about my childhood and then prescribe me some meds I don’t want. As for your “Happiness is possible,” line, that’s a gross generalization. It’s one of the really sickening attitudes that the public tends to have. I hinted at it in a recent conversation in the Politics thread, but such statements (or lies as I prefer to call them) insult me. They’re just vague bullshit lines that people can throw at others and pretend that they’re being helpful. Handman can, and should, do whatever the hell he wants; I was just making a suggestion.

Given that there are people who find more happiness than you believe is possible, I’d say it’s obvious that happiness is possible. I don’t know who finds total carefree bliss, but that’s clearly not what I’m talking about. This is about recognizing and living up to potential.

You must feel you have a really good reason for thinking it isn’t possible for you to become happier.

Happiness seems like a delusion to me, so I don’t find it appealing anymore.

Without some kind of assistance I don’t know how you can bounce back from that belief.

But even if you want to accept happiness is a delusion, why wouldn’t you choose that delusion?

I’m not delusional.

It must be an awfully easy thing to be under this delusion. How were you able to escape it? And what’s the value in [seeing life as it really is]?

I don’t like the assertion that focusing on awful things is more objective than focusing on positive things. There is too much information to process, and we play a part in our own stories. So I think that the idea that objectivity can exist regarding looking at life is rather arrogant, moreso the idea that being negative about it is the superior position.

Agreed. Like Frink I’m wishing there was a way to help. Any number of us have felt as mfm does to some degree. I look back at my own feelings of hopelessness and I can’t believe I let myself live that way.

DuracellEnergizer said:

Mrebo said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

Mrebo said:

And what’s the value in [seeing life as it really is]?

You automatically reminded me of this speech. Thank you.

Got up to “pain, misery…” and cracked up laughing.

I imagined mfm giving that speech, but it had a surprise ending.

moviefreakedmind said:

Mrebo said:

moviefreakedmind said:

Mrebo said:

moviefreakedmind said:

TV’s Frink said:

moviefreakedmind said:

meds I don’t want.

Why?

Medication helped me a lot after we lost our daughter. As did group therapy.

I don’t want to spend money on medication and I don’t want to be medicated. As for group therapy, I don’t know why I would want to be in a group with anybody, but especially not group therapy. I credit them for the business model though. You can see a lot more customers rather than one at a time.

Mrebo said:

moviefreakedmind said:

Therapists are a waste. I don’t want to sit on a couch and pay some bastard hundreds of dollars to listen to me tell him about my childhood and then prescribe me some meds I don’t want. As for your “Happiness is possible,” line, that’s a gross generalization. It’s one of the really sickening attitudes that the public tends to have. I hinted at it in a recent conversation in the Politics thread, but such statements (or lies as I prefer to call them) insult me. They’re just vague bullshit lines that people can throw at others and pretend that they’re being helpful. Handman can, and should, do whatever the hell he wants; I was just making a suggestion.

Given that there are people who find more happiness than you believe is possible, I’d say it’s obvious that happiness is possible. I don’t know who finds total carefree bliss, but that’s clearly not what I’m talking about. This is about recognizing and living up to potential.

You must feel you have a really good reason for thinking it isn’t possible for you to become happier.

Happiness seems like a delusion to me, so I don’t find it appealing anymore.

Without some kind of assistance I don’t know how you can bounce back from that belief.

But even if you want to accept happiness is a delusion, why wouldn’t you choose that delusion?

I’m not delusional.

It must be an awfully easy thing to be under this delusion. How were you able to escape it? And what’s the value in [seeing life as it really is]?

I don’t understand the question. I’ve never really been what anyone would call happy before.

Many people believe being happy is possible. You say that’s delusional. I’m asking why you think you have been able to avoid that delusion. And I’m asking what value you see in [seeing life as it is].