Let's make the comment text a nice, strong black and the links/buttons a darker shade of blue with the snazzy grey textured background on the light version, and I think all will be well.

@ChaosEngine, I tried ordering Guinness that way in a small village pub on the Dingle Peninsula, after a young English woman told me it was the only way she could drink it.

The pubowner refused.

"I've got the best Guinness in town. I'll not do that to my Guinness."

(I knew I would get a rise out of someone.... And. It really is good. The head turns the most marvelous shade of purple and the bitterness is softened. I love it that way.)

People, people, people. Walmart is not the REASON the entire civilised world is finding itself in this situation - walmart is a symptom of the problem.

Walmart is an organisation motivated by profit just like any other.

I heard energy companies posting record profits year in and year out before the recession. There's people at the upper ends of those kinds of companies taking wages, bonuses, pensions and god-knows-what that some people couldn't make in 10 years. They don't deserve it, they don't work 10 times harder then the next person down, but there is a culture of taking what you can.

People don't need that kind of wealth, they just want it. Now, in times of hardship, energy companies are demanding more money for their services because they are no longer making the profit they used to. Instead of relying on the wealth that they have amassed during times of good, they rely on us to give them more.

So they cut a load of jobs to maximise their profits, but now the people they fired can't afford their energy bills. And this is going on all over the place - it isn't just the energy companies, it's also walmart with whatever schemes they've got. It's the oil companies and the politicians with whatever schemes they've got.

And all these schemes intermix, people losing jobs, people unable to afford this here and there because we've stagnated our money, there was no trickle down wealth, it's stagnated so much that there's not enough available anymore to share between the people that need it.

So now the government starts giving out handouts to the elderly or unemployed - £300 for your winter heating bill. But that's a huge amount of money so we need to raise taxes - which is a solution to nothing but puts the problem further ahead and maybe you can work harder later to make up for it.

Meanwhile, half the jobs that are getting taxed are now moved abroad because production is cheaper there. So entire markets of jobs no longer exist, we lost all of our car manufacturers, coal mines (it's cheaper from china), etc. which amounts to millions of jobs, and there's not a lot left to tax. What's the solution now? Which country do we bail out with borrowed money that is earning interest? If the untold billions in profit was returned to the customers back when times were good, we wouldn't be in this situation. But instead it went towards making let's say 30 individual people a lot richer.

Do you see where i'm going with this? It's a culture of greed, and each point down the line there is just enough intentional maneuverability for people to take more than you deserve and/or need; you either are in the clique, in the power scheme, taking cash - or you're not and you're holding up the facade. This isn't what a society is meant to be - it's meant to be a group of people working for their own common benefit because when we don't we all suffer and no one is happy.

This model has a short life-cycle; the eventual result is a few people having a lot of little bits of green paper that don't mean anything because they've forced everyone into abject poverty.

"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in."
It doesn't get any simpler than that. Until these old men start planting some trees and giving a LOT back, we will stagnate and you don't want to learn this implied lesson the hard way.

>> ^bareboards2:
I'll stop typing now and await your answer to that last question. Would you argue with a black person about their experience of racism in America?


Yes I would and I have, because @speechless, race is another thing we should just stop banging on about. It's an even less useful signifier than gender.

You should probably discard all your experiences as a woman. I've had a couple of experiences as a woman and a few more as a man; and let me tell you, compelling as they were, they don't influence my politics. We should endeavour to distance ourselves from anecdotalism and consider every issue intellectually and impartially - that's the best way to learn.

If we are going to continue then we have to revisit context, where we obviously haven't been able to understand one another. I don't want you to 'see my context'. The point I want to get across to you is that while any word, like 'boy', will have many connotations - age, sex, gender, race, power, innocence and many more, and subtly shaded combinations of any number of these; the application of that word in one context, by the stereotyped southern sheriff say, doesn't retroactively change the meaning of the word used in another context, "Dear Dan Savage, I'm a boy..." You have to think of these as distinct 'meta-words' rather than a single word that you imagine is being used wrong.

However much you might object to a perceived cultural infantilization of women, which I contend isn't a meaningful grouping anyway, playing the word-police is a truly bizarre and useless way of opposing it.

So many shades of brilliant this is!

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Alaska is a deep, deep shade of red.>> ^deathcow:

I really dont get why so many working class friends of mine support this guy.

There is unrest in the forest
There is trouble with the trees
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas

The trouble with the maples
(And they're quite convinced they're right)
They say the oaks are just too lofty
And they grab up all the light
But the oaks can't help their feelings
If they like the way they're made
And they wonder why the maples
Can't be happy in their shade

There is trouble in the forest
And the creatures all have fled
As the maples scream 'Oppression!'
And the oaks just shake their heads

So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights
'The oaks are just too greedy
We will make them give us light'
Now there's no more oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe and saw

Yes, you're missing my point entirely.
She prevents the court from subpoenaing her google searches. What if said searches indicate that she was, in fact, seeking said experience? At what point are said searches immaterial in a court of law? >> ^bareboards2:

@Trancecoach -- you get that is this victim blaming, right? An interest in bondage et al does not mean you are consenting to being raped and beaten. Just as going to his house, which is a dumb move, doesn't mean you deserve what happens. Or wearing a short skirt. This is all the same thing -- be careful, or it is your fault.
The guy was a professional, he is good looking, I'll bet he was charming. There are loads of one night stands out there that take one of each gender (on average!) that don't end in rape.
Especially nowadays -- Fifty Shades of Gray, an apparently terribly written book, is the best selling book of all time. So if you have read that, you better not go to a stranger's house?
Am I missing your point? I feel like I might be missing your point...

@Trancecoach -- you get that is this victim blaming, right? An interest in bondage et al does not mean you are consenting to being raped and beaten. Just as going to his house, which is a dumb move, doesn't mean you deserve what happens. Or wearing a short skirt. This is all the same thing -- be careful, or it is your fault.

The guy was a professional, he is good looking, I'll bet he was charming. There are loads of one night stands out there that take one of each gender (on average!) that don't end in rape.

Especially nowadays -- Fifty Shades of Gray, an apparently terribly written book, is the best selling book of all time. So if you have read that, you better not go to a stranger's house?

Am I missing your point? I feel like I might be missing your point...

8 different shades of offensive.

"Hey there lamp, that's a *nice shade!"

^ Quboid:
I completely agree. Come on Google! Get with the now.


^ ypsilon:
Opinion noted and there's really no way for me to refute it, as the opinion is held by many and it's pretty safe to say that it is the standard. But my opinion is that the design decisions of the past create false senses of what does and does not feel "right", and that it is not apparent until many years later when a group of people break that standard and do something different in mass, intentionally or unintentionally. In time, as people accept the change and the old guard dies off (or is assimilated), it becomes a standard in its own right.

Consider what was acceptable fashion 100 years ago versus today; what was acceptable in art, architecture, music, and culinary arts in the Western hemisphere. Think of how web design standards and video games have changed. Or our sexual zeitgeist, for that matter.

I dunno, I'd be down for a triangle view or a circular view if there were technology readily available for the masses to create with.

>> ^raverman:

Totally innocent conversation... just like reading Fifty Shades of Grey on a bus


Also known as novelized Twilight fan fiction.

Totally innocent conversation... just like reading Fifty Shades of Grey on a bus

Goldenrod and the 4H stone
The things I brought you when I found out
You had cancer of the bone

Your father cried on the telephone
And he drove his car into the Navy yard
Just to prove that he was sorry

In the morning, through the window shade
When the light pressed up against your shoulderblade
I could see what you were reading

All the glory that the Lord has made
And the complications you could do without
When I kissed you on the mouth

Tuesday night at the Bible study
We lift our hands and pray over your body
But nothing ever happens

I remember at Michael's house
In the living room when you kissed my neck
And I almost touched your blouse

In the morning at the top of the stairs
When your father found out what we did that night
And you told me you were scared

All the glory when you ran outside
With your shirt tucked in and your shoes untied
And you told me not to follow you

Sunday night when I cleaned the house
I found the card where you wrote it out
With the pictures of you mother

On the floor at the great divide
With my shirt tucked in and my shoes untied
I am crying in the bathroom

In the morning when you finally go
And the nurse runs in with her head hung low
And the cardinal hits the window

In the morning in the winter shade
On the first of March, on the holiday
I thought I saw you breathing

All the glory that the Lord has made
And the complications when I see His face
In the morning in the window

All the glory when He took our place
But He took my shoulders and He shook my face
And He takes and He takes and He takes