PolarVortex

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PolarVortex last won the day on February 10 2015

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    Bay Area, California
  • Religion
    LDS

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  1. But it doesn't always work that well, sadly. I am quite disappointed by the snarky and supercilious tone from some people... so much so that this is probably my last post here.
  2. As a civilized personage, I eat everything with a knife and fork. Even aspirin.
  3. I'm with you, Palerider. I don't even put butter or syrup on them... I eat them like giant cookies.
  4. IMHO, a market is being created, and capitalists are filling a need to generate wealth. It's the world's second-oldest profession. Just as an incompetent CEO of a company (or president of a nation) can fail by surrounding himself or herself with yes-men (yes-persons?), every news consumer in the world now can surround himself or herself with yes-news-sources. People today don't read the news to learn something new. They read it to be affirmed and to be reminded that their own views are correct. When news sources learned they could earn money by selling yeses, the structure of journalism changed.
  5. Me too. A friend of mine sent me a link to a really dumb YouTube video called "What Does the Fox Say?" It's not that popular (only 492 million views with 3.5 million likes) and the words and melody are rather banal... and I couldn't get the tune out of my head for several months. Audio crack.
  6. Perhaps you're right, the -oid isn't very nice at all. Why don't we call them Vortifacts? They fall like hailstones and deserve their own noun.
  7. I did a Like This a mere 20 seconds into the video... bravo!
  8. Vortic Facts? I had privately nicknamed them Vortoids long ago.
  9. I am visiting relatives in a podunk little town in Arizona, and the menu at breakfast this morning contained the following. I am quite serious... skeptics may message me for photographic proof. Pulled Pork Pancakes – four apple wood smoked bacon and sweet corn pancakes stuffed with succulent pulled pork shoulder, and drizzled with jack daniel’s maple syrup - $10.5 I'd eat my cat's canned Tuna and Salmon Grille before I'd eat pancakes with pork. Yecccch. And now I suppose I'll be flamed for judging meat pancakes so harshly. And what it is with omitting the cents from prices? The $10.5 is supposed to make customers feel like they're in a four-star restaurant?
  10. When I became self-employed and started working at home I got into a terrible rut of waking up at 8:30am or even later. I felt like a totally lazy slob. I did some random experiments with my lifestyle and discovered that it's much, much easier for me to haul my carcass out of bed if I'm hungry. I moved dinner time to 5:30pm and go to bed slightly hungry. It's not the most pleasant thing in the world, but I got used to it, and now when the alarm goes off at 6:00am I spring from my bed like toast from a toaster. YMMV, of course.
  11. I guess I'm not phrasing my point clearly. The Church's recent announcement about GLBT discrimination may have focused on jobs and housing, but it's part of a much broader message: "The Church and the GLBT community can find ways to live together in peace in a secular society as long as the Church's rights and freedoms are protected." It's the "live together in peace" that I think is an important guiding principle here. If my mere presence at a wedding always meant that I condoned every aspect of the marriage, I wouldn't be attending very many weddings. I couldn't even have attended my own grandparents' wedding (had I existed) because the bride was six months pregnant with my father. By the way, just a few days ago I was asked at the last moment by two gay men to shoot the video of their same-sex wedding. I think they asked me just because I lived around the corner from the church... I'm certainly not a professional in this area. I was a little concerned because they all know I'm a less-active Mormon, and Mormons aren't always admired in this part of the country. I went, and my presence sent shockwaves of LDS goodwill through everyone. I was welcomed with open arms, and more than one person seemed surprised that Mormons don't have horns and pitchforks. There is a greater good here which should be contemplated.
  12. I think it has a lot to do with laws. I would have no problem whatsoever discriminating against something illegal, such as refusing to attend a polygamous marriage. That doesn't mean I condone all activity that happens to be legal, merely that I'd think twice before rejecting something that our society has declared legal and that I'd raise the burden of proof. I also see the question behind the OP's point of view, and my answer is "Not in 2015."
  13. I don't know if I would, pam, but I pray that I would never be in that situation. I think Winston Churchill and George Will got it about right. America will be trusted to do the right thing after all other options have been exhausted, and democracies are sluggish but will eventually act in response to genuine fear. ISIS will reach a tipping point, and the nations of the world, including some Middle Eastern nations, will decide to erase ISIS from the map.
  14. Didn't the Church just come out in support of anti-discrimination laws that would protect gays and lesbians? This suggests that peaceful coexistence is the new order of the day. Besides, I thought the Church obeys, honors, and sustains the law and allows all people to follow the dictates of their consciences. I once knew a gay man who was a groom in a same-sex wedding. This man's relatives were all fundamentalist Christians, and every single one of them refused to attend the wedding. So the man roped off the first ten pews of his side of the church sanctuary, put a "Reserved for Family" sign on it, and kept the church door propped open during the wedding ceremony. It was his way of saying that he would always keep the door open to his family and even reserve an honored place for them if they ever chose to be part of his life again. I wasn't even at the wedding, but just hearing about it brought a tear to my eye. Regular readers of my posts know that I follow Miss Manners a lot, and her advice for these types of situations is very sound. Your brother should graciously invite whoever he wishes, and whoever receives an invitation should decide individually whether to attend. I hope the first ten rows of his side of the church are packed to the rafters.
  15. Terrific answer, SD. Thanks. "All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, And Jehovah is pondering the spirits." (Proverbs 16:2, Young's literal translation)