lookin

You were the one who nailed it, MsGuy. Best I did was pile on. My irritation with writers who go out of their way to make their ideas impenetrable goes back fifty years to the books I had to "ingurgitate" during my days as an engineering undergrad. As soon as an academic had come up with the least understandable way to describe a complex phenomenon, he'd set the type, print the book, and make it required reading for one of my core classes. I don't mind someone embroidering their prose for fun, or to put a feeling across, but to do it just to show that he can cobble together a cornucopia of convolution crimps my conviviality. So, AdamSmith, please excuse my popping in precipitously and putting Lucky to sleep. And thanks for the S. J. Perelman. It was a gem! And now I must be going. "I was on a coach trip to the rapturous intersection of medieval chiliasm and . . ." Ooops, let me see that map again.

I tossed my cookies, created a new password, cleared my browser, logged off, shut down my computer, left it in a 350° oven overnight, changed my name, moved to Somalia, got a new ISP, booted up and I'm still signed in. I think maybe this website is in ROM.

Honestly! I know I should be deferring to my betters here, but this kind of writing gives me the pip. I'm not allergic to looking up a word here and there, but "having been almost accidentally ingurgitated"? If he were talking about a guy who wandered into a bathhouse with his pants down, I could see why only that exact wording would do, but he's talking about Muslims who drifted into France over a period of years. At least I think he is. ". . . part of the colonialist couscous"? The guy seems to be writing without a net. Implicitly. Explicitly. Ineluctably. Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe I should go and read it again.

Actually, I usually eat only the skins and leave the white part of the potato for the curly-tailed piggies. Though they won't get any of the butter or sour cream, I've been known to let a chive or two get through.

So what's next? Potato skins??

That may well have been the question on von Neumann's mind as he gave his advice. The question on Szilárd's mind was could there have been no more corpses at all if the power of the bomb was merely demonstrated. The question for me is what separates those who think about saving lives from those who don't.

I'm with you. I'm not as widely read on this stuff as AdamSmith but, from what I have read, the folks who knew that nuclear weapons were likely possible and had the smarts to build them seemed to fall into several different camps. There were a very few who did not want to go down that path at all. There were those who figured we better do it before the Germans did. There were those who looked at it as a scientific exercise and could not resist seeing if they could turn theory into practice. And there were those who were interested in having and using the weapon. These latter folks either justified it on the basis that it would shorten the war and save lives, or else they didn't trouble themselves at all with the ethics of its use. I also believe that the borders between these groups were crossable and some did switch camps, especially as 'progress' was made on the scientific and engineering challenges. I think, by the time the Trinity test was conducted, there wasn't anyone who didn't want to see if the bomb would work. When word filtered out about the extent of the blast, some of these folks moved from one camp to another. And the path to the hydrogen bomb was similar, although not everyone lined up as they did on the path to the first weapon. My take was that the span of ethics for these scientists wasn't much different from the span of ethics for the rest of us, other than that they had much more insight as to the likely numbers of people who would be killed. The guy who draws me in is Leó Szilárd. He was the first person who conceived of the idea that a nuclear chain reaction could form the basis of a bomb, and got Albert Einstein to co-sign a letter to President Roosevelt urging that one be developed, which led directly to the Manhattan Project. From the beginning, he saw it as a demonstration weapon to show the Germans and the Japanese that they could not win the war. He was especially distressed that Truman actually decided to use it after Germany had surrendered. I can identify with him much more easily than I can with someone like Johnny von Neumann, another Hungarian and another fascinating character. But he seemed to relish his role as a macher and appeared little troubled by a hundred fifty thousand crispy corpses lying in the streets of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. We humans seem to have this amazing ability to compartmentalize, and to dissociate ourselves from the human consequences of our actions, especially when our actions and their consequences are separated by space, by time, by distance of relationships, and by intermediaries who convince us that we are merely 'following orders'. I think it may be the unusual human who can keep track of the direct links between what we do one day and what tragic results may follow the next. And I doubt that scientists are necessarily more likely to have stronger ethical links than the rest of us.

I apologize for concentrating solely on the fun part of this thread, as I didn't realize how important this issue is for some posters, as well as for TY and OZ. Thank you all for thinking this through and sharing your thoughts and solutions. It also got me thinking about what I'd do if I got into a dustup with a poster here. My first inclination would be to ignore him. Not put him on ignore, but just not engage him on the Board. If the person had some redeeming features, it's possible I'd send a PM to figure out if a rapprochement were in the cards. But if I got back a rude response, I'd be done. If it seemed threatening, I'd probably forward it to OZ and TY so they knew who they had on the Board. But I wouldn't ask them to ban the poster or take any action on my behalf. I'd just never engage the person again. I hope we continue to keep our social skills on an upward arc and resolve our differences ourselves. It would be a shame to harsh TY's mellow or interfere with OZ's continuing Search for Enlightenment.

Thanks but I'd have to be crazy, or on the take. Where do I sign up?

I once had a cute young twink put his head on my shoulder and fly all the way from Philadelphia to San Francisco. He was supposed to get off in Chicago, but I thought it would be a shame to wake him.

No, (per another old wheeze) I'm trying not to tell you something.

Reminds me of this old wheeze.

An older woman comes to the doctor complaining that she's passing gas all the time. They're quiet, thank goodness, so nobody knows it's me, and they're completely odorless. It's just that I know it's me and I feel like everyone's staring. Here, try these pills, says the doctor, and come back in a couple of weeks. When she returns, she's no happier. Not only am I still passing gas constantly, but now they're starting to smell just awful! Fortunately, they still don't make any noise so I'm getting away with it. Well, says the doctor, it looks like your sinuses are clearing up OK. Now let's see what we can do about your hearing.

That's OK. Billy peed in the bag anyway.

Halfway through the Citations and References Section, our Complainant decides it's easier to banish himself.

Personally, I'd be up for the destruction of every nuclear weapon on the face of the Earth. If we could take back the ones we dropped on Japan, I'd vote for that too. I'll be happy to read all the reasons why they're a good idea and about the lives saved because we used them when we did, but then I'll still vote for getting rid of all of them. I think they take a toll on those who use them too.

Well, I won't boycott everything. I just got a MacBook Pro, knowing it was made in China. If they had another one sitting next to it but made in the U. S., I'd have paid an extra hundred dollars to get that one. So there are usually limits to boycotts for me. But if the Koch brothers bought Apple, I'd switch to something else. It's kind of a case-by-case basis, one purchase at a time. In general, though, I try not to buy a whole lot of stuff. Mostly things I really need or want. So the Chinese won't get rich on me. It's interesting to see how different folks approach the issue of boycotts, which I expect was lurkerspeaks' intention in starting the thread.

" . . . the great American ear . . . " Love it!

I don't have a lot of boycotts going, but I take them pretty seriously. Had to go into a Walmart last year for the first time in a decade as they were the only ones open with a pair of reading glasses that I needed. I held my nose paying for them. When I was back East last year, I toyed with the idea of going to a Chik-fil-A, just to see what they were like. It would have been a once-and-done just for curiosity, and in hopes that it was just another dry chicken breast, but it was Sunday and they were closed. Not sure I would actually have gone through with it had I got through the door. No Russian vodka from now on either. And I haven't gone near a Koch brothers product for years. And won't, even though Brawny paper towels used to be my favorite, and Dixie cups and Quilted Northern were things I bought occasionally. While I agree with zipperzone that none of my little boycotts will put anyone out of business, I think we have all multiplied our effectiveness by speaking out here and elsewhere. Without this Board, I probably wouldn't even have known about some of these miscreants. I for one am grateful to those of you who stay aware, and care, and share.

I'm thinking JKane may be pretty close to the mark. How much of that cash surcharge actually found its way back to the Air India corporate offices is a question for the ages. Next time, OZ, you might want to discreetly inquire as to whether a bit of baksheesh could help to smooth things over. Add to that the nearly infinite reservoir of resignation that most Indians have when being treated poorly by their countrymen in positions of authority, and it's surprising you haven't run into this elsewhere in your travels. I'm pretty sure that most Indian functionaries are required to take a course in How To Make Your Customer Miserable, with a mandatory do-over until they are able to cause the visible gnashing of teeth. I remember many years ago standing in what seemed to be an unending line at the Post Office to get a mailing label for a Christmas package for my parents, filling it out and affixing it, and then standing in an even longer line to actually get postage and mail the package. When I finally got to the last window, the clerk informed me that there was a mistake in the address label. I had entered 'Mr. and Mrs.' in the Name field, and it clearly was intended for only a single name. I explained that my parents had been married for many years and actually lived together, side by side, in the house whose address he would find in the following two lines. My argument carried no weight as the Name field was for one name, not two names, and the package could not possibly be sent as addressed. I would have to stand in line for another label and then again for postage. I don't think he was prepared for how quickly I drew a line through 'Mr. and' and shoved it back at him with only the 'Mrs.' visible. "Well, alright", he muttered, "but it is highly irregular." I hesitated to weigh in on this thread, as my experience with Air India was nearly a half century ago, and it was exemplary. However, it was the first time the Peace Corps had used Air India to transport volunteers and they were on their best behavior. Air India, that is, not the volunteers. Early on, the flight attendants decided that the way to the hearts of a hundred young men was to keep the alcohol flowing and that's what they did for the next twenty-odd hours. Somewhere over Shannon the liquor bottles got away from them, as did any semblance of passenger decorum, and it was a weary group of flight staff that finally touched down in Delhi. It occurred to me, in reading OZ's tale of abuse that maybe some of the folks that bedeviled him had parents or grandparents staffing our flight, and perhaps they were still carrying a grudge.

I'll be thinking of you blowing out that candle. Congrats!

Just don't count on her for your Maid of Honor! On March 1, 2011, Palin told National Organization for Marriage Chairman Maggie Gallagher that she opposed the Obama administration's refusal to continue defending the Defense of Marriage Act: "I have always believed that marriage is between one man and one woman. Like the majority of Americans, I support the Defense of Marriage Act and find it appalling that the Obama administration decided not to defend this federal law which was enacted with broad bipartisan support and signed into law by a Democrat president. Political positions of Sarah Palin

Perhaps next time you could take the train.

A lesbian finishes her gynecological exam with flying colors. "In fact," says the doctor, "I've never seen anyone keep so clean down there!" "Oh", she says, "I have a girl come in twice a week."