Dentists and the rest - 15 October 2007
Oct. 16th, 2007 12:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptSo, I went to see the dentist today, and it turns out that while I have excellent tooth health, there’s some need for some fillings on some of my teeth. It’s not big scary cavities, but they are there, and my gums need to be whipped back into shape or they’ll go not only soft but diseased... despite having excellent tooth health, apparently, I feel like it was a litany of faults - small ones, I guess, but still there. Thank goodness for insurance, I guess. And I’ll be getting my money’s worth. Plus, now I’m supposed to be doing what I should have been doing even more now - twice-a-day brush, add floss, plus some flouridated mouthwash so that things that look like they might be turning into those cavities get beaten back before they do. I don’t know. Feels kind of like I messed up somewhere, even though I was doing at least one shot of brushing daily. I think I’m more... blargh about having to spend money on something that was likely preventable, had I actually gone and done it. Too late for that now, I suppose, but it’s still yet another expense eating up my finances. I hate having to spend money like this, when it surely seems like a result of my own stupidity. I probably shouldn’t be holding on to this negative mindset, but I’m not sure if there’s a spin, or at least a rationalization, that I could put on it so that it doesn’t seem quite so bad. The rest of my day was uneventful, actually, so this is sort of the one event that makes it all.
Moving past my own problems, Tonight’s lesson in History That Doesn’t Suck is that rice can be used as a cement. And now you know.
One way of getting more thrill into less space is to build a free-fall ride right into the side of your entertainment building.
And one more good reason why any sort of nondiscrimination amendment based on sexuality or gender should include trans people - because they're people, too, and everyone deserves that kind of protection. Better to have the extent of one’s opponents’ ability be something like trying to smear the 1964 Peace Prize winner in 1965 (for all the good it did them), rather than being able to be violent and discriminatory without any fear of consequence or revolt. Although occasionally people do just riot when stuff like that happens...
Austin Hill, in Townhall, agrees with the Czech President in questioning whether Mr. Gore has actually done anything to merit the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded, not seeing or believing that anthropogenic climate change is happening, nor seeing how someone trying to raise awareness of it has somehow contributed more to world peace. Perhaps indirectly, it can be reasoned that he is trying to bring about world peace by trying to reduce dependence and demand for petroleum products, such that when futures in crude oil have reached $86 per barrel, as they have, they can instead lessen demand, and likely, price and not contribute toward a premature petroleum shock. Some tips for the plebes to follow on reducing one’s polluting effect are available at the Happiness Project. Hrm. I suppose that counts as a paragraph about the environment for something like Blog Action Day, which was today. Or something.
Akbar Atri in OpinionJournal says despite what the Iranian government and the United Nations say, democracy advocates in Iran appreciate foreign assistance, even if it’s just operating a radio broadcast that has different perspectives that official government policy.
Domestically, potentially as a way of circumventing the process of Senate review, Mr. Bush's administration is chock-full of "acting" and interim directors and officials. Yet another feather in the Chimp’s cap for finding ways around the regulations, while a candidate who had a tagline saying "If you like oral sex, vote for me" stands by his words. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Bush-bash without someone making comparisons between now and the lead-up to the second world war. Thus, likely invoking some Internet law on the whole thing, Alternet posts a story on how much Americans now have become like the "Good Germans" of the past.
Perhaps balancing, or more probably strongly reacting to the current political climate, Ron Paul supporters continue to make media and voters say "WTF, mate?" at his continued visibility. They’re spreading information about a candidate they think can manage to sneak away with a nomination. For more insidiously, e-mail rumores are circulating that Senator Obama is a Muslim, with all the bashing, mudslinging, and Christo-superiority that goes with it. The Senator is not a Muslim, but a Christian. Regardless of the result, New Orleans would like to host a presidential debate in 2008. Might be a good way of keeping them in the public eye and reminding us that there’s still work to be done rebuilding, as well as letting them ask the candidates what they plan on doing to help reconstruct.
The last laugh may be on all of us, though as states pass differing kinds of legislation and regulation regarding illegal immigration in lieu of a federal directive. Some are inviting, others are forbidding, denying, and deporting.
As a warm up for tonight’s Quiche ceremony, observe the maxim “Opinions are comparable to rectal openings. All Humes have one.” Then, see some choice opinions expressed in support of Mr. Thompson, including someone unsure as whether sacrificing an hour of drinking time is worth being “protected” from potential terrorists. I wonder if they also consider an appropriate maths teaching technique to be flipping over a graph and tracing it, rather than teaching the transformation multiplications that produce mirror images and then graphing those. These people may very well qualify for stupid, stupid rat creature status, but the candidates for the quiche tonight are far, far better at it.
Getting into the actual competition, the forces of science (SCIENCE!), if you wish to characterize them as such, have already fired volleys today on a variety of subjects. Their lead shots come from four places where remarks critical of homeopaths, trolls, molotov cocktails, and false copyright claims all end up with the effect of having someone stop blogging or posting YouTube videos. Yet, it’s the science-types who are bullying others and silencing debates that need to be had, right? The atheists and skeptics are all forcing godless things down our throats and kicking us in the nuts when we protest?
The broadside volley comes form![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jokermage himself, with pictoral reminders of why you want children to get the standard suite of vaccinations. The consequences can be severe, even deadly, if those diseases aren’t fought off, and the vaccination method is a good way of doing that.
The tail strike, and tonight’s winner, is an op-ed that says that by removing religion and making all atheist is to remove the capacity for imagination and several other qualities of the good. This sounds like a more classical argument here, or maybe I’ve just heard it before. Either way, Ezra Klein notes that imagination and belief are two very separate things, so imagining something is still possible without believing it, and the Liberal Eagle concurs, as an artist and as someone who doen't believe in god.
Going out into Cool Things - take a tour of the garden that models the galaxy. Hope you’re not allergic to the space pollen. There’s also new ways of making light-bending metamaterials. So there might be some things disappearing soon. Or, perhaps, electromagnetic wormholes being opened, based on the same technology.
Last for tonight is Tim Wu in Slate, who shows just how much laws can be on the books and ignored, either through not making it look like something that should be illegal, even thought it technically is (prescription substances), or by indifference and focusing on other things (how most adult porn survives, even though there might be merit for an obscenity case).
And that’s the wrap for tonight. Now, to go brush my teeth (again) and get used to the taste of mouthwash, too. Oy. I’m probably going to have to build some extra time into a routine somewhere so that I can take care of my teeth like I’m supposed to now. I’m still not sure whether to say “Well, we caught it early, so that’s good” or to say “If I had taken better care of my teeth, dummy, this wouldn’t be happening.”
Moving past my own problems, Tonight’s lesson in History That Doesn’t Suck is that rice can be used as a cement. And now you know.
One way of getting more thrill into less space is to build a free-fall ride right into the side of your entertainment building.
And one more good reason why any sort of nondiscrimination amendment based on sexuality or gender should include trans people - because they're people, too, and everyone deserves that kind of protection. Better to have the extent of one’s opponents’ ability be something like trying to smear the 1964 Peace Prize winner in 1965 (for all the good it did them), rather than being able to be violent and discriminatory without any fear of consequence or revolt. Although occasionally people do just riot when stuff like that happens...
Austin Hill, in Townhall, agrees with the Czech President in questioning whether Mr. Gore has actually done anything to merit the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded, not seeing or believing that anthropogenic climate change is happening, nor seeing how someone trying to raise awareness of it has somehow contributed more to world peace. Perhaps indirectly, it can be reasoned that he is trying to bring about world peace by trying to reduce dependence and demand for petroleum products, such that when futures in crude oil have reached $86 per barrel, as they have, they can instead lessen demand, and likely, price and not contribute toward a premature petroleum shock. Some tips for the plebes to follow on reducing one’s polluting effect are available at the Happiness Project. Hrm. I suppose that counts as a paragraph about the environment for something like Blog Action Day, which was today. Or something.
Akbar Atri in OpinionJournal says despite what the Iranian government and the United Nations say, democracy advocates in Iran appreciate foreign assistance, even if it’s just operating a radio broadcast that has different perspectives that official government policy.
Domestically, potentially as a way of circumventing the process of Senate review, Mr. Bush's administration is chock-full of "acting" and interim directors and officials. Yet another feather in the Chimp’s cap for finding ways around the regulations, while a candidate who had a tagline saying "If you like oral sex, vote for me" stands by his words. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Bush-bash without someone making comparisons between now and the lead-up to the second world war. Thus, likely invoking some Internet law on the whole thing, Alternet posts a story on how much Americans now have become like the "Good Germans" of the past.
Perhaps balancing, or more probably strongly reacting to the current political climate, Ron Paul supporters continue to make media and voters say "WTF, mate?" at his continued visibility. They’re spreading information about a candidate they think can manage to sneak away with a nomination. For more insidiously, e-mail rumores are circulating that Senator Obama is a Muslim, with all the bashing, mudslinging, and Christo-superiority that goes with it. The Senator is not a Muslim, but a Christian. Regardless of the result, New Orleans would like to host a presidential debate in 2008. Might be a good way of keeping them in the public eye and reminding us that there’s still work to be done rebuilding, as well as letting them ask the candidates what they plan on doing to help reconstruct.
The last laugh may be on all of us, though as states pass differing kinds of legislation and regulation regarding illegal immigration in lieu of a federal directive. Some are inviting, others are forbidding, denying, and deporting.
As a warm up for tonight’s Quiche ceremony, observe the maxim “Opinions are comparable to rectal openings. All Humes have one.” Then, see some choice opinions expressed in support of Mr. Thompson, including someone unsure as whether sacrificing an hour of drinking time is worth being “protected” from potential terrorists. I wonder if they also consider an appropriate maths teaching technique to be flipping over a graph and tracing it, rather than teaching the transformation multiplications that produce mirror images and then graphing those. These people may very well qualify for stupid, stupid rat creature status, but the candidates for the quiche tonight are far, far better at it.
Getting into the actual competition, the forces of science (SCIENCE!), if you wish to characterize them as such, have already fired volleys today on a variety of subjects. Their lead shots come from four places where remarks critical of homeopaths, trolls, molotov cocktails, and false copyright claims all end up with the effect of having someone stop blogging or posting YouTube videos. Yet, it’s the science-types who are bullying others and silencing debates that need to be had, right? The atheists and skeptics are all forcing godless things down our throats and kicking us in the nuts when we protest?
The broadside volley comes form
jokermage himself, with pictoral reminders of why you want children to get the standard suite of vaccinations. The consequences can be severe, even deadly, if those diseases aren’t fought off, and the vaccination method is a good way of doing that. The tail strike, and tonight’s winner, is an op-ed that says that by removing religion and making all atheist is to remove the capacity for imagination and several other qualities of the good. This sounds like a more classical argument here, or maybe I’ve just heard it before. Either way, Ezra Klein notes that imagination and belief are two very separate things, so imagining something is still possible without believing it, and the Liberal Eagle concurs, as an artist and as someone who doen't believe in god.
Going out into Cool Things - take a tour of the garden that models the galaxy. Hope you’re not allergic to the space pollen. There’s also new ways of making light-bending metamaterials. So there might be some things disappearing soon. Or, perhaps, electromagnetic wormholes being opened, based on the same technology.
Last for tonight is Tim Wu in Slate, who shows just how much laws can be on the books and ignored, either through not making it look like something that should be illegal, even thought it technically is (prescription substances), or by indifference and focusing on other things (how most adult porn survives, even though there might be merit for an obscenity case).
And that’s the wrap for tonight. Now, to go brush my teeth (again) and get used to the taste of mouthwash, too. Oy. I’m probably going to have to build some extra time into a routine somewhere so that I can take care of my teeth like I’m supposed to now. I’m still not sure whether to say “Well, we caught it early, so that’s good” or to say “If I had taken better care of my teeth, dummy, this wouldn’t be happening.”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-10-16 07:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-16 02:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-16 02:46 pm (UTC)My mouthwash tastes like alcohol because I have that "restorative" one. Some of my teeth barely have any enamel on them thanks to the stomach issues. "/