This isn’t a game. It’s not about winning and losing. There are very real and very serious consequences to leaving that weren’t apparent during the referendum and that certainly couldn’t have been known before the terms of leaving were actually negotiated. — Michael

Sure, and if the choice were made to stay, there'd be people arguing that they didn't realize what staying really meant. That's the thing about decisions. You are stuck with the information you have when you decide.

For some people this really is a life or death issue. There’s talk of staff shortages for the NHS and a negative effect on the medical supply chain, at least in the case of a no deal exit. — Michael

Nobody's going to die. In the US, we don't even have an NHS and everyone, regardless of income, figures out how to get care. You really need to get off the idea that the government is as necessary as it is. That's a very European viewpoint of yours.

My assessment from thousands of miles of way is that the decision to leave was ideological and wasn't based upon a review of the pros and cons of leaving versus staying. It's for that reason that I really don't think any of your data points would be very persuasive to someone in favor of leaving. It's about autonomy, self-governance, self-reliance, and a general view that Brits believe they know what's best for Brits better than anyone else. The opposition will interpret all that as racism and xenophobia I'm sure though.

Why not? You might not feel your expression is limited in any way, but what about your neighbor who does feel limited by such bans? — Bitter Crank

But can you require that Tumblr and Facebook allow the posting of pornography? That seems more oppressive than allowing them to prohibit it. There's the possibility that the Tumblr creators are like the Nobels, horrified that their innovation has been used for the forces of evil. Could be. I don't know the fuckers. Maybe they've made their good fortune and can now afford to live sanctimoniously. I, for one, would live sanctimoniously if it weren't so expensive. I don't even like to pay extra for non-abused chicken. It's likely abused chickens are more tender anyway.

At any rate, I would expect that porn on the internet will continue somewhere and somehow despite this bump in the road and that everyone will still be able to enjoy all the flavors of their choice. I'd also expect that someone new will arrive at the scene to provide a platform for whatever depravity is profitable. To assume otherwise would assume this great big capitalistic machine that controls our lives no longer works, and that just can't be.

Is it possible to have a civil response to being physically attacked? If not then is it not impossible to say someone acted uncivil when being attacked? — Medicp251

The rules of civility do not require that one commit suicide and fall on their sword when confronted with an attack. You have the right to scratch, claw, and maim if it means your survival.

A more topical and perhaps complicated question is whether one is required to civilly respond to non-physical attacks, when the attack is against some closely held belief. Such has arisen in the American political climate where Hillary Clinton said, "You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about." That asks the question of when incivility is permissible even absent physical attack.

And so do the same rules apply with regard to when we may be uncivil in physical attacks as non-physical?

Those are nasty and the center of them is usually 1000 degrees.

I was thinking of ordering one too, but I'm on this low carb diet right now.

Whatever floats your boat. — Wallows

A penny saved is a penny earned.

You're not a Stoic or a cynic, you're just a guy sitting next to his computer beside a stack of old pizza boxes.

Keep in behind closed doors, if you will... — Wallows

Don't tell me how to express my love.

Boggles my mind. You two should find a room and parade away there. — Wallows

Don't assume we haven't.

What makes you interesting is that you truly don't care what others think, exuding an unapologetic confidence in your chosen path of shiftlesness.

I'm still laughing over my last post.

Yeah, no shit.

What's your take on willpower? You seem to have an abundance of it. — Wallows

You do too. You just will to talk about your lack of willpower. You've got 6,100 posts yet you insist you can't do anything.

For example, if he were to escape the box, and see someone getting killed, what would he think? — ben

He'd think about how he lived his whole life in a box only to escape to see a murder. If I were that man from the box, I'd start to question the meaning of life, or at least the meaning of my life. That box man has had a really rough go of things.

If I say, "I looked, and it is not raining," we may properly assume I looked at "it" and made that determination, which means that "it" is not a dummy pronoun, but something that can be seen and assessed.

"It" is "the meteorological conditions outside." — Terrapin Station

"It" references a generalized state of being, making no specific reference to outside or the meteorological conditions because your sentence has no context. In the paragraph: "I got a new job selling cars and I'm making all sorts of money. It's not just drizzling a little money here and there on the showroom floor. It's raining," "it" doesn't reference the meteorological conditions and "rain" doesn't even reference cloud precipitation.

It's not a kindergartener issue. It's a serious linguistic issue. — Baden

It would strike me that the only serious linguistic issue would be one where a speaker could not convey his thoughts due to formal rules in place, yet that never seems to occur. In fact, I'd think that the speakers would just modify the rules so they could say what they wanted to.

The thought conveyed with "it is raining" is that rain is descending from the sky above There is likely some historical reason we use "it" to refer vaguely to the generalized state of being in the world around us, but why might this matter? When I take a shower in the morning, I don't wonder where I might take it. That's just how you say it. And if you tell someone that you are going to now engage in showering, you're communicating two things: you are going to take a shower and you're not a native English speaker.

You truly only read the opening line and the last line of a post, don't you? :roll: — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Kind of funny.

To respond to your WHOLE post now that you've made me, my middle age has not brought about putting on my comfy pants. I seem to be working harder these days, going to the gym more, adjusting to the kids being at college (but they're not all that far away), and whatever else I'm up to. Nothing is more anxiety producing for me than sitting still. I was at jury duty the other day, hoping to be chosen so I could ruin someone's life, and I saw everyone slouched down in their chairs waiting to be called, but I honestly couldn't just sit there. I was walking around for at least 2 hours. How do people sit still? Then I thought if everyone were like me (a Utopian thought btw), you'd have had hundreds of people just pacing around an auditorium. Maybe I'd feel at home in a place like that.

Did I tell you I bought a new puppy. He's huge! His ears are as big as an elephant's.

Cute puppy :love: — ArguingWAristotleTiff

I think it might be part basset hound because of the big ears. He sure does go through his chew toys though!

Cool. Looks good. But is this an observation, so that it just so happens that all sentences have a subject; or is it a definition, as in, if it doesn't have a subject, it's not a sentence? — Banno

Choice B, in order to be a sentence, it must have a subject by definition, but a fully formed thought need not have an explicit subject, as in @jamalrob's statement above where he said "fascinating." What's the subject of that statement? It is a fully formed thought with a clear meaning though.

Also, note that the word "fascinating" doesn't even mean fascinating in the sarcastic way he used it. I think what it really means here that it's not really all that fascinating.

I looked up how the various languages conveyed "It is raining." German says es regnet, meaning it raining (leaving out the "is"). French does the same with il pleut, leaving out the is. Moving away from Indo-European languages, Hebrew (using English letters) is yorad geshem, literally meaning rain is descending. It seems just a matter of convention. English uses the word "is" just to denote tense, as in "it is raining," instead of "It was raining" or "it will rain." Other languages don't resort to the word "it" to denote a general state of being (like Hebrew).

Consider also the sentence "It is raining cats and dogs" with "cats and dogs" being the direct object, although really the direct object isn't an object at all because there are literally no cats and dogs falling from the sky. "Cats and dogs" in the sentence means "heavily" and describes how it is raining, making the objects (cats and dogs) actually an adverb (It is raining heavily). The fact that "it" in "it is raining" has no clear referent is as irrelevant as "cats and dogs" not actually referring to cats and dogs in the sentence "it is raining cats and dogs."

What is the philosophical import of the question? The meaning of the sentence is not in dispute, which means at best you've found an anamolous grammatical structure in English. If the word "glurk" meant "rain is falling from the sky," what would the subject of the sentence "glurk" be? It'd be rain, even though "rain" appears nowhere in the sentence. What this means is that we look to the contextual meaning of the sentence for the subject and not the actual words within the sentence, but what does this show of great significance?

I got a new puppy today at the corner market. He's very playful.

if the cow flexes intensely while one's arm is all the way into the cow, it can break one's arm. — Bitter Crank

You're not a farmer, so you know this how?

I don't think that the age requirements should be abolished, I just think that they should be based on some form of scientific data and as far as I can see, they aren't. Is there any history I'm missing? What criteria should these laws be based on? — MonfortS26

It can be based upon any criteria the society wants it be set on. We set speed limits on roadways on the amount of safety we want to assure (0 mph is safest), how much fuel economy we want to have (in the 1970s interstate speed was lowered from 70 to 55), and the amount of time we want to save by allowing people to go faster. Not all of these questions are scientific, but are based upon values we have.

The age of consent is the same. We have expectations for children versus adults, and we don't want our 10 years old having sex and signing contracts.

Age of consent moves with the changing values. In the southern US, historically, the age of consent for sex was 14, but older in the north and Europe, 16 and sometimes 17. More recently, the south has raised its age under the thinking that children need protection, while Europe has dropped its age, now with the thought that children should have more freedoms.

There is also an advantage to a certain figure be decided, even if it doesn't apply well to everyone, as opposed to setting a rule that allows evaluation on a case by case basis.

That's not a bad guess, but more like this:

No one has ever actually seen me, either on this board or anywhere. I'm a Ninjew. I just made that up. I know it sounds like that's one I've been saving for just the right time, but, no, it's a Hanoriginal. I'm on fire. Fire I tell you.

In case you live under a rock, the Netflix documentary, 'Making of a Murderer', presents the trial and conviction of Steven Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, for the murder of Teresa Halbach — Marchesk

It turns out I live under a rock, never having heard of this documentary. I might watch it now though. I don't watch much TV or Netflix. I can't get the interwebs to go through my TV box right now, and I don't feel like calling the Hopper people to splain it to me. Maybe this'll motivate me.

She should sleep with the ex’s new partner. — Michael

Nice. The forbidden lady on lady love. While contrary to all I hold dear, I cannot seem to avert my eyes from it.

Was "ex-sex" a side dish at your Thanksgiving table? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

As a Hanover family tradition, I line all my exes up between the turkey and green beans and give them all a good rogering while doing an Irish jig with @baden's Aunt Mildred. She is a feisty one, but not so much so that she earns a place in the rogering line. Not yet at least.

I think he does care. In fact I think, and I could be totally off base but I think, he thinks, that he cares about you soo much that he feels you can do better with someone other than himself. That is actually caring but it cuts both of you short of the CHANCE for your caring to grow. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

If I might comment upon the oddness of discussing the pain of the breakupee while the breakuper is in the room.

I too didn’t read all the posts so my suggestion wouldn’t work either. I do however condone it for those times it will. Bonus points for sleeping with the ex’s new partner and best friend together, even if that does offend your conservative sensibilities. — Michael

In that regard I'm less a conservative and a bit more liberal/grossly reckless.

I think everyone should sleep with everyone, if for no other reason than to be sure everyone is sufficiently rested.

The pointer is on all of you.

So, full disclosure. I and Waya have been in a relationship for almost a month. I didn't dump Waya, I dumped myself; because, I can't take care of myself, am broken inside, live off of disability, and the feather that broke the camels back was when I recently decided self-medicating a stimulant (meth) would be a wise idea. The only reason I did this is that obtaining a script for Adderall or Desoxyn is too expensive for me to be able to realize. With all this shit hanging around me, I realized that Waya deserves a better boyfriend who isn't burdened with all these vices or impediments. — Wallows

I didn't read this post when I wrote my posts, so now I realize that my posts don't make a whole lot of sense because you couldn't have sex with yourself as it turns out you were her ex. Things are sort of awkward now I guess with what I said. I wish I could unsay what I said, and I guess I could by the magic of the editing button, but I think I'll just leave it all here to compound the awkwardness.

Enjoy.

@Michael

I have nothing to say to you other than to summon you over to this thread so that you can enjoy my two posts above. Enjoy.

What I wonder these days is if it was some self-imposed masochistic test of willpower or an exasperated desperate attempt to stop wallowing and be productive, or just some form of escapism. I'm pretty sure it wasn't pure hedonism. — Wallows

If it was escapism, it was lame. At least escape to the beach or somewhere it's warm. After that, go have sex with @Waya's ex-boyfriend. If she learns he was gay all along it will make her feel better. Please do this for the team.

What a great day... parents were screaming this morning, and I get to write a research paper this week, my right hand is injured, I can't keep food down without being sick, and it is so frickin cold, and dumped by a guy I actually liked... I must be negative for awhile... *hides* — Waya

You should have sex with his best friend. Granted, that hollow empty feeling will only grow within you exponentially, but nothing is sweeter than the glory of revenge. Trust me on this one. I'm occasionally right.

I just now formed a heavy metal band called Cosmic Vagina. I'm looking for a bass player.

You ask excellent questions. Shorts are pretty much out of the question because the monster dong tends to unfurl and creep down the leg, especially around feeding time. Even in triple pleated pants, His presence will be obvious. The ladies will instictively ask for an introduction, and per the rules of chivalry, a gentleman must oblige.

I didn't immediately recognize that as an eye, but thought it a cosmic vagina.