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This is the sky over my house. https://t.co/gHON08EHyV
Posted by
wilw on Sat Jul 23 22:44:58 2016.
wilw on Sat Jul 23 22:44:58 2016.554 likes, 57 retweets
348 likes, 31 retweets
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Just a girl trying to make her way in the world.
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554 likes, 57 retweets
348 likes, 31 retweets
The Sonoran Desert
The Sonoran Desert
The Sonoran Desert
20 public comments
Not applicable in Canada but a good lesson I'm discourse.
ÜT: 53.542319,-113.494597
Wikipedia: "The Citizens' Councils used economic tactics against African Americans whom they considered as supportive of desegregation and voting rights, or for belonging to the NAACP; the tactics included 'calling in' their mortgages, denying loans and business credit, and boycotting black-owned businesses. In some cities, the Councils published lists of names of NAACP supporters and signers of anti-segregation petitions in local newspapers in order to encourage economic retaliation. For instance, in Yazoo City, Mississippi in 1955, the Citizens' Council arranged for the names of 53 signers of a petition for school integration to appear in a local paper. Soon afterward, the petitioners lost their jobs and had their credit cut off." -- Apparently, no free speech rights were violated.
chicago, il
This strikes me as an 'argument from definition'. But the definition itself is contested. Lot of rights don't work this way, for instance there are non-retaliation laws asociated with many rights (especially in labor law -- say the right to marry includes the right, for the most part, not to get fired for getting married).
Northern Virginia
I'd love to post this at the end of every news site's comments policy.
Boston, MA
I have to save this for future postings, everywhere
It's dawning on me that wikipedia needs Tl;DR links pointing to the relevant xkcd pages.
New York, NY
You haven't lived until you've shared an XKCD online
New York
reply
Eventually, XKCD will be the answer for every ridiculous argument.
Charlotte, North Carolina
Alt text: I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express.
07974
THIS X1000
Yet another xkcd that will be reposted and reposted until the sun burns out.
Bartlett, IL
.
Atlanta, GA
This was basically designed to be passive-aggressively linked to in mailing lists/forums/IRC...
north bay, California
Alt text: I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express.
Oakland, CA
'ten fashion trends men ha—'
'it's a huge turn off when you—'
'men think you should stop—'
1 public comment
The Sonoran Desert
17 public comments
Well, but where is MiB and Greys and a lot of other secret rulers of the (not-so-good-site) of the Atlantic Ocean
YES.
Kensington, California
Also, please make more bacon.
Orange County, California
Maybe all the organizations the control the US government are too busy arguing with the other members of the cabal to get organized?
Florida
If only this were true...
Manassas, Virginia
Yes. Please.
Saint Joseph, MI
PLEASE!!!!
Yep.
Washington, DC
Ha! Definitely!
Atlanta, GA
Grève forcée des fonctionnaires US (pas en France que ça arriverait ><)
Word. This is amazing.
Seriously, now.
Greater Bostonia
It is also dangerous.
And it is especially dangerous when applied to four-year-olds.
Four-year-olds lack the experience to wield power responsibly. They have no idea what to do with it or how to control it.
The dinosaur costume was the greatest thing that had ever happened to me. The previous Halloween, which was the first Halloween I could actually remember, my parents had dressed me as a giant crayon, and the whole experience had been really uncomfortable for me.
But being a dinosaur felt natural.
And powerful.
The feeling had been slowly intensifying ever since I put the costume on that morning, and, as I stood there in the middle of the classroom, staring off into the distance in an unresponsive power trance, it finally hit critical mass.
I had to find some way to use it. Any way. Immediately.
I had to find some way to use it. Any way. Immediately.
The other children screamed and fled. The teacher chased me, yelling at me to stop. But I couldn't stop. I was a mindless juggernaut, a puppet for forces far greater than myself.
All I knew was that being a dinosaur felt very different from being a person, and I was suddenly able to do things I had never even dreamed of before.
Of course, I had always had the ability to do these things — even as a person — but I didn't know that. I'd just assumed that I was unable. As a dinosaur, I didn't have any of those assumptions. It felt like I could do whatever I wanted without fear of repercussions.
The repercussions were also exactly the same as they were before I became a dinosaur.
I just experienced them differently.
My parents had to come pick me up at noon that day. The teacher explained that it must have been all the Halloween candy. "Some kids really can't handle sugar," she said. "It turns them into little monsters."
I suppose it was a reasonable enough conclusion, but it only served as a distraction from the real problem.
The thing about being an unstoppable force is that you can really only enjoy the experience of being one when you have something to bash yourself against. You need to have things trying to stop you so that you can get a better sense of how fast you are going as you smash through them. And whenever I was inside the dinosaur costume, that is the only thing I wanted to do.
The ban on sugar provided a convenient source of resistance. As long as I was not supposed to eat sugar, I could feel powerful by eating it anyway.
I'm sure the correlation started to seem rather strong after a while. I'd find some way to get sugar into myself, and then — drunk on the power of doing something I wasn't supposed to —I would morph into a horrible, psychotic monster. To any reasonable observer, it would appear as though I was indeed having a reaction to the sugar.
My parents were so confused when when the terror sprees continued even after the house had been stripped of sugar. They were sure they had gotten rid of all of it. . . did I have a stash somewhere? Was I eating bugs or something?
They still weren't suspicious of the costume.
They still weren't suspicious of the costume.
I lost weeks in a power-fueled haze. I often found myself inside the costume without even realizing I had put it on. One moment, I would be calmly drawing a picture, and the next I'd be robotically stumbling toward my closet where the dinosaur costume was and putting myself inside it.
It started to happen almost against my will.
It started to happen almost against my will.
Surely my parents made the connection subconsciously long before they became aware of what was really going on. After weeks of chaos, each instance punctuated by the presence of the costume, I have to imagine that the very sight of the thing would have triggered some sort of Pavlovian fear response.
They did figure it out eventually, though.
And the costume was finally taken away from me.
I was infuriated at the injustice of it all. I had become quite dependent on the costume, and it felt like part of my humanity was being forcibly and maliciously stripped away. I cursed my piddling human powers and their uselessness in the situation. If only I could put on the costume . . . just one more time.
But that was the costume's only weakness — it couldn't save itself. I had to watch helplessly as it disappeared inside a trash bag.
There was nothing I could do.
And so my reign of power came to an end, and I slowly learned to live as a person again.
The Sonoran Desert
11 public comments
The "Something is wrong. Something is going to happen." is absolutely correct.
Awesome
Baltimore, MD
dinosaurs are more powerful than parents
New York, NY
The power... the POWER...
As good an explanation as any to explain politicians and their behavior :)
Waterloo, Canada
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