Topic for the Day -- Open For Posting

Premise: "No voluntary transaction between human beings should be be curtailed."

Do you agree or disagree? Do you agree, but with some exceptions?

Mingle. Discuss. Don't post flames...unless they're pictures of cute gay men, and accompanied by on-topic discussion. ;P

That's So Barbaric!

My S.O. and I were having a discussion on the use of the word "barbarian" to describe things that are horrific, savage, or otherwise distasteful. At one point the conversation went something like this:

Him: "Yeah, the Chinese thought the British were such barbarians."

Me: "Which is funny, because the British thought the Chinese were barbarians, even though the Chinese had been technologically superior for a much longer time."

Him: "Clearly, neither of these cultures was 'barbaric'. So basically, all 'barbaric' really means anything that isn't your own culture."

Me: "So true. But that's actually close to the original meaning of the word. It used to refer to anyone who was non-Greek, or later non-Roman. It had a negative connotation because the Greeks and Romans assumed they were superior and anyone who didn't speak their language was a backwards hick -- uncultured, uneducated, unsophisticated. They thought that all other languages sounded like incoherent ramblings, or in other words all foreigners could say was 'bar bar bar' -- hence, 'barbarian'. It's kind of like us saying 'blah blah blah'."

Him: "Or 'yada yada'."

Me: "So today they would be 'yada-yadians'?"

Him: "Hah! That's so yada-yadic to say that!"

There you have it folks: a new word has been born. We can no longer use the word "barbarian" because of its violent connotations (and associations with muscular Conan), but we have reclaimed the original meaning of the word by putting it into modern terms. Now you, too, can adopt the cultural superiority of the Greeks and Romans and look down your nose at anyone to say they're inferior without implying that they're either violent or muscularly endowed.

So next time you run across someone who can't type decently, who seems uncultured, uneducated, or unsophisticated -- or maybe they just don't belong to your superior culture -- just remember the Greeks and Romans and proudly proclaim, "You're so yada-yadic!"

The Truth Revealed: Antibiotics are Pseudo-Science!

An amusing article, explaining the reasons why antibiotics and germ theory are a falsification by the scientific medical community, using arguments similar to those used by creationists:

"ANTIBIOTIC EFFECTIVENESS: A CRITICAL REVIEW"

[Warning: This is a Poe's Law, so don't take it too seriously. ;P]

However, this one is not a Poe, from FSTDT:

Gravity: Doesn't exist. If items of mass had any impact of others, then mountains should have people orbiting them. Or the space shuttle in space should have the astronauts orbiting it. Of course, that's just the tip of the gravity myth. Think about it. Scientists want us to believe that the sun has a gravitation pull strong enough to keep a planet like neptune or pluto in orbit, but then it's not strong enough to keep the moon in orbit? Why is that? What I believe is going on here is this: These objects in space have yet to receive mans touch, and thus have no sin to weigh them down. This isn't the case for earth, where we see the impact of transfered sin to material objects. The more sin, the heavier something is.