Zompist Bboard Again

It's now been about ten years since I bought the first handful of DVDs that eventually grew into a fairly large de facto DVD collection. I say "de facto" because I never set out to collect DVDs, the way people set out to collect sports cards or action figures. I just thought it would be ni...

An elderly friend of the family is in the hospital after a stroke. I don't know her that well personally, but I know her husband fairly well.

Which pronunciation of Chicago do you favor (I have been listening about "End of Beginning" by Djo, i.e. Joe Keery, on repeat today), which prominently has THOUGHT in Chicago while from hearing people from Chicago speak I generally hear it with a clear centralized or even fronted LOT (i.e...

Raphael wrote: ↑Sun Apr 07, 2024 3:44 pm What is the exact meaning of the word "cute" in Hiberno-English? It seems to be subtly different from its meaning in most other varieties of English, but I'm not entirely sure how.

Bump?

From the Nietzsche thread: Well ok. I have never actually watched Southpark so I didn't get the reference. Pretty much everyone I know considers the show intensely bigoted and reactionary, for what it's worth. They were libertarians, but they do oppose Trump. Penn Jillette was libertarian too until...

Are Americans that interested in socialism? If the answer turns out to be'not that much' well, it still sucks but the situation does reflect public opinion. The key thing is that the vast majority of Americans don't know what socialism is and confuse "socialism" with either social democra...

Got hit with a slur today by some guy who claimed that English has stopped evolving and is now frozen. This is the first time I can recall having been hit with a slur that refers to a group I belong to. 1) Sorry to hear that. 2) Is that slur a relatively recent coinage? In that case, it would be qu...

It's been said all over the internet, but it's worth repeating: The entire strategy of the Democratic Party is to be one yottameter (no more no less) to the left of the GOP, so they can stake a claim to 50% of the Overton window without spooking their donors or rattling their own personal finances....

What is the exact meaning of the word "cute" in Hiberno-English? It seems to be subtly different from its meaning in most other varieties of English, but I'm not entirely sure how.

Good luck, bradrn!

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Apr 07, 2024 12:59 pm

(Also, re Ares Land: ‘there’? I got the impression that you live in Paris yourself…)

I think he mentioned a while ago that he was moving somewhere else, which was part of why he didn't post much for a while.

Anyway, I mostly stay out of the "Libs discover world politics" threads, but geez, this one is bad. Err, what? If by "Libs" you mean "anyone who's neither a tankie nor a right-winger", then, whatever the flaws of their own understanding of the world, they at least make...

rotting bones wrote: ↑Sat Mar 30, 2024 2:00 pmTaking random vitamins for general health is a scam. (Originally, scammers sold them as a cure for cancer!)

Yes, that's the reason why I posted my initial question.

Problem is, I'm not in an actual apartment building. I'm in what different parts of the English-speaking world apparently call an ADU or a granny flat. So all things related to house management are generally handled less "formally" than they would be in a regular apartment block. The annoy...

Our heating and hot water are gone, and our landlady and landlord are on vacation.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2024 7:19 pm
The US used Japan and South Korea as forward bases to exert influence on the Far East too: https://youtu.be/12ddOpt7Hio

Yeah, but both of those are geographically larger and have significant numbers of US troops stationed there, so the US can use them as bases for operations.

I'm obviously not a doctor, but if you don't want to take a pill then you could look into eating foods high in natural vitamin D, like whole milk, some mushrooms, leafy greens, certain kinds of fish, etc. The main reason doctors suggest pills for this is it's easier than changing your entire diet, ...

I do believe the leadership of rich Western countries -- the US, of course, but also others -- sometimes/often thinks of Israel as a 'middleman country', a useful foothold in a resource-rich troubled region. Both many of Israel's supporters and many of Israel's opponents like to talk about how impo...

Thank you!

OK, everyone, I need a second opinion: I had a general health checkup at my GP's office on Monday, and the result was apparently that I'm mostly in fine health, but seriously lack Vitamin D, presumably because I don't get out enough. So now my GP wants me to take Vitamin D supplements. Is that legit...

jcb wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2024 10:57 amWhen I was a child/teenager in the church, I wasn't aware about the sexual abuse scandals until the Boston Globe report in 2002.

Weren't jokes, or, if you prefer, "jokes" about that stuff already fairly common before 2002?