How to Get Hundreds of Upvotes on Reddit, Part Eleventy Billion (Hint: It involves making light of domestic violence.)

WE HAVE TO GET THIS COUNTRY BACK ON THE COPPER STANDARD!!

Yep, as of today (Feb 4) they are officially withdrawn from circulation. Stores and banks will no longer be giving them as change, and the Royal Canadian Mint has apparently started melting them down. The will remain legal tender indefinitely, and electronic transactions continue to count cents, but businesses giving change round off to the nearest nickel from here on out.

Oh gawd, pennies, noooo!

PGTOW… *sniffle*

I kid, of course. Hopefully this means at some point that my wallet will be a little lighter. I’m just going to keep a couple to show my grandkids someday and besides that, good riddance. =)

Hey, I got to see Canada’s new polymer bank notes today (being trained by a nice programmer dude from PEI who did a show and tell) — they’re cool, those bank notes. Even though I guess the maple is not actually a Canadian maple but a Norwegian maple… And he also said Canada is giving up on pennies. Now I want to move to Canada, just because of your monetary policies.

Ha! we got polymer bank notes years ago! (They were invented in Australia in 1988) And we gave up 1 and 2 cent pieces in 1990. Wikipedia tells me that melted down coins were used to make bronze medals for the 2000 Olympics, so that’s pretty nifty.

Speaking of stress smoking: a friend of mine told me that many people breathe most deeply when they’re smoking, particularly if they’re stress- or angry-smoking, and that it’s the deep breathing that calms you down more than the nicotine

I heard/read that nicotine’s biphasic effect (relaxing or invigorating) is based on the dosage. Which is not all that unusual for a drug. So it’s not that the breathing calms them, rather that by breathing deeper, they are giving themselves a bigger dose faster. Lucky the bigger dose is relaxing though… imagine if it were the other way around. 🙂

And re that stormfront thing: that is so ridiculous. Their main premise that they are victims of genocide is easy-to-verify wrong. Even if the assimilation stuff were true, it’s still not genocide. They even mention the UN convention of genocide s it’s easy to find the facts. How can they be so smug when their arguments are so shoddy?

Economical, yes, but it seems like it’d be rubbing salt in the wound to know your third-place medal was made from unwanted pennies.

I wouldn’t expect you’d have much luck with the Stormfront people. Article 2 of the CAG includes as genocide “(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;” and forced population transfers are increasingly being understood to count as genocide.

So, if you assume the same facts the stormfront peple do, then their legal case for genocide is not so shabby.

It’s just that you’d have to be an insane white nationalist to think immigration and people of different ethnic and racial backgrounds intermarrying are conditions that trigger the application of CAG § 2(d)-(e) or ICC Art 7’s prohibition on Crimes Against Humanity which expressly includes forced population transfers and persecution.

I think the only real response to outright bigots like Stormfront is to say, “You are a bigot and you suck.” You can’t argue. They live in such a twisted world.

Moonz, yeah, it’s hard to imagine that they could say that seriously. Lots of stupid people misuse logical fallacies or make up new ones for things their opponents do that they don’t like (“code pink!”), but virtually everyone at least pays lip service to them and doesn’t actively encourage people to commit fallacies.

I don’t aim to discourage anyone! But I know some who crave even months and years after quitting. It’s my third attempt at quitting but I haven’t smoked for 2 months now cold turkey, because it’s the only thing that works for me. It also helps that I’m too busy and too broke to go out! I know I always love the harsh sensation in my throat and the excuse it gives me to go on study breaks and work breaks. I like going out for 10 minutes to smoke, wake myself up, and return to studying. It’s therapeutic, especially when I’m worked up or upset, and for some reason nonsmokers are of the opinion that smoking doesn’t make you feel anything.

Heck, I still crave a smoke now and then, and I officially quit (for the second or third time) three years ago. But I’ve gone from 1 or 2 cigs a day to 1 or 2 a year, so I call that a win! The key, at least for me, is not to let the occasional slip be an excuse to take up the habit again.

Oh man, I don’t know how I’d have gotten through college without those smoke breaks. A short walk, some fresh air, and come back to studying feeling fresh and invigorated…yeah. I often have the urge at conventions, too, when I realize I haven’t been outside in two days and a smoke would be the perfect excuse, AND a chance to socialize.

That was an interesting if rather creepy article, Kim. No, I’ve no idea what the leaving-your-essence idea is called.

I think the recoil from West’s cardigan (fake as it turned out to be) is simply not wanting to be so intimately associated with him; to be in the exact same space as him. It’s like the mirror of being in a place Louis knew during his earthly time, or even handling the jumper I knitted for him. No “rational” reason for that, sure, though I’m a bit iffy on the way this instinctive/intuitive reaction is called superstition. If it’s hard-wired, it seems … I dunno, like there’s going to be an “oh you religious types!” swipe somewhere, even though the researchers point out that it isnt’ the case.

The most interesting part of the article for me was “For believers, there’s a hidden dimension to reality. There are passions out there, there are energies operating in the world controlled by invisible forces. Believers recognize this as the basis for a lot of their supernatural beliefs about the world.” I’d be classed as a believer as long as we’re not talking organised religion. I’m not big on their phrasing of “invisible forces” because it makes it sound like some sort of malevolence is involved. To me “invisible” is no more weird or sinister than saying I can’t see X because they’re in another room, or across town, or across an ocean. I’m a tad pissed off with being labelled supersititious because I don’t dismiss everything that’s not oh-so-rational and purely physical in the earthly sense. It seems rather hypocritical, apart from anything else, given (as the article makes clear) everyone has this element in their thinking. It’s a matter not of kind but of degree … or possibly of recognition, I don’t know.

(this stream of consciousness brought to you by Anything’sBetterThanWorking.com)

I don’t think there needs to be a superstitious aspect to it. Can’t it just be an item you dislike? One can like or dislike something for any reason, after all, and not liking where it came from seems as reasonable as any other factor. For instance, I might dislike a present given to me by a person I don’t like or under circumstances I didn’t like and it’s not because I think they left cooties on it or any sort of woo like that.

I think the association with the person or circumstances is ample reason. I mean, they picked an utterly abhorrent person (Fred West) as the object of their test – wouldn’t it be more surprising if people didn’t react strongly to his name? There’s the whole thing of ownership, too, which is so strong in our society. Things become associated with their owners.

@kitteh: I actualyl find it kind of comforting. I don’t believe in the supernatural at all. Conciously I know there is no way someone leaves an imprint or whatever on an object, but I still have the feeling anyway. One of the reasons I like hand-made things, and one of the reasons why it’s so hard to define hand-made – because it does rely on this concept-we-don’t-have-the-name-for. But it is almost like they are saying even if you don’t believe it, your feelings are still valid, and you can enjoy them. You know what I mean?