On the way down I270 to work today I was monitoring the CB radio to find out why I was in the traffic jam. The following conversation took place and it was so wrong on so many levels and I feel real bad that I was amused…
Trucker 1: “Why are we all backed up here?”
Trucker 2: “A big sheet of ice just fell off the front tandem and cut the brake line between the trailers. They’re trying to drag it out of the road.”
Trucker 3: “You know they’ll give that driver a ticket for that!”
Trucker 2: “That sucks.”
Trucker 3: “Tell me about it. They ought to hire a nigger to clean off the tops of them trucks!”
Trucker 1: “Now that’s ignorant! Don’t you know this is 2007? Don’t you know we don’t have to be that way? Where the hell did you grow up? Sheesh!”
Trucker 2: “That’s right! Besides they’d hire a wetback anyway.They’re cheaper!”
Almost any random episode of “The Larry King Show” tops everything, but the worst was on the millennium show on CNN:
Larry (to the Dalai Lama): “So, as a Muslim, what do you think of Jesus Christ?”
The holy one does not seem to believe his ears, and starts adjusting his ear piece- “Excuse me, I don’t think I heard you correctly”
CNN cuts to a commercial. On return, Larry has this to offer: “And I have been told that the Dalai Lama is of course one of those great, great Buddhists!”
[QUOTE=Happy Wanderer]
The holy one does not seem to believe his ears, and starts adjusting his ear piece- “Excuse me, I don’t think I heard you correctly”
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I wonder if the Dalai Lama was actually enlightened enough to have thought those exact words, or if he was like most dudes and secretly thought, “What the fuck did you just say, dumbass?”
[QUOTE=Nic2004]
A short while back, while discussing learning aids for our young son, my SIL said, “Oh! You should get him that reading program that everyone is using. You know. Hooked On Ebonics.”
I’m sorry to say I laughed out loud, nearly spraying everyone with my drink.
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That is the actual title of a gay porno film.
A conversation I had with a rabid, carfd carrying anti-abortionist:
Him: Abortion should be illegal. Life starts at conception.
Me: what would you do with all the frozen embryos in storage. Force women to carry them to term?
Him: Well, no.
Me: But they are people. Killing them would be murder. After all, they were conceived.
Him: I meant conception in the mother. It’s not a baby if it’s outside the mother.
[QUOTE=Happy Wanderer]
Almost any random episode of “The Larry King Show” tops everything, but the worst was on the millennium show on CNN…
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Truly, every show of his contains a line that makes you wonder how such a senescent idiot hasn’t been taken off the air. But I hardly think that’s the worst.
A random one that stands out to me as typical: A couple years ago he was interviewing the survivor a horrifically brutal rape (she was stabbed and slashed scores of times during it) and he asked, verbatim: “While he was making love to you, what was going through your mind?”
Again and again he comes out with these things that make you wonder just how over-medicated he must be, and yet… he’s still on the air. I don’t understand.
[QUOTE=jjimm]
Yes, and that irritates me about 90% of the religion vs atheism threads even on the SDMB: most of the religious people, and many of the atheists too, are arguing about “God” (Yaweh,/Allah), and not “gods” in general. The argument takes different routes if couched in the latter terms, and (IMO) is where the atheists should be coming from, even if their religious counterparts aren’t playing all.
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What’s even more troublesome with those debates is the concept that every god behaves in the same manner or is believed in for the same reasons. Also, not every religion (the majority don’t) has a requirement for proselytizing as part of their doctrine. Yes, the majority religion (and their subsets) do have these requirements in the US, but there’s a good portion of religious people that don’t believe in what a lot of the atheists harp about in the religion vs. atheism threads.
Speaking of religion, when I mentioned to a coworker way back when I worked in foodservice that I didn’t celebrate Christmas, she asked me if I was a Mormon. Uhm, from what I remember, Mormons celebrate Christmas or at least acknowledge it. However, she asked me if I was a Mormon in the same way she’d ask me if I ate babies on skewers for breakfast.
[QUOTE=Larry Mudd]
Truly, every show of his contains a line that makes you wonder how such a senescent idiot hasn’t been taken off the air. But I hardly think that’s the worst.
A random one that stands out to me as typical: A couple years ago he was interviewing the survivor a horrifically brutal rape (she was stabbed and slashed scores of times during it) and he asked, verbatim: “While he was making love to you, what was going through your mind?”
Again and again he comes out with these things that make you wonder just how over-medicated he must be, and yet… he’s still on the air. I don’t understand.
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Gawd. Just Gawd. The man is an imbecile. And a tool .
What is worse, is that he is a misery pimp. Your example is classic. That interview should never have taken place.
Well, the man can be satisfied with a series of gold diggers, so he doesn’t treat himself any better. I wonder if the pre-nup specifies how long his current bimbo has to put up with him before she can take his money…
[QUOTE=Larry Mudd]
Truly, every show of his contains a line that makes you wonder how such a senescent idiot hasn’t been taken off the air. Again and again he comes out with these things that make you wonder just how over-medicated he must be, and yet… he’s still on the air. I don’t understand.
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Well, YOU are watching him “again and again” apparently. Love him or hate him, you are tuning in, thus enabling the network to deliver their product to the customers.
It’s like watching a car chase on TV. You know you are just waiting to be horrified by an awful wreck. I think a lot of people listen to Dr. Laura for the same reason.
[QUOTE=olivesmarch4th]
From what I remember from my Linguistics class, essentially from birth the brain begins to recognize patterns of the language in one’s environment, and gradually shuts off alternative options. Babies as young as six months may not be able to speak, but they comprehend a lot more than most people give them credit for. It is true that there might be some basis for learning the Korean language in an infant’s brain, however the brain remains extremely elastic and open to learning any language natively (prime years are up to age 6ish? after that it gets harder, and after puberty it is significantly harder for a child to learn a language.) Basically, whether a six month old comprehends some Korean patterns is irrelevant… kids are extremely efficient language learners–their abilities far exceed adult brains… so the child would flawlessly learn to speak English, provided he is adequately exposed to said language.
Based on what I’ve learned about language acquisition, its really fascinating stuff…
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Probably pre-birth, and amusingly enough, our son had baby speak with a notable Asian accent when he did start talking in anything understandable (that was around 14 months or so - he lost it about three). Kids adopted after they are verbal often fo silent - they don’t talk for a few weeks - then pick up in their new language and completely forget the old one.
But babies at six months don’t communicate verbally with anyone other than through crying and cooing (I’ve seen people say their six month old can sign, but I think that is more common in a few months - my sister did that with my nephew and it made eleven months easier, but not six.) And while they may understand you, since they can’t do much about it (six months is the start of mobility for most kids), it isn’t really a useful skill.
(My daughter, a very verbal kid and early language acquirer could say “ba-ba” not much later than six months).
[QUOTE=Dangerosa]
Probably pre-birth, and amusingly enough, our son had baby speak with a notable Asian accent when he did start talking in anything understandable (that was around 14 months or so - he lost it about three). Kids adopted after they are verbal often fo silent - they don’t talk for a few weeks - then pick up in their new language and completely forget the old one.
But babies at six months don’t communicate verbally with anyone other than through crying and cooing (I’ve seen people say their six month old can sign, but I think that is more common in a few months - my sister did that with my nephew and it made eleven months easier, but not six.) And while they may understand you, since they can’t do much about it (six months is the start of mobility for most kids), it isn’t really a useful skill.
(My daughter, a very verbal kid and early language acquirer could say “ba-ba” not much later than six months).
[/QUOTE] IF true, this provides a modicum of evidence that confirms the legitimacy of my assertion of memories from the womb, my own circumcision, and other memories that most scientific folks claim are impossible.
Recovering “memories” when suggestible under hypnosis != recovering “past life” memories under similar conditions != memories from the womb and other very early memories that I have always had as far as I can tell and never really talked about much.
End threadjack that may qualify as a subject of this thread to some!
I once knew a fairly well-educated guy (much more knowledgable than I at, e.g., setting up a network of office computers) who was sure optical computers would be a quantum leap forward in speed, because the computers we use now transmit their signals via sound, and light is faster than sound.
In high school I had a teacher who could not get her head round the difference between ‘mammal’ and ‘animal’.
During breaks we’d sometimes play a game where a letter of the alphabet and a category card were randomly selected. The first person to shout out an appropriate match kept the card. For example, letter A and category ‘metal’ might get aluminium.
One of these categories was ‘animal’. No matter how many times I tried to explain it to her, she could not get that reptiles, fish, birds etc were also animals. According to her an animal had fur and live young. :rolleyes: In exasperation I did once enquire whether she thought that snakes were plants or minerals but she told me not to get smart.
[QUOTE=CaerieD]
Back in the 1960s, my uncle was a Junior High student and wrote a presentation on lasers for school. He went through what they were, how they worked, and all of the potential applications. By all accounts from the family, it was quite good and well researched. However, he got an F on the presentation. Why? Because his teacher said he was making it up. His teacher claimed there was no such thing as “lasers” and had never heard of them.
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He should have told him it was a “1960’s style ray gun”
I remember how a nun, during some Bible classes, told us all about the stars being small lights in the sky and whatnot.
Trouble was, I’d just read all kinds of stuff about the stars being light-years away and ginormous suns to boot. I was flabbergasted and didn’t hide it.
She was sweet and nice, but honestly not the best person left to explain religion to a bunch of 8-year-olds.
I knew a science professor at a business college who informed his class that the temperature in deep space was about 300 degrees below absolute zero. When I questioned if he meant about 300 degrees below [centigrade] zero he said no, definitely way below absolute zero. I tried to insist that absolute meant absolute and that any object in deep space would actually be slightly above absolute zero he countered that “temperature” didn’t have much meaning under those conditions and that he just wanted the students to have some appreciation of how cold space was.
I wonder if the pre-nup specifies how long his current bimbo has to put up with him before she can take his money…