My fault for for the disagreement. I didn't realize I have no education or reason for ever feeling different than the "masses."....avance-you lose so much from your argument when you take the tact you do.

http://www.renewamerica.us/analyses/050317hutchison.htm

Essentially the conclusion of this paper is what I believe....But I have no right to b/c I wasn't a science major and can't think for myself....I'm going to yell to my mom now to come and tie my shoes so I can go outside and play in the cold.

The burden of proof lies with those who claim that CO2 gas has a greenhouse effect, because they have presented no understandable mechanism or process that explains how CO2 gas in the atmosphere increases heat on earth. The greenhouse metaphor that is successful for water droplets in clouds appears to be a failure when applied to CO2 gas. If we receive evasions instead of answers and explanations from scientists on this crucial question, we have a right to conclude that global warming theory does not make sense, and we can consign it to the accumulating heap of junk science, along with the discarded theory of global cooling of thirty years ago.

Oh the theories!!! All this talk about CO2! Geesh!!!
Nobody seems to be looking at methane. We all know that a lot of it is produced by cattle. So, my theory to reduce global warming is to give all the mooing critters massive quantities of "Beano" with their regular feedings.
Cow farts stink!!!!
Now, here are some other "crack-pot" theories....
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/sci...change.report/

okay i am done with this argument. it is fruitless to argue with someone who is going to cite wikipedia as a source, fails to understand basic scientific principles, and uses "words" like prolly.
if you want to make fun of PhD's and call people fun names like "cunty" be my guest. i don't have my PhD yet so you are really just making fun of all your supposed friends that have PhDs. although i find it extremely hard to believe that anyone with that level of education would associate with someone of your obviously limited education.
again i wish you a good day and i hope that in the future we can limit our interaction to horses since we obviously disagree about many other issues. as a parting note on this thread i will only ask those of you who "don't believe" in global warming to examine studies conducted in peer-reviewed scientific journals on the subject before dismissing it. you may find the level of evidence astonishing.
this has been a fun but contentious thread.
now back to the ponies!

Hey Buddy: they got a nice "cottage industry" going, don't they!

This link from the same page as yours says it all:

(http://www.denverpost.com/harsanyi/ci_5143742) It begins:

"Washington - Despite a strongly worded global warming report from the world's top climate scientists, the Bush administration expressed continued opposition today to mandatory reductions in heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases.

"Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman warned against "unintended consequences" - including job losses - that he said might result if the government requires economy-wide caps on carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. "

Oh no, not job loss!

And note where "the world's top climate scientists" stand, Randall. It didn't say "some of the world's top climate scientists".

--Dunbar

Please watch your mouth B (or in this case, your fingers). If you don't gots one yourself, it's a pretty offensive word to use in mixed company and the use of it tends to make me, at least, think a lot less of the user (and you know I like you a lot). Thanks; much appreciated.

I use that word when I get really ticked off.

I guess that's not very lady-like of me. :o

hey, maybe next we can have a darwin 'discussion'! those are always dull, boring, and unemotional.

and i too hate the word above. not quite sure why. i've been known to use other foul words..but that one just bugs me for some reason. maybe a sign of insanity?

Not in a billion years did I think I'd be having a discussion on the "c-word," as it were, on DT! Well, life is full of surprises.

No, it's not a synonym. Honestly, it's up there with the "n-word" in terms of insult when used by someone to whom it can't really ever apply, and it's really because there's not a matching word for the male anatomy in terms of pejorative. "Cocky," after all, is not always an insult, but "cunty" is. When we praise someone we say they have balls, but to criticize someone by implying they are behaving like a vagina-- well, you see?

Mind you, I don't have an issue with women using the word about each other, because, well, takes one to know one. If that makes me a hypocrite, so be it. And if there really was a matching word for men, that made them feel as bad as they make women feel when they use that term, it might be different. But there isn't.

Though I actually got called the n-word last weekend, proving there's a first time for everything. I was called a "white, red-haired n*****," to be specific. And I did imagine the man who called me it going home, smacking himself on the forehead and saying to himself, "C***! That's what I meant! White, red-haired c***!"

avance,
I almost always agree with your arguments (at least the ones I remember) and I almost NEVER agree with your style. I agreed with your anti-Bernardini rants, your posts on the Donn, and I agree with your position on Global Warming. But as a fellow academic/grad student (although not in science) I have to say that I think it is people like you that give us a bad reputation. You know you are right about this, and you must know that most people on this board agree with you. Why the pretensious air? Why do you always let yourself get caught up in these shouting matches? You seem like a smart guy, but you need to learn some tact. Will insulting people's level of education really help you win this argument? I doubt it.

I think it sorta does make you a hypocrite, for what it's worth (at least as it pertains to this conversation), just like it makes any african-american a hypocrite who uses that 'we can, you can't' double standard for any one word. Anyone you know ever called someone a "dick?" Same thing, only who cares?

when i hear the word 'cunty' i hear it as a synonym for the word 'bitchy,' which in and of itself is not a patently offensive word.

and this coming from mr. semantically sensitive too....

Well I would say there IS a difference. The difference is that somebody does care. If we don't care if people call us a "dick" then it is okay to use the word. If women are offended by the word - and many are - than it shouldn't be used. It seems strange to tell somebody "You should not be offended by this or that, because I am not offended by this other thing." If they are offended by it I say fine.....let's not use it. I don't really care what their reason is.

Although "niggardly" comes from a completely different root- the words aren't related at all. I thought that whole flack was soooo annoying. But, whatever. Language will evolve, and I guess English is not the poorer for some words disappearing.

Well obviously the first time I've ever used that word on the forum was in my previous post...it's not a prominent word in my vocabulary, so it's not like I'm going to have to all the sudden censor myself. So my post wasn't about me telling anyone what they can or cannot be offended by. But to decide that only certain people can say something is what I don't like and what I was trying to understand.

It's either offensive or it's not.

I was not accusing you of using the word! I think I might disagree with you though about something always being offensive or never being offensive. My wife or my brother could say something to me and I wouldn't be offended by it, but if one of the undergraduates I teach said the same exact words to me, I might be offended. Do you see what I mean? I think the same thing holds true for a given word. Who says it.....and how they say it......can have a lot to do with the meaning of it.

I think the reasoning behind it is that, when a Caucasian uses the word n***** against a black person, it's coming from a position of the stronger person using it to knock the weaker. Kicking the cripple, to borrow from Molly Ivins, as it were. Likewise when men use the word c***. When someone black or someone female uses the terms themselves, it's not starting from a position of superior economic or social or physical status; it's from an equal position because, on some level, it can apply to the speaker, too. Taking one to know one.

The fact is, "dick," "prick," "cock" or any other synonym for penis won't ever have the same power because we praise people by associated bravery with having the male equipment-- "ballsy," "cocky," "has cojones," "put his dick on the table," whatever. Whereas no one ever said, "man, she's got some clitoris" or "takes a lot of vagina to do that" or whatever. Call someone female and you're automatically calling them weak. We can call someone a d*ck, but it just doesn't have the same power because being male is not treated like something intrinsically bad- it's more often a compliment "act like a real man". Like "bitch," which doesn't bother me- on some level, I know I'm not a canine, whereas, I always know I have a c*nt. So it can't hurt the same way.

Does that clarify at all? It was good for me to think about it, actually. I'm pleased you called me out on it, really. :)

I am the walrus,
I am the woodchuck....
Coo coo ca choo
Coo coo ca choo

btw...I found a red hair in a lower placement...OH MY! OH MY!
tweezer time.
Love the ignore, Advance. Spares a lot of wasted finger work.
Not you...the arguer.
He's the devil's advocate.

I agree with your analysis completely.

There's a good question-- I always assumed it did, but I guess maybe someone could associate it with acting like a rooster? Strutting around crowing? I don't think "cock of the walk" has anything to do with the penis. Tell you what; I'll google right now and get back to you.

Etymology is fun, yes?

From what I can find, "cocky" originally was derived from "cock" which originally mean a male chicken, and only later became a slang term for penis. (Proving to me that men will nickname their anatomy after ANYTHING.)

And, interesting, due to "cock" becoming more commonly used for "penis" than for "rooster", "cocky" is now becoming a bad word, whereas originally it was quite innocent.

http://www.reference.com/search?q=cock

Unless you're from Australia, in which case "cocky" can mean a cockatiel. Which also struts around as if it knows everything.

I bet this is exactly the direction Steve thought this thread would go when he started it this morning!

I'll drink to that!:eek:

I absolutely get the basis for what you're saying, and I got it before my original post -- I just don't agree with it all.

All that does, I believe, is continue to give those words power...the power that we so much abhor them having.

Call me a ******. I don't care. The word holds no power in my life and it puts me in no place of subordination (though the person using it may certainly be trying to create that effect). It only holds power because people let it, and because they are afraid of saying it for fear of offending someone who still gives that word power. I'd just as soon have nobody using the word at all, but if some people are going to continue to use it as something derogatory, I hold the belief that it is only offensive if I let it be...if I choose to let that word make me "less" than another.

I dont. So it's not.

I know we just approach it from different viewpoints, you're looking at it more sociologically and societally (which i'm familiar with), and I'm just looking at it on a person by person basis. An entire group can only be chained by a word if they allow themselves to be.

I've always taken it to mean being brave, since I assume flopping one's penis out on a table would be an invitation to have it chopped off. eeek.

Though apparently Sid Caesar did literally put his dick on a table before he went on "Saturday Night Live" in order that it's size might be admired.

Or maybe it was Caesar Romero. One of those guys.

a round for the house!


..tims buying

Timm,
I'm with ya on that.
Did I ever tell ya the story about the woodchuck that thought he was a rooster?
The hens always were looking over their shoulders, poor little peckers.
Oh nevermind...you buy the next round.
Cheers!
Cabin fever seems to have set in.
Hey Timm, maybe you can explain this cause I can't figure...
Why is Dick Cheney now being called Darth rather than the dick he is?

how about grow a sack? or lately i've heard sack up...

poor mashed taters.

This thread is hilarious. :D

Fortunately, I don't travel in those circles!

And I absolutely see that viewpoint, too, but on some level, I also see how, by making racial and sexual epithets unacceptable to say, we are passively saying that having racial and sexual prejudices is unacceptable.

And honestly, Brian, I hate to say it, believing as strongly as I do in equal treatment for all of us, but it's different if you're a woman. If a straight man calls you a f*****, you probably stand a reasonable chance of being able to kick the sh*t out of him, being male yourself. We don't. A man calls us something we don't like, there's not much we can do because physically, nine times out of ten, he can beat the crap out of us. And I'm quite muscular and strong, but men are just physically stronger- my first boyfriend post-college was only 2 inches taller than I and maybe 20 pounds heavier, but he could pretty easily wrestle me to the ground. It's the way men are made and there's nothing I can do about it. And so, by calling me a derogatory term for my vagina, a guy is asserting that he's in a more powerful position than I am because ultimately, I can't do anything about him calling me those names, other than not sleep with him, and if you come down to it, he's strong enough to make that happen too if he wants. Ergo my non-issue with women using it, and my big issue with men using it. Make in unacceptable to use the words, and you make the inclination behind the word unacceptable too.

(Which is not to say a group claiming the words for themselves should substitute for actual attempts to make things better. I think it can be an easy substitute for working within those groups for real change.)

And informative! I'm certainly learning a lot.

I've heard "grow a sack," too. But no one ever says "grow a clitoris."

Though I guess I've heard "so-and-so needs to get laid" used for both sexes, which is a fine equal-opportunity insult. :)

(and, in a funny way, I applaud the attempt by the man on the subway last week to make n***** a racially-neutral epithet)