Livejournal-style Whining Thread 2.0

[Mvmarcz]

I just bought a banjo...

[Dr Legostar]

we went to african lion safari yesterday, it was pretty awesome, kinda wore us out but the elephants were great the baboons were hilarious and we got to see, much to the laughter of everyone on the tour bus, lions having sex.

[Terotrous]

Nah, mostly buildings, trees and hills in some of the big parks, random squirrels, but not girls in shorts. Most of them have pants, some even, surprisingly, skirt. I'm surprised I never saw one get into their railing.

Didn't chat corrupt you yet?

He's a work in progress. Definitely more corrupt than he used to be.

[McDuffies]

I guess we all got more corrupted then too, cause he seems relatively the same.

[Killbert-Robby]

Nah, mostly buildings, trees and hills in some of the big parks, random squirrels, but not girls in shorts. Most of them have pants, some even, surprisingly, skirt. I'm surprised I never saw one get into their railing.

Didn't chat corrupt you yet?

He's a work in progress. Definitely more corrupt than he used to be.

Thats his woman though, not us

[Ekolter]

Hugs and congrats to those who have happy news.

Hugs and "damnit!" to those with sad news.


Home from IN safe and sound. 6.5 hour trip took 9 hours with baby stops and other stops. Fun to seen family and relax on a lake for nearly a week. Now to snore until little one wakes up me up. Tomorrow is an official sit-around-in-PJs-and-do-absolutely-nothing-but-recover-day.

[Bustertheclown]

I was starting to wonder where you Kolters had gone.

[Kevin R Brown]

...Okay, I know that:

a) I've been here for, like, a day.

and

b) I'll just be wasting time preaching to the choir.

...But this has really dug under my skin tonight and I just have to vent over it.



I loathe Holocaust Denial. I loathe it like I loathe nothing else (...well, maybe - on some rare occasions - leaving the Drive-Thru window and then discovering down the road that no straws were put in the bag might be able to score higher on my throbbing hatred scale ).

I'm not Jewish in any way, shape or form, and I did not lose any of my ancestry during World War II. My grandfather on my step-father's side is Polish and was in Warsaw when Germany invaded; his house was destroyed, he was taken to a concentration camp and beaten to within an inch of his life. But that, as horrible as I imagine it must've been, has no particular attachment to the much more horrible things that happened to the 12 million or so human beings that were rounded-up and hauled off to industrial-scale extermination efforts.

What I'm trying to say is: I do not hate Holocaust Denial due to any sort of family history with it or Nazism (not that I would begrudge anyone who does). I hate it because it is an absolutely unforgivable insult to skeptical inquiry, empirical deduction, and at it's very basest sense, learning as a whole. Education, conceptually, is about improving yourself through learning from past mistakes.

The Holocaust was a really, really big mistake.

Deniers, for the most part, show great pride in their ignorance of history and butchering of the scientific method. Our cartoon protagonist in the top cartoon, for example, is asking a question whose answer should be as self-evident as the one to the question, "Well, if the train cars the Jews rode in were so miserable, why didn't they just share the ones the German soldiers were using with them?"

"You have the burden of proof - and the anecdotes from 'survivors' don't count as proof!" This challenge, while often phrased with very condescending language, is perhaps the single most accurate thing a denier is likely to say. They're right; the burden of proof is certainly on the claimant, and the stories of those who witnessed what happened - while tragic - do not, by themselves, constitute strong evidence. What does constitute strong evidence, however, are mountains of eyeglasses, mountains of clothing, mountains of shoes, mountains of hair brushes/combs, piles of corpses, piles of human ash, several pieces of home furnishing made from human flesh, meticulously kept records of the happenings at the extermination camps, aerial reconnaisance photographs, the physical camp remains themselves, diaries from German high command, corroborating independent testimony from multiple survivors, trays full of tooth fillings and jewelry, rooms filled to capacity with human hair and a myriad of assorted other pieces of damning empirical exhibits. And, of course, there's also a simple matter of the demographical mathematics; 12 million people, about 6 million of them ethnic Jews, are unaccounted for. If they aren't dead, where are they?

The Nizkor Project is a great resource to go to if you're interested in learning more. I've sent the good gents and ladies there an e-mail to give them a heads-up on BtH, and if anyone else wants to do the same, that'd be just plain awesome.

[McDuffies]

Hmh, it's not like anyone in the world takes deniers seriously. I think that those guys who claim that earth is flat have more support among public.

[Rkolter]

I don't know that "mistake" is the right word for the Holocaust. I mean, honestly. It's a mistake in the same way that 9/11 was an "airline accident".

I have to agree with McDuffies - When the country responsible for the Holocaust makes it a crime to disrespect the memory of the event, it's a good bet that deniers won't get a groundswelling of support.

[Ti-Phil]

Uh.. why is my corruption or non-corruption a subject of discussion? O_O;;;

[Risky]

Uh.. why is my corruption or non-corruption a subject of discussion? O_O;;;

You haven't drawn any half-naked half-dragons in a while.

[McDuffies]

You haven't drawn any half-naked half-dragons in a while.

Seriously, what's up with that?

I have to agree with McDuffies - When the country responsible for the Holocaust makes it a crime to disrespect the memory of the event, it's a good bet that deniers won't get a groundswelling of support.

Yeah, neo nazis seem to be a real threat nowadays, but they're not exactly denying holocaust, they just think that it should have happened.
In any case these days we're witnessing more than one kind of denial of factual proofs and common sence.

[SergeXIII]

Just saw a famitsu thingy teasing Persona 3 for PSP.
http://twitpic.com/ecikv
I'd be down for this as I haven't played FES and I think the standby features of the PSP will make long winded dungeons of P3 more tolerable. That was my only complaint about the game, was the time demand for dungeon crawling (P4 made this far more stream lined and refreshing). Theres also a new female featured. I'm guessing that this is actually a main character to choose to play as. Why? Shes holding a Persona card, and in P3 no one really ever does this, only the MC to represent his ability to swap Personas as he sees fit.

[Ti-Phil]

Uh.. why is my corruption or non-corruption a subject of discussion? O_O;;;

You haven't drawn any half-naked half-dragons in a while.

Ah, then one half dragon coming up.

[Kevin R Brown]

mh, it's not like anyone in the world takes deniers seriously.

I wish that were true.

While they should only have the kind of credibility flat-earthers do, Holocaust 'Revisionism' has a tremendous following in the Persian Gulf. Iran's newly illegitimately 'elected' President, in fact, espouses the view - along with most of his cabinet.

...But now I don't want to sidetrack a rant forum with politics. I'm done now.

Carry on.

[Killbert-Robby]

Except that they're not just denying the holocaust. The whole idea of the Zionist Plot is widely spread in the middle east, and holocaust denial is a byproduct of that. You talk about how holocaust deniers are proud of their ignorance and bla bla bla as if its their fault, but the fact is most of the holocaust deniers simply don't know any better, because its spread around their culture as a fact, and they're not even told there IS an alternative and there ARE facts.

[Rkolter]

In any case these days we're witnessing more than one kind of denial of factual proofs and common sence.

I had really liked Ben Stein until this movie. I wanted him reduced to his atomic components and sifted for valuable metals afterwards.

[McDuffies]

Ben Stein until this movie. I wanted him reduced to his atomic components and sifted for valuable metals afterwards.

Well he was cool as an actor, but as a so called "political commentator" he kinda sucked before too... though advocating banning science for some arbitrary reasons is a completely different breed of stupidity.

[Risky]

Uh.. why is my corruption or non-corruption a subject of discussion? O_O;;;

You haven't drawn any half-naked half-dragons in a while.

Ah, then one half dragon coming up.

I'm gonna call her Deception.