A Guide to Languages

Spanish and Italian: So THESE words are feminine and THESE words are masculine, and you ALWAYS put an adjective AFTER the noun.

French :haha i don't fuckin know man just do whatever

German: LET'S ADD A NEUTRAL NOUN HAHA

English: *shooting up in the bathroom*

Gaelic :the pronunciation changes depending on the gender and what letter the word starts and ends with and hahah i don't even know good fucking luck

Polish: here have all of these consonants have fun

Japanese: subject article noun article verb. too bad there's three fucking alphabets lmao hope your first language isn't western

Welsh: sneeze, and chances are you've got it right. idfk

Chinese: here's a picture. draw it. it means something. it can be pronounced four different ways. these twenty other pictures are pronounced the same but have very different meanings. godspeed.

Arabic: so here's this one word. it actually translates to three words. also pronouns don't really exist. the gender is all in the verb. have fun!

Latin :here memorize 500 charts and then you still don't know what the fuck is happening

Sign Language:If you move this sign by a tenth of an inch, you'll be signing "penis"

Russian: idk man its pronounced like its spelled but good fucking luck spelling it

Greek: so basically we're going to add 15 syllables to every word you know and assign it one of 3 genders at random. Also good luck figuring out where to put the accents you piece of shit

Duck Travesty

You know I really try not to watch the news anymore because it's either depressing or just plain aggravating, but I unfortunately saw the Duck Dynasty/Phil Robertson crap that's going on. I had originally told myself I wasn't going to comment on it, but I can resist no longer. This is what Phil Robertson had to say:  "It seems like, to me, a vagina—as a man—would be more desirable than a man’s anus. That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical...  Everything is blurred on what’s right and what’s wrong.  Sin becomes fine...  If somebody asks, I tell ’em what the Bible says.  All you have to do is look at any society where there is no Jesus. I’ll give you four: Nazis, no Jesus. Look at their record. Uh, Shintos? They started this thing in Pearl Harbor. Any Jesus among them? None. Communists? None. Islamists? Zero. That’s eighty years of ideologies that have popped up where no Jesus was allowed among those four groups. Just look at the records as far as murder goes among those four groups"
*Sigh* there is a part of me, the bitter and jaded part that thinks "NOT SURPRISING: the Duck Dynasty dude doesn't endorse homosexuality. SURPRISING: people actually give a shit what the Duck Dynasty dude thinks."
But of course, that part of me is very small, and the kind, caring, right's for all people, part of me is pretty pissed actually. Firstly nobody needs to comment "oh it's freedom of speech" because yes it is, however he signed a legally binding contract with A&E to uphold a certain standard of conduct, which he violated. A&E really had no other option than to suspend him, unless they fired him.
Secondly there is zero logic in attraction. None at all. Taking a cursory look around people have ended up attracted to the people they wouldn't get along with if they weren't attracted to them.
Also, stating that there is a lack of Jesus in groups of people, that aren't sects of religion is really ignorant. The Nazi's? Not a religion. Communism? Not a religion on it's face. Shinto? Also not really a religion, more of an indigenous spirit. So his statement that there was no Jesus is invalid.

“I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person," Robertson is quoted in GQ. "Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field.... They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’—not a word!... Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.” 
Then Phil Robertson dribbles this tripe about Jim Crowism that is just as bad, if not worse than the earlier statement. For one thing the cultural climate in the Southern states was one of disenfranchisement, segregation and various forms of oppression, including race-inspired violence. It was the time of that "separate but equal" bullshit that we all know was completely false. For those of you who don't know Jim Crowism were racial segregation laws enacted between 1876 and 1965 in the United States at the state and local level. They mandated de jure (meaning according to rightful entitlement or claim; by right) racial segregation in all public facilities in Southern states of the former Confederacy, with, starting in 1890, a "separate but equal" status for African Americans. African Americans were not happy at this point in time and apparently Phil Robertson was oblivious to the lynchings and the severe racism going on. The dumbass.

Numbness or Happiness?

It's like I've emotionally flat-lined

So it has been a little over nine months since I started taking Zoloft to treat depression. For the first seven months I felt nothing, no change, no anything, it was almost as though I was taking a placebo. But for the past two (ish) months I have felt...okay. Not desperately suicidal, but not overly thrilled with anything either. Originally I thought "Great! I'm getting better!" but now I'm beginning to wonder if I'm just becoming more and more numb. It's kind of like using weed, in that over time the body gets used to it, so you have to use more and more to get the same high that was attained during the first time you got high. Maybe my mind is just getting used to being depressed all of the time, and it takes more and more to make me as sad as I was. It's almost as though I've emotionally flat-lined, I just don't know it yet. I don't really remember what it was like to be happy, I mean there's "happy" for me, my standards, and there's everybody else's. I just don't know whose standards I'm at, for my standards I'm fine, for everybody else's, not so much.
There are things that I do that I enjoy, and I smile, and laugh, but there are others that I do, that I used to enjoy so much, and now I can barely stand to participate in.
Of course I barely have a relationship with my mother anymore, we don't ever talk, and when we do it's for like a minute on the phone and then it's done. But in that one minute, all the hurt, all the pain, all the sadness, all the anger, comes flooding back. I saw a picture of my mom today and I cried for about ten minutes, and I'm not entirely sure why. I miss her. In a sick twisted way, I just want everything to go back to where it used to be. When I lived at my mom's house, when I lived in constant grief and anguish. Because I had lived there for sixteen years, and it felt normal to me, the abuse, the constant fighting. By now I'm sure you're thinking "Wow, Nate's totally fucked in the head" Well maybe I am. But why do victims of domestic abuse go back to their abusers? Because being abused was normal to them.

Kanye West + Kim Kardashian = Romeo and Juliet?

So a few days ago Kanye West went on the some radio station and was talking about his significant other, Kim Kardashian, and their baby North West. He said that the love he has with Kim was a "love for the ages" and then he likened it to the classic tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. 

First of all, no your relationship is not like Romeo and Juliet. For many, many reasons. One being the age difference. Romeo and Juliet were teens, while you are thirty six and your significant other is thirty three. Also, and this is the main reason why Kanye and Kim are not at all like Romeo and Juliet, Romeo and Juliet both DIE at the end. And yes I do know that everyone dies, but not everyone dies from foolish choices, and misinformation that lead up to their ultimate suicide.

Just thought that I'd point that out.

Empathy, Emotion and the Supramarginal Gyrus

I’m ok, you’re not ok

Egoism and narcissism appear to be on the rise in our society, while empathy is on the decline. And yet, the ability to put ourselves in other people’s shoes is extremely important for our coexistence. A research team headed by Tania Singer from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences has discovered that our own feelings can distort our capacity for empathy. This emotionally driven egocentricity is recognized and corrected by the brain. When, however, the right supramarginal gyrus doesn’t function properly or when we have to make particularly quick decisions, our empathy is severely limited.

When assessing the world around us and our fellow humans, we use ourselves as a yardstick and tend to project our own emotional state onto others. While cognition research has already studied this phenomenon in detail, nothing is known about how it works on an emotional level. It was assumed that our own emotional state can distort our understanding of other people’s emotions, in particular if these are completely different to our own. But this emotional egocentricity had not been measured before now.

This is precisely what the Max Planck researchers have accomplished in a complex marathon of experiments and tests. They also discovered the area of the brain responsible for this function, which helps us to distinguish our own emotional state from that of other people. The area in question is the supramarginal gyrus, a convolution of the cerebral cortex which is approximately located at the junction of the parietal, temporal and frontal lobe. “This was unexpected, as we had the temporo-parietal junction in our sights. This is located more towards the front of the brain,” explains Claus Lamm, one of the publication’s authors.

On the empathy trail with toy slime and synthetic fur

Using a perception experiment, the researchers began by showing that our own feelings actually do influence our capacity for empathy, and that this egocentricity can also be measured. The participants, who worked in teams of two, were exposed to either pleasant or unpleasant simultaneous visual and tactile stimuli.

While participant 1, for example, could see a picture of maggots and feel slime with her hand, participant 2 saw a picture of a puppy and could feel soft, fleecy fur on her skin. “It was important to combine the two stimuli. Without the tactile stimulus, the participants would only have evaluated the situation ‘with their heads’ and their feelings would have been excluded,” explains Claus Lamm. The participants could also see the stimulus to which their team partners were exposed at the same time.

The two participants were then asked to evaluate either their own emotions or those of their partners. As long as both participants were exposed to the same type of positive or negative stimuli, they found it easy to assess their partner’s emotions. The participant who was confronted with a stinkbug could easily imagine how unpleasant the sight and feeling of a spider must be for her partner.

Differences only arose during the test runs in which one partner was confronted with pleasant stimuli and the other with unpleasant ones. Their capacity for empathy suddenly plummeted. The participants’ own emotions distorted their assessment of the other person’s feelings. The participants who were feeling good themselves assessed their partners’ negative experiences as less severe than they actually were. In contrast, those who had just had an unpleasant experience assessed their partners’ good experiences less positively.

Particularly quick decisions cause a decline in empathy

The researchers pinpointed the area of the brain responsible for this phenomenon with the help of functional magnetic resonance imaging, generally referred to as a brain scanning. The right supramarginal gyrus ensures that we can decouple our perception of ourselves from that of others. When the neurons in this part of the brain were disrupted in the course of this task, the participants found it difficult not to project their own feelings onto others. The participants’ assessments were also less accurate when they were forced to make particularly quick decisions.

Up to now, the social neuroscience models have assumed that we mainly draw on our own emotions as a reference for empathy. This only works, however, if we are in a neutral state or the same state as our counterpart – otherwise, the brain must counteract and correct.

Ashamed And Embarrassed

On October 1, 2013, the United States federal government entered a government shutdown, forcing furloughs of 800,000 workers and suspension of services not exempted by the Antideficiency Act. Because Congress did not enact regular appropriations or a continuing resolution for the 2014 fiscal year, appropriations have lapsed and about 800,000 federal employees were indefinitely furloughed without pay, while another 1.3 million were required to report to work without pay until an appropriations bill is passed or their function is no longer excepted. The most recent previous U.S. federal government shutdown was in 1995–96.
A "funding gap" was created when the two chambers of Congress failed to agree to a compromise continuing resolution. The Republican-led House of Representatives offered several continuing resolutions with language delaying or defunding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (commonly known as "Obamacare"). The Democratic-led Senate, offered several "clean" continuing resolutions. Political fights on this and other issues between the GOP House on one side and President Barack Obama and the Senate on the other have led to a budget impasse which threatens massive disruption.
The fight centered on the Continuing Appropriations Resolution of 2014 which was passed by the House of Representatives on September 20, 2013.The Senate stripped the bill of the measures related to the Affordable Care Act, and passed it in revised form on Friday, September 27, 2013. The House put the measures back and passed it again in the early morning hours on Sunday, September 29. The Senate refused to pass the bill while it still had measures to delay the Affordable Care Act, and the two sides could not develop a compromise bill by midnight on Monday, September 30, 2013, causing the federal government to shut down due to a lack of appropriated funds.
The first day of the 2014 federal fiscal year, October 1, 2013, was also when many of the Affordable Care Act's measures took effect.The health insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act launched as scheduled on October 1.
A fiery Sen. John McCain urged fellow lawmakers to resolve the shutdown crisis during a passionate speech Tuesday on the Senate floor, saying they should all be “ashamed” over denying military death benefits.
“Shouldn’t we as a body –Republican or Democrat–shouldn’t we be embarrassed? Ashamed? What do American people think when they see that death benefit for those who served and sacrifice- they’re not eligible?” He added, “I’m ashamed! I’m embarrassed. All of us should be.”
The so-called “death gratuity,” which the government sends to families of active duty service members within three days of their death, has been suspended as a result of the ongoing government shutdown. These payments help cover the immediate cost of funeral services, travel expenses to meet the coffins and give families some financial cushioning before life benefits kick into effect.
The Arizona Republican spread the blame across party lines, but took a specific dig at members of his own party for refusing to fund the government over President Obama’s health care reform law. “Somehow to think that we were going to repeal Obamacare was false and did people a great disservice!"

You know what? I'm ashamed and embarrassed of you, Mister John McCain. I'm ashamed and embarrassed  of ALL of you. I'm to the point where I think it would be okay if we took everybody out of their respective positions and put someone else in. Somebody who can see that ObamaCare is is a faux pa, but that the DEBT CEILING IS QUICKLY APPROACHING! Get that figured out, and then carry on with your temper tantrum, you moronic toddlers. ObamaCare is NOT what you think it is. Obamacare’s employer mandate incentivizes smaller companies to shift their workers to part-time status because employers are not required to provide health coverage to part-time workers.

According to a study completed by the Association of American Medical Colleges, America is projected to have a shortage of 91,500 doctors by the year 2020 due in part to an overwhelming negative view that many of them have on Obamacare. In fact, a survey completed by The Doctors Company, found that 60% of doctors feel that the pressure to reduce costs, increase volume, and improve quality will have a negative effect on patient care, causing 43% of physicians to also contemplate early retirement.

Obamacare is really happening. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll, 42% of Americans in general are unaware that the law is being implemented, while 51% of Americans ages 18-29 are unaware that the bill was signed into law in March 2010. The most commonly cited sources of information about the law were from friends and family (named by 40%), “newspapers, radio or other online news” (36%), and cable news (30%). About 10% of Americans report getting any information from a health insurance company, their doctor, an employer, or a non-profit, and few name any of these as their most important source of information about the law or how the exchanges will affect their health plans. The public remains divided on how they view the overall goals of Obamacare, with 35% reporting a favorable view, 40% an unfavorable view, and a full 24% reporting they have no opinion on the law.

Rape Culture

This is what rape culture is like:

Imagine you have a Rolex watch. Nice fancy Rolex, you bought it because you like the way it looks and you wanted to treat yourself. And then you get beaten and mugged and your Rolex is stolen. So you go to the police. Only, instead of investigating the crime, the police want to know why you were wearing a Rolex instead of a regular watch. Have you ever given a Rolex to anyone else? Is it possible you wanted to be mugged? Why didn’t you wear long sleeves to cover up the Rolex if you didn’t want to be mugged?

And then after that, everywhere you go, there are constant jokes about stealing your Rolex. People you don’t even know whistle at your Rolex and make jokes about cutting your hand off to get it. The media doesn’t help either; it portrays people who wear Rolexes as flamboyant assholes who secretly just want someone to come along and take that Rolex off their hands. When damn, all you wanted was to wear a nice watch without getting harassed for it. When you complain that you are starting to feel unsafe, people laugh you off and say that you are too uptight. Never mind you got violently attacked for the crime of wearing a friggin time piece.

Imagining all that? It sucks, doesn’t it.

Now imagine you could never take the Rolex off.