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27521. iiibbb - 7/1/2013 11:23:01 AM After my grandfather died, my grandmother expected it to be here last year of life for the next 20+ years. 27522. iiibbb - 7/1/2013 11:27:20 AM Judith and I have had some disagreements about guns and seem to manage to not call each other names. 27523. iiibbb - 7/1/2013 11:29:46 AM And they make her quite angry... Yet, no degradation of civility.
so I still think that given all of the things we can test the unborn for... More parents would choose a transgender over a fuckwit like PM 27524. judithathome - 7/1/2013 5:56:04 PM Ha!!! 27525. judithathome - 7/1/2013 5:57:05 PM round with two hinged panels that fold down,
For futuew reference, that type of tabel is called a drop leaf. 27526. judithathome - 7/1/2013 6:03:04 PM reductio ad absurdum
When I was in high school, we had to write a short piece of fiction, put it in a folder and illustrate the piece on the cover.
I wrote something extremely witty (so the teacher said) and did a cubist collage out of scraps fo paper, twine and a few other intersting things laying around on my desk.
But I didn't have a title and finally went to the dictionary for one and landed on "reductio ad absurdum"...
Ended up with an A+, I might add. 27527. judithathome - 7/1/2013 6:40:56 PM Gads..."future" and "table". Can you tell I just woke up?
Anyhow, just trying to get this back onto the innocuous blather we are so used to. Not up to PM's standards of excellence but what the hey......... 27528. PincherMartin - 7/1/2013 7:24:53 PM LOL !
Good show, Alistair.
I bet that was very hard for such an honorable man as yourself to decide you couldn't pay our bet. It took real courage, my friend. Other honorable people would have just taken the easy way out, kept their promise, and paid the wager.
But not you. You thought long and hard about it, and decided you couldn't reward such "behavior". But then you're always thinking about the high road.
And I'm equally sure you would have thought just as long and hard had you won our little wager and turned down my Nazi money. Just as I'm sure you also would have declined to gloat about winning the bet.
You're such a good man, Alistair. It's must be tough to be such a high morals in such an ugly world. Your children can be proud they have such a father. 27529. PincherMartin - 7/1/2013 8:01:41 PM Here is Alistair at his best, struggling with his honor:
"If only to spare myself the tedium of his braying about how right he was and how wrong I was (although the past five years have clearly validated my vision of the world and invalidated his)."
Silly me. I actually thought the whole point of this bet was to gloat. Sure, the sting in Alistair's wallet was nice, too, but not as important as the gloating.
Here's a man who five years swore on his honor and his name he was good for the bet. And told me where I could find him when the time came.
He was equally sure he would win, of course. So maybe he was stupid enough to think he would never be in the position where he's at today. He called the bet "easy money", like taking candy from a baby, and laughed at his good luck in finding someone to take my side of the wager. He linked to multiple advocacy websites showing how smart his bets were, and argued that I was stupid to see things differently. You see, to Alistair, the fact I took the sides I did showed I obviously didn't know anything about the subjects. Not like smart and honorable Alistair knew them. And he was willing to bet 1500 euros I was wrong.
Alistair knew who I was five years ago. He knew my politics. He knew I didn't like him, and I knew he didn't like me. He knew everything about me that he knows today.
But this weekend he suddenly came to the realization that I was a Nazi and that he had to do the honorable thing by shirking his obligation. It was the honorable thing to do, you see, and Alistair is very concerned about his honor. He couldn't possibly reward my behavior of this weekend - a weekend in which I acted like every other weekend I've ever spent online, including the weekends back when Alistair and I made our bet.
A couple of posters over at TPW warned me about this possibility, and I teased Alistair about his reliability when we first made our bet. But I gave him more credit than that. I knew Alistair was a stupid asshole, but I didn't think him a dishonest and stupid asshole. If I'd made the same wager with bhel, I would have demanded the funds be put in escrow or held by a neutral party until it was time to collect. Cause I know how bhel is. He's the kind of guy who could fuck another guy's wife and then blame that man for the adultery.
But that's bhel. I never liked Alistair, but I didn't think he was untrustworthy - until the last year anyway, when he stopped dropping by TPW to ask me what I thought about the chances of our wager, and when I saw he had a habit of welching on his bets.
Then it became clear that my chances of collecting were much dimmer than I had imagined.
Oh well, live and learn. 27530. PincherMartin - 7/1/2013 8:13:05 PM BTW, I will be paying off Alistair's debt to The Perfect World. He owes that forum $1900, and I intend to pay such a sum, in Alistair's name, for a subscription.
I will make the subscription contingent on only one thing, subject to Cal's approval, of course: Alistair will never post there again.
I don't expect such a condition to hurt Alistair. He rarely posted there, anyway. But he did occasionally come over to tell the rest of forum how the world really worked, and I think he should lose that privilege.
I also want to show that even if Alistair was never good for the money, I certainly was. I don't have the complicated and opaque approach to honor that our little Kiwi does. The check would have been in the mail to TPW today if I was in Alistair's shoes. No ifs, ands, or buts.
27531. judithathome - 7/1/2013 8:33:16 PM Jeez, I'm glad things didn't rise to this level when my neighbor backed Romney! 27532. judithathome - 7/1/2013 8:34:51 PM But this weekend he suddenly came to the realization that I was a Nazi and that he had to do the honorable thing by shirking his obligation
In all fairness, you wereverging into that territory when you suggested inferior fetuses be done away with. 27533. PincherMartin - 7/1/2013 8:58:14 PM "In all fairness..."
God, you're a twit. One minute you're complaining about the tone. The next minute, you're joining in it. Make up your mind, my dumb sweetie. Don't ask me to be kind to you when you're calling me a Nazi and defending Alistair's "honorable" behavior.
27534. PincherMartin - 7/1/2013 9:08:41 PM I've alerted Cal to my proposal for Alistair's subscription over at TPW with this highlight:
"Doing the Honorable Thing: Alistair loses a stiff bet, but rises to the occasion by doing the right thing. 27535. PincherMartin - 7/1/2013 9:13:03 PM Hey, Arky, when you Moties get together, don't leave the young kids alone in a room with Alistair or bhel.
Yeah, I know they say they'll take good care of them. Just exercise caution, that's all I'm saying. I don't want you finding out the hard way how far their honor will take them. Because it appears they have a very distinct brand of honor. 27536. arkymalarky - 7/1/2013 9:15:00 PM Singin' the step 5 blues. 27537. PincherMartin - 7/1/2013 9:18:56 PM Yeah, seven steps. I get it, Arky. You're still running on last week's joke because that's the only running you'll ever do. 27538. arkymalarky - 7/1/2013 9:23:42 PM its not a joke. It's you. Its the only thing you've ever been, and the only thing you will ever be.
And with that I leave you to continue living up to your reputation. 27539. PincherMartin - 7/1/2013 9:33:18 PM Oh, Arky, how did you see right through me? How did that magical moment of my nakedness occur to you, even after several years in which we haven't communicated more than two posts a year?
Are you just that good? Is my heart an open book to you? As you lie in your hammock, watching the clouds pass over head, is my soul exposed to your keen, half-shut eyes?
Hey, since you're so good at this, why don't you explain Alistair's sense of honor in refusing to support the German Reich by welshing on the $1900 dollars he owes TPW. Do you already have a seven-step program for it? Or do you need to go back the hammock for more mediation until it reveals itself? 27540. PincherMartin - 7/1/2013 10:08:16 PM Let me tell you something, Alistair.
It is worth every fucking penny of that $1900 I will pay to TPW just so I can enjoy this moment of watching you reveal yourself to everyone to be such a scummy, underhanded person. You really can't put a price tag on that. This is that "priceless" moment for me that you see in those famous Mastercard commercials.
If you had just run away and not posted here for a year, this day would not have been nearly as sweet. But for you to come back and defend your actions as honorable ... well, all I can say is to please let all my ideological enemies be like you.
Our bet showed definitively that you have no clue what you're talking about. You didn't come close on any of them. You not only missed the boat; you missed the whole fucking ocean.
Global environmental calamity; skyrocketing energy prices; the fall of the United States and the rise of Europe, peak oil, etc. - these are the silly kind of intellectual motifs that pop up in your conversation when you want to be taken seriously, and they completely failed you.
So I was already in pig heaven before you came in here and declared that you needed to do the honorable thing. That just flew me to the moon, Frank Sinatra style.
When I lose bets ... well, first, I do the dishonorable thing by paying up and then, second, I actually try to figure out why I missed the prediction. I believe it's important to be empirical.
When you lose bets ... well, first, you disappear and don't discuss the topics any longer with people who disagree with you and then, second, you puff up your chest and invoke honor as you break your word.
That's delicious, man. I'm fucking loving it. You couldn't have planned this day for me any better if you were my best friend and you'd bought me the best looking stripper in town for my bachelor party.
It's just that good.
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