Sknydpr

Awesome. HCN is non-landed? Maybe we can meet up at Hippie Hollow, if I ever get around to going up there. I have too many piercings in the wrong places to be accepted into most nudist clubs, even though I'm about as vanilla as you can get (just shinier).

Just one that I'm aware of.

Led by the schools, or simply allowing the students to pray when/if they choose to? I have difficulty reconciling the first position to (what little) I know about him, but would have no problem with the latter and I'm only slightly less an atheist than Madalyn Murry O'Hair. Speaking of which, did you know that the Texas Constitution prohibits anyone holding elected office who doesn't proclaim a faith in a higher power? They feel this is open-minded, as they don't care which higher power you follow.

Most of mine are unsuitable for polite company. Well, that's not entirely true. There are these: http://sknydpr.com/images/ahimsa-ink.jpg http://sknydpr.com/images/leezard.jpg http://sknydpr.com/images/calves.jpg This one's NSFW I have others that I could post pictures of, but don't have pics of them online.

I'm re-reading Watership Down after almost 30 years (the same copy of the book I read back then; I'm a serious book packrat). I recently adopted two bunnies and am rather obsessed with rabbits at present.

Eine bier, bitte.

Nope and big nope. Thousands of nerve endings are removed from the most sensitive part of your body, how could that not be a big change? Your fingers get dirt under the nails, should we start removing fingernails from infants? Circumcision cures nothing that soap and water can't fix.

1. I was born into the Church of Christ, the son of an ordained minister. I don't think I missed 17 Sunday services the first 17 years of my life, and shortly before I joined the Navy and moved away from home, I was attending Sunday morning services (Baptist) with my parents, Sunday evening services (Assemblies of God) with friends of mine, Catechism classes on Thursday evenings, and Saturday evening Mass by myself. While I stopped going to church shortly after I left home, having grown disillusioned with the behavior of the other members during the other six days of the week, I still was fairly religious up until age 27 or so. 2. Stone cold "you die, you're dirt" atheist. 3. Not gonna go into the details, but some events in my life made me ponder just how loving and benevolent "our father" really is. I realized that there were really only two possibilities. Either he's not nearly as loving as I'd been led to believe (normally I phrase that a bit differently), or he didn't exist. I couldn't believe the former, so I had to go with the latter. Once that veil was lifted, so to speak, the situation became much clearer. 4. I think Jesse Ventura pretty much had it nailed. At best it's a panacea for those who need one, at worst it's a reason to hate everyone who doesn't believe the same way you do.

Whats your reasoning for that? It's cosmetic surgery performed on an unwilling participent, completely incapable of defending himself or understanding what the fuck is going on, and it irreversably alters the level of sexual pleasure for the adult man he is to become. All for no medical benefit whatsoever. And, much as it is in animal rights, people will treat you like a fool for trying to protect defenseless children.

I hate circumcision. Possibly more than I hate animal abuse.

Jesus Christ, now I know how people can argue over the meaning of the word vegetarian. I'm sorry, I really don't want to argue about it anymore. I just find it bemusing that a word with such a clear definition can be so broadly interpreted. A=without, theism=religion/god I guess I should be glad that I'm not actually arguing religion and atheism.

We're getting a bit off topic here. Deism, as far as I understand it, is a specific philosophy that believes that there was/is a supreme being that created everything but has had little or nothing to do with humanity since. I'm not sure why you feel that agnosticism doesn't work. However, on the dating websites I've been to, they often call themselves 'spiritual'.

I would say they've picked the wrong word.

Pardon the minor correction: atheists do not believe in any god. That would be like a vegan that eats cows. I think you're thinking of agnosticism.

My ex-wife was vegan when we met (online). We were together for almost six years. My on-off-on-off-on again girlfriend was not vegetarian when we met, although she had been for awhile in her teen years. While she knew that the issue was near and dear to me, and would definitely be a source of conflict long-term, I never pressured her to change. After a few months, she did, completely on her own. I'm sure I was just lucky, though; I doubt that would have happened with any other person. Actually, my biggest concern initially was her career goal: she had wanted to obtain her M.D. and go into virus research. Thank Gautama that that blew over, too. Now if I can just survive her commitment issues. We've been together almost 2 1/2 years, brief splits included. I was alone for a long time -years- before I got married, although not entirely because I was a veggie. I'd gotten fairly comfortable with being a bachelor. Now I don't handle being alone nearly so well.

*I* call cheap beer "swill". Does that make me a snob?

Well, you're right: not many people buy me drinks. Or at least I tend to stay out of the kind of bars where they might.

That's a good one, hadn't heard it before. The two party system is complete bullshit, I can go for hours about it, it pisses me off so much. It is entirely geared to keep anyone but mainstream politicians from becoming elected, and the Democrats and Republicans are nothing more than two sides of the same goddamn coin. Ralph Nader couldn't even get on the ballot here in Texas last year. Plus, with the electoral college, Topher is literally correct: the individual vote means nothing in Presidential elections. Man, it is way too late for me to start talking politics. Maybe I'll get back to it in the morning.

That sounds far too healthy. (And girly. )

Oh, I have gin and vermouth in the fridge, and a solid nickel shaker that I paid too much for in the freezer. I just don't want to drink something that potent at, lessee, 1:45 a.m. local time.

I'll give you credit for the "shaken, not stirred", but dirty martinis are ing. Martinis are meant to be little more than very cold, slightly watered-down gin. I mix a mean Bombay Sapphire martini, man... Damn, now I want one but it's too late for one.

Back when Jeffrey Dahmer was being tried for murder and cannibalism, my supervisor -who was a bowhunter- thought for some reason that I'd be especially interested in the case. I asked him "what's the difference between him and you?" That ended that topic of conversation.

Don't know him, but then I haven't been paying that much attention to WWE for the last year or two. I once flipped Ted DiBiase the bird at Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport. Okay, that was way off topic...

I want some.