comic interplay between the worlds of philosophy, psychology and joking around, please make sure to avoid this site:

http://existentialcomics.com

I just had my comment "Bite me" deleted by a jury decision.

This decision left me a little bit perplexed as having raised a teenager and thus watched a ton of Family Ratings Approved TV shows, many of which had young people addressing their own parents or siblings with that admonishment, I wondered what was going on.

So I did utilize the google to find out that there are two separate definitions for "Bite me"

In one case, it indicates annoyance at another person. (WHICH is where I was coming from. After all, this person I was annoyed with had baited me and had utilized tactics I would consider to be tactics not far removed from those of the Big Lie, also avoided using logic, etc.)

In another it indicates a more vulgar notion.

The URL is here: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/27753/meaning-and-usage-of-bite-me

But in common American useage, (I mean, for Pete's sake - TV shows on before 8Pm that have family ratings!) it is used without any intention of vulgarity - so I don't know why on DU it is considered to be a totally heinous expression. (I do admit I am not always up on things: I was in my late 30's, before I understood what "cut the cheese" meant.)

Do we need to have a glossary of things we can and cannot say?

Close to one half million trees are to be cut down in areas in and around San Francisco.

A healthy living forest has a most natural management system that allows for the dampness of winter rains and then the fog and other moisture available all year long to be held inside the rotting vegetation. Left undisturbed, such a forest system is the reason why a well managed forest usually does not burn down.

Trimming away dead wood and culling the forest so that sick trees are removed
is a good way to manage a forest. This is truly the way to help Mother Nature.

But this latest totally crazy plan will call for cutting tens of thousands of trees, and then - Get THIS! - leave them to dry out and become dangerous fire fodder right where they have been cut.

Full article is here:
http://treespiritproject.com/sfbayclearcut/
From the above URL:

IN BRIEF The plan to cut down over 450,000 healthy trees is an environmental disaster and creates multiple safety hazards. It will not achieve its stated objective of fire danger mitigation because:

1) the hillsides will be made MORE likely to catch fire when living trees are cut down into dead, drying wood LEFT ON THE GROUND as logs and wood chips, and not removed from the hills.

2) fast-growing, flammable plants like thistle, broom and poison oak will flourish post-clearcuts, dry out in summer/autumn, becoming their own fire hazard;

3) thousands of gallons of toxic herbicides Monsanto Roundup™ and Dow Garlon™ herbicide will be applied twice/year in perpetuity, leaching into soil, groundwater, mammals, birds, plants, and humans;

4) hundreds of acres of 2-foot-deep piles of wood chips (20% of the 2,000+ acres of “treatment” area) will be left on the ground. Forests will be turned into ground fuels, capable even of spontaneous combustion.

5) no replanting of any kind is planned, “native” or otherwise. (Not that saplings could replace large, mature trees anyway.) This is large-scale deforestation, not habitat restoration.

My spouse is using onstreamedia.com

He tested the ability to hold a webinar a week ago - having just one or two friends listen in.

Everything worked well, so he felt confidant that tomorrow, Sunday, he could produce and play his webinar at One PM our time.

Well yesterday he played around and discovered that he was getting error messages, including this one:

The audio connection could not be established. Please contact support.

If you just want to listen to the conference without speaking, you don't have to dial in from your telephone. Simply make sure that your computer speakers are on and that the volume is turned up.

If you want to actively participate in the conference, please dial the number below and follow the instructions you hear on the telephone. You will also need to click here to mute the built-in audio.


By the time he tried to figure out that he could not figure things out, as far as the above issue, it was 3Pm here in Calif, and the support team for onstreamedia.com had gone home for the weekend.

So now he has to tell paying subscribers that he has no ability to offer them the program they had paid for.

We use Windows XP with Mozilla as the browser. But get this: He also tried his brand new HP laptop with Windows Seven, and that didn't work either.

He feels like the settings on the webinar company's end of things have been changed, but the earliest he will have that confirmed would be Monday.

Any thoughts or suggestions? (At least it is a free trial, so he is not paying for the crappy product.) He would really like to switch to a different company!

####

Anyone who knows mushrooms knows Paul Stamets.

But what many people do not yet know is that Mr Stamets has filed for patent protection for a significant and revolutionary idea.

However doing so has come with a steep price. He is now being slimed by most pesticide manufacturers, and the entire idea he proposes has been blacklisted by TV and newspaper journalists.

Mushroom researcher and activist challenges Monsanto

In 2006, a patent was granted to a man named Paul Stamets. Though Paul is the world’s leading mycologist, his patent has received very little attention and exposure. Why is that? Stated by executives in the pesticide industry, this patent represents “the most disruptive technology we have ever witnessed.” And when the executives say disruptive, they are referring to it being disruptive to the chemical pesticides industry.

What has Paul discovered? The mycologist has figured out how to use mother nature’s own creations to keep insects from destroying crops. It’s what is being called SMART pesticides. These pesticides provide safe & nearly permanent solution for controlling over 200,000 species of insects – and all thanks to the ‘magic’ of mushrooms.

Paul does this by taking entomopathogenic Fungi (fungi that destroys insects) and morphs it so it does not produce spores. In turn, this actually attracts the insects who then eat and turn into fungi from the inside out!

This patent has potential to revolutionize the way humans grow crops – if it can be allowed to reach mass exposure.

Full article is at below link:

http://prn.fm/he-holds-the-patent-that-could-destroy-monsanto-and-change-the-world/