I don't think it's "improbable" that professional storytellers would be good at explaining things.

#15 - Exactly right.

I've noticed a tendency in a lot of articles (I'm not saying it's a new phenomenon, just that I've only really noticed it recently) that articles like this may be short on details for a reason. Media outlets want BOTH sides of the interpretational divide to get excited by the story.

If they gave more details, they would lose half the potential audience for this story. Readers who keep an eye out for civil liberties violations might assume this was not a story for them. Or those who enjoy prurient-interest stories of crazies doing crazy things wouldn't care about it.

Not giving details is in the Dallas News's best interest.

What struck me about this sign was the central slit up Bugs's body and the way it's spread open at the crotch. I know this is just how rabbits look when butchered, and it is perfectly normal, but my immediate response was to think it looked obscene.

Of course, it's not. That's just my sheltered, suburban, never-killed-my-own-meal gut reaction. Realizing this led me on a long train of thought about cultural and economic differences and how these affect the way we view... well, everything. And it got me to thinking this:

Perhaps people who slaughter their own meat (assuming the sign painter was one of the farmers who raised and sold the rabbits) or even those who are just used to buying the whole, albeit skinned, bodies of animals, don't see the distinction between the cute, fuzzy, living animal and the dead meat in the same way I do. For myself these are two different things--as if the living bunny has no relation to the rabbit meat (even though intellectually I know the very direct relationship). So a sign like this looks faintly ridiculous or grotesque. For the sign painter, perhaps the animal and the meat are so obviously just two moments on a continuum of rabbitness or meatness that something like this is a perfectly natural choice.

Maybe I should kill my own food sometime to see the effect on how I view the world. Or maybe I should be a vegetarian.

Watching this while high would be hiLARious...

Watching it straight is just frightening.

Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

You have reached the last page of the internet. There is nothing more to see.

Cutting off internet access to an entire NATION because they happen to have the misfortune of living in a country that forces them to stay in designated (albeit spacious) ghettos in order to retain the right to self-determination?

Nice one.

Clearly the cat is playing WITH the theremin ANTENNA, and is not necessarily interested in the tone it produces.

I wonder: does the antenna emit a frequency that the cat particularly sensitive to?

Nahh, cats play with anything sticklike. The wobbliness of the antenna is a bonus too.

Croissants ARE the nicest food.

Okay, he's tried my favourite food; I'm off to try some blood and milk.

Geez, I always used to steal it one or two pieces at a time... Did they really need $400 worth all at once?!?

Even $10 worth of inexpensive candy (easy enough to grab inconspicuously) would take all day to eat surely. Doing that at several different locations for 40 days would admittedly be inconvenient, but it would be safer and would more than get the job done for most sugar addicts.

It's the economics of the baby-carriage-full-of-candy caper that makes me scratch my head. I'd love to see someone run the numbers on this, risk vs. reward, etc. If you want to steal candy what is the most efficient plan?

I fear and distrust telcos of all shades as much as the next bb reader, but I have to admit I'm a sucker for stories like this. Good on Verizon.

What a fun/frightening thread to read.

I'm a Christian myself, and I hope, hope, HOPE that Rep. Davis gets fired or forced to resign from her position for her stupid, bigoted bullshit.

These days I prefer atheists to most of my fellow Christians... at least those I hear about in the media.

Atheists may think I'm stupid, uninformed and possibly crazy--they may even hate me for my beliefs--but so many Christians use their faith as a platform for any horrible thought that comes into their heads that it makes me want to throw a rock through my monitor.

Atheists and others are RIGHT to be angry at American right-wing evangelical Christianity, and until the rest of us (we Christians who have at least a fragment of sense) take responsibility for shutting down those members of our community who say/do this crap then we don't deserve to be taken seriously.

Dude!! I know this guy! Ha-ha... sweet!

He really is amazing, and a great person too.

@marlborotestmonkey7... Exactly my thought.

The era of Dave Stevens (and for that matter, the above mentioned Cat Yronwode)--the Eclipse/Renegade/Aardvark Vanaheim black-and-white boom--is my personal comics golden age. It made the ascent of indie comics out of the morass of DC/Marvel crap possible.

Pardon the florid tone, but I'm all broken up over this.

How exactly do you provide attribution for a medical procedure? For that matter can a technique for doing something (medical or otherwise) even be copyrighted in the first place?

I think you may mean that the article describing the procedure was published under a CC license.

That was funny, but it also made me feel awkward and a little ill. It sort of sets off those social empathy alarms that one gets when someone embarrasses themself in front of you.

And yes, I said "themself". What of it?

This is tragic. I only visit TO occasionally, but this neighbourhood represents everything good about that town. Please God, I hope landowners don't use this fire as an excuse to gentrify (not sure that's the right word in this context) the area with big box stores and other eyesore crap. I suspect Torontonians will need to fight to let Queen Street keep its character.