Jon in Pasadena

I have a good friend who started a NPO in Kham (region in eastern Tibet), and has authored several books about her experiences in Tibet and China. She was invited to attend a couple of bya gtor (alms for the birds) sky-burials. That is the traditional way of disposing of bodies according to local custom, although it's less prevalent now than formerly. It's perfectly legal there (unless the Chinese have cracked down recently). For the record, I am largely in agreement with Bowery's take on this topic. (Although I think his last sentence may be missing a "no" before "concerns" ...right?)

Holy crap. Apparently the font size made the comma in my original comment seem to disappear or something, because for want of it, the fundamental intent of my statement seems to have been lost (or what is worse, reversed!) I feel like friggin' Richard III here (which is not a pleasant sensation for those keeping track.)

Fear not, mighty Cuisinier. I'm sure another installment of "DC Tom Theatre " will be coming out soon for your amusement.

OK, I'm going to assume that either you have horribly mis-read what I wrote, or else that you are dangerously insane. Let me rephrase the above to remove any possible ambiguity: I would not leave Ariel Castro's corpse to rot in a cornfield, because to do so would leave open the possibility that a child or other sensitive individual might stumble across it and be traumatized. Therefore, as an alternative, I would cremate him, and scatter his ashes. If you still have a problem with that, well...you have a lot of problems. First, you're disgusting. Tom & I have at least a limited history of intelligent conversations. Second, hate to break it to you, but "Yikes" is not really super-profound commentary. Even when preceded by the super-awesome adjective "Seriously." Third, if your drivel is not contingent on your gross mis-reading of my first post, then... you have more serious problems than I thought.

Well my first inclination was to merely reply "That's ridiculous", but then I thought "Well, DC Tom has at times demonstrated some knowledge in various fields, so perhaps it's worth carefully considering his point." So I did. My response after a night of sleep and introspection is that on this topic, we should probably agree to disagree. Our world-views on this point are simply not aligned, and are not going to be made closer by a bunch of pointless bickering. Our definitions of 'humanity' likely have very different weightings for certain actions. I will say this: I am not at all frightened at (or by) my attitude. I strive to treat people well, and they (mostly) respond in kind. Have a good day. Whatever.

Perhaps. But the much more important distinction would be -- NOT FRIGGIN' MURDERING INNOCENT PEOPLE! Well, duh. The message being "Jon cares about a whole lot of other things much, much more than the method of disposal of the corpse of a disgusting abusive POS who tortured innocent people for a decade." If you, or anyone, thinks the lesser of me for that, well frankly I'm fine with it. I'd cremate his body and let the ashes fertilize some flowers rather than leave him in a cornfield, because I wouldn't want any kids to stumble across his decomposing corpse. Not because I give two figs about what it says or doesn't say about my "humanity."

Well, kidnapping, rape and (depending on when you believe human life begins) murder, are some pretty good clues.

Dead humans -- yes. Dead monsters -- not so much.

Maybe explains how this happens?

No thanks.

No problem, he can just pop over to the nearest head shop.

If that lineup is the only thing on the menu, your brain-eating zombies will die of starvation pretty quickly. Def a butterface. Yes, with a net worth in excess of $150M, it's hard to find too much fault with Miley's career choices (from a purely financial perspective.)

I've always found this one to be haunting. But not in a "pretty" way. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffr0opfm6I4

Fixed.

!@#$ with the bull, you get the horns.

When the Egyptian military is more liberal than you are, you know you have a problem.

When I was younger & dumber -- 155+ mph on a GSXR. Nowadays I very rarely go ton up. But I hit 85-90 a couple times a week. At speeds > 150mph, when you slow down to 80, it feels like you could just hop off and walk.

Some malpractice cases are harder than others.

Not up to 10 years yet, but I had it done about 6 years ago and couldn't be happier. I do use reading glasses for up-close work now, but that was going to happen sooner rather than later anyhow, and the trade-off for me was totally worth it. (I had really bad myopia before, now I'm 20/20 or better in both eyes.) It's definitely not for everyone, and if you do decide to pursue it I strongly recommend that you extensively research prospective surgeons before going ahead. I found a great guy, and everyone who I've referred to him, including my wife, has been very happy with their results.

A cord is a lot of wood. I rented a house once with a couple of friends in the Sierra Nevada (not far from Tahoe), whose only source of heat was an ancient wood-burning stove. We went the whole winter on about 1/4 cord, IIRC. (Might have been 1/2) It wasn't a huge house, though.

That is a horrible article. It got basically every single technical point wrong.

Naw, you just got to get your hips moving and really put your foot into it. You get the hang of it after the first couple of tries.

It is true that verified mountain lion attacks on humans are rare. I remember 7+ yrs ago a mountain biker was eaten by a lion down in Whiting Ranch Park, in the O.C. And in the '90's another mountain biker was attacked on Mt. Lowe, which is quite close to my place (I can see it from my window). There have been a few sightings around the surrounding towns, these past few summers.

"We can buff that right out."

Let's see what a $100M in cosmetic surgery can do, and I'll get back to you on that...