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2014-08-13, 09:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
It's actually pretty damn hard to use unless you are already familiar with studies on a given subject. It's almost always better to start with Wikipedia or a magazine like Nature or Tiede, to learn proper keywords, an overview on the current consensus on the subject and, with some luck, names and authors of invidual studies.
"It's the fate of all things under the sky,
to grow old and wither and die."
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2014-08-13, 10:01 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
Two people who knew the person found some letter behind a painting. I'm not even sure what this phenomenon is supposed to be demonstrating (post mortem telepathy?). But the far more likely explanation is that despite them claiming to not know about this beforehand, they probably had spoken at least in some manner about letters/paintings/hiding with the deceased person the past and just plain forgot about it until then.
Like when Im thinking about something at home and I before I say it, my wife says something pretty similar. Guess what? I remember those occasions as kinda weird. But all those times I go to say something and my wife DOESN'T say something similar? Well those just get dismissed. It's the way our minds work. It's almost certainly not telepathy.
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2014-08-13, 10:01 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
That's based on volume or mass.
Water molecules are small, while proteins, fats and sugars are macromolecules, so per molecule you're 99% water. I got confused due to too much investigation into the molecular scale.
But yeah, I was just using a random guess number, so you've corrected me.
Autoprotolysis of pure water in a bucket. Pure water does not exist inside the body.
Have you done any advanced biology? Ionised particles (aka salts) are very important with cell membranes, otherwise particles would be very limited in their ability to move.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrophile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_membrane
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_channel
If proteins and fats are dense enough (which your own figure of 55% water content suggests) its possible to ionize a lot of water. We're not talking about a bucket, we're talking about layers of water in the micro and nanometer scales suspended and trapped between specialised proteins engineered to have different hydrophilic and hydrophobic properties.
Electric eels are quite well understood. Evolution is very lazy and limited, it can't just summon up proteins to fix a problem, it mostly has to rely on re-purposing old proteins. Electric Eels have to generate their shocks using all the same proteins involved in cell membranes as above. The fact that cells can easily be turned into a battery is very self evident. Electro-location, involving much smaller electric fields, is much more common in animals.
I was probably misremembering there. I just mean conductive, can't remember if it was semi-conductor or superconductor, probably the former since the later is obviously wrong. So sorry, not a superconductor. I was tired.
Collagen isn't conductive at all, but it does effect the conductivity of the water its placed in.
Found papers through google quite easily
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...21008/abstract
http://www.mwit.ac.th/~teppode/th_4_1.pdf
I won't trouble you with my anecdotal evidence of human bodies interfering with radio waves. So here's another wikipedia article on an area I'm not at all familiar with
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioelectromagnetism
Why get annoyed at a random anecdote?
Geez.
Of course she can't prove it, because she's being irrational. That was the point, I was just sharing a story of someone being irrational in response to someone else doing the same thing.
It wasn't even posted in a response to you.
I'd tell you to cool down but in my experience that's incredibly annoying, so please ignore this sentence.
Yes I would. Murderer's poison people. This is why 'poisoner' is a term used for people and 'poison' is for substances.
If someone dies because a conventional doctor misdiagnosis them and prescribes the wrong pill, does that mean conventional medicine kills people and must be stopped?
If you agree this is just a semantics issue, why are you arguing about it so intensely?"that nighted, penguin-fringed abyss" - At The Mountains of Madness, H.P. Lovecraft
When a man decides another's future behind his back, it is a conspiracy. When a god does it, it's destiny.
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2014-08-13, 10:06 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
I found an amazing website that explains how vaccines cause autism.
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2014-08-13, 10:40 AM (ISO 8601)
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- In the Playground, duh.
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2014-08-13, 10:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
I hadn't heard of vaccines causing autism before, but it reminds me of how within the last few years there was a long debate of whether a specific flu vaccine causes narcolepsy. After a lot of research, it proved that there was a connection, though only a small fraction of vaccine-takers are at risk.
So I wouldn't rule out some specific vaccine causing autism, though at first a correlation would need to be presented. It's completely unfeasible to say "all vaccines do or don't do this", though, because vaccines differ substantially in chemical composition."It's the fate of all things under the sky,
to grow old and wither and die."
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2014-08-13, 11:00 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
The problem here is you can't "get" autism. Autism spectrum disorders represent a fundamental difference in the way the brain is wired, and are not something you can develop (or "cure", for that matter) in later life. It would be like accusing vaccines of causing Down's Syndrome in someone; it's biologically impossible.
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2014-08-13, 11:05 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
I think it's fairly well established* that one of the influenza vaccines caused sleeping sickness. Of course, actually getting influenza carried an even greater risk for sleeping sickness, but that's rarely brought up.
*sleeping sickness is so rare that even a few numbers by "too many" by accident can throw the calculations off.Avatar by CoffeeIncluded
Oooh, and that's a bad miss.
“Don't exercise your freedom of speech until you have exercised your freedom of thought.”
― Tim Fargo
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2014-08-13, 11:06 AM (ISO 8601)
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- In the Playground, duh.
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2014-08-13, 11:13 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Berlin
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2014-08-13, 11:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
"Autism" is such a broad term that it's probably wise to not ascribe any one cause to all of it. There are cases where you can argue about whether this is autism or not. And there are cases where there is no doubt. You can be a slightly odd well-functioning member of society, or you can be so crippled you require special care 24/7.
ETA: I feel pretty bad at the moment, so I won't participate unless there's something truly egregious.Last edited by Asta Kask; 2014-08-13 at 11:32 AM.
Avatar by CoffeeIncluded
Oooh, and that's a bad miss.
“Don't exercise your freedom of speech until you have exercised your freedom of thought.”
― Tim Fargo
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2014-08-13, 11:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
I'm not 100% sure on genetic, but it is definitely something that is present from birth. Autistic people are (by the nature of autism) far more susceptible to various environmental factors than most people. I'm talking about the social environment here, not the chemical environment. A large part of the "disorder" part of autism is communication problems; you need to know how to relate to them, which is sometimes very hard, but basically whether an autistic person has people capable of communicating effectively with them makes a world of difference in their development and emotional wellbeing.
A large part of the idea that it's something you develop later is the fact that the traits aren't always obvious right away, and often become more apparent as the child grows. One common sign is abnormal speech patterns or vocabulary, which of course isn't observable until they're 2 or 3 years old. Behavioural changes around puberty are pretty common in everyone, but they can be especially pronounced in autistic people. Maybe mental illnesses manifesting can make you act very differently (as with neurotypical people). Sometimes. It's a very very big umbrella, to be honest.
On the other end, you can't "cure" a person of autism, but autistic people (like anyone else) are capable of learning neurotypical behaviour. That doesn't make them less autistic, just good at applying their knowledge.
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2014-08-13, 11:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
You think YOU have weather control powers? Hah! I was at the Eiffel Tower with some friends, and it started raining pretty hard - storm blowing in. We walked under the tower to shield ourselves a bit from the weather, all of us huddling under the two umbrellas we had between us. The wind picked up a lot and then the thunder and lightning started. And then I said...
"Geez, all we need now is for it to start ha--" and at this point we heard screams from above us -- "iling" and at that point the hail hit us. The screams were people higher up on the tower, climbing wet, slippery metal stairs, being hailed on a split second before it hit us on the ground. Literally as I said the word "hailing."
My friends all whipped their heads around to stare at me looking like this and someone said "SARAH, WHAT DID YOU JUST DO!?"
None of us really believed that I have supernatural powers over the weather, because mentioning hail during a sudden severe storm is a pretty high-probability coincidence, but we decided I should not ever talk about tornadoes, just in case. I mean, the odds are extremely low, but the risk/reward ratio is pretty appalling.
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2014-08-13, 12:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
I was sticking with the same example because it hasn't been resolved to anyone's satisfaction. If you're not familiar with the "Gish gallop", it's an argumentative strategy when someone tosses out a point and asks for someone else to refute it, then when that argument looks like it's not going the way they'd like they toss out another one, then another and another and another, and claims "victory" because the other person hasn't refuted all their points.
Not that I'm accusing you of doing that deliberately, but just ignoring a point and moving on and then accusing others of misunderstanding when they don't ignore the point isn't very good discussion etiquette.
Dismissing statistics as "the infinite monkeys" is not productive when (A) dealing with large numbers of events usually requires statistical analysis to make sense of things, (B) it does a good job of explaining the seemingly inexplicable, and (C) you've already admitted that you're bad at math and therefore aren't at all unbiased in this area. Statistics works, the argument from incredulity doesn't.
Wikipedia cites its sources, which you can check if you're not certain of a quote's validity. Some of the opposition to Wikipedia by professors of more advanced classes makes sense (e.g. dropping the Adiabatic theorem on someone via Wikipedia is much more confusing than a textbook explanation), but for less complex subjects the opposition mostly seems to boil down to "It's not in a textbook, therefore it's unreliable" despite the fact that for such introductory material the Wikipedia version is usually essentially the same, if not more up-to-date and better explained.
For this debate in particular, I'd say citing Wikipedia for brief records of events, introductory science and mathematics, and basic logical reasoning is perfectly reasonable.
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2014-08-13, 06:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
It depends on the type of vaccine. Some forms of live vaccines can lead to developing the very disease it's supposed to prevent in certain people.
Serum sickness is also a thing, not to mention allergic reactions, although typically this is to trace production impurities rather than the vaccine itself e.g.allergic reactions to antibiotics.
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2014-08-13, 08:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
Coincidence, because you don't remember all the times you had a random thought or dream and it didn't oddly line up with a real life event. You remember the one time it did happen. The brain generally doesn't notice when low probability events don't happen unless the immediate consequences are severe and the possibility of the event is known.
Regarding vaccines, while adverse reactions are possible they're very rare, and on a societal level negligible compared to the benefit of not having to deal with a particular nasty disease. It does suck for that tenth or hundredth or even less-th of a percent that do have a bad reaction, but hundreds of thousands or millions of people don't get sick and hundreds or thousands or more don't die every year.This signature is no longer incredibly out of date, but it is still irrelevant.
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2014-08-13, 09:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
Already been covered, but Vitamin C can be far from harmless. You already seem to know this, though, so I don't know what your point was except to be misleading.
When your example actually happens, then we can try to discuss what happens, but as I said even then there's not much point since there's too much information none of us would be privy to.
Regarding your last line, we have precisely no reason to accept it, and quite a lot of reason to consider your personal explanatory hypothesis less than real. That's how evidence and logic work.
Bullnuts. Go watch the video on coincidence I linked to, please.
Your example of pregnancy is pretty funny since 1. Lots of people did use to think it was coincidence, and 2. We have literally billions of samples and bucketloads of solid scientific evidence that proves beyond doubt that sex causes pregnancy.
Don't wanna blow your mind or anything, but this isn't actually an academic discussion. Wikipedia is perfectly adequate for our needs here, and if any more detail or scientific papers are required they can be easily accessed to supplement the Wiki basics.
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Originally Posted by Closet Skeleton
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2014-08-14, 12:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
Depends on when the vaccine is taken. There are chemicals that do cause Down's Syndrome, if they're consumed by the mother when the child is growing up inside her. It's also possible there are similar triggers for autism. Statistically, older fathers are more likely to produce autistic daughters. (Why exactly this happens is still in the air.) There are currently no known chemicals that would cause autism, specifically, in adults, but there are dozens of other known chemicals that do injure the brain and change how it works. Causing or curing in-born mental disorders is hence not outside the realm of possibility.
"It's the fate of all things under the sky,
to grow old and wither and die."
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2014-08-14, 01:01 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
I find it hilarious that, after your big speech on relevancy over technical accuracy, you are looking at the "vaccines cause autism" concept which is specifically that vaccinating your children is bad and will make them mentally retarded in some fashion...
And defending it on a non-relevant technicality.
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2014-08-14, 04:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
78% of DM's started their first campaign in a tavern. If you're one of the 22% that didn't, copy and paste this into your signature.
Where did you start yours?
In the village where the heroes came from, with a kobold attack.
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2014-08-14, 04:23 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
I've got the impression you are intentionally trying to confuse me, or bend what I say to your needs. I'm aware it is most likely a difference in thinking patterns only, but I don't think it can be resolved, and unfortunately, the way my brain works it tries to sort out confusion in a way incompatible to online discussions. I've encountered that before and I just ended up frustrating myself and discussion partners. Thus, I'm not going to reply to you anymore.
And wow I only now got your name.Last edited by Grimtina; 2014-08-14 at 04:23 AM.
78% of DM's started their first campaign in a tavern. If you're one of the 22% that didn't, copy and paste this into your signature.
Where did you start yours?
In the village where the heroes came from, with a kobold attack.
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2014-08-14, 04:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
If I would have had any such dreams about anything so weird happening, I would have at least remembered one of them. If just for its curiosity. But waking up because of such an image in your mind, which has no connection to anything else in dreams or real life, is something completely different. If it ever happens to you, you'll know.
78% of DM's started their first campaign in a tavern. If you're one of the 22% that didn't, copy and paste this into your signature.
Where did you start yours?
In the village where the heroes came from, with a kobold attack.
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2014-08-14, 05:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
No, my grounds for bringing it up is because there was a similar brouhaha over narcolepsy, and there the connection did exist. I was mostly wondering whether there was any real correlation, but it appears there isn't.
As far as relevancy goes... the reason why this kinds of things routinely get overblown to this extent is because people are not very good at dealing with probabilities. How relevant do you think a 1-in-5000 chance to get narcolepsy is? If your options are to suffer for few weeks from a nasty but curable disease versus a tiny chance of catching an incurable disease for the rest of your life, which do you pick?"It's the fate of all things under the sky,
to grow old and wither and die."
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2014-08-14, 05:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
My apologies - I didn't mean to be misleading. It's just that I'm tired of all the scaremongering (had an argument with a fructose alarmist earlier so I'm a little cranky) particularly with vaccination.
My reply to both your and Serpentine's points, is that taking that point of view means that doing anything is a potential health risk - it's all a matter of evaluating the acceptable risk.
You need considerable ingestion over an extended period for Vitamin C to cause a health risk, such that barring any other underlying conditions, you would have to be taking silly amounts orally on a daily basis. If you'd like me to look up this value, I can.
Here's a fun fact: water fails the occupational exposure limits for hazardous chemicals*, which used to be defined as ingestion of 100 times the daily exposure in a single dose should produce no adverse side effects - 100 times the recommended total daily intake of water is 370 litres, which simply isn't physically possible.
Does that mean you should stop drinking water as it's a health risk?
*This is a silly example if it isn't obvious - OELs are now defined on a case by case basis but water does have a oral LD50 of 90ml/kg: link.
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2014-08-14, 06:28 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
That sheet is the funniest thing I've seen all day.
Resident Vancian Apologist
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2014-08-14, 06:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
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2014-08-14, 07:19 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
au contraire mi lady this is actually purely an academic discussion, as an academic discussion is of purely theoretical or speculative interest which is precisely what this is.
Admittedly there will be no thesis as a result of this utterly derailed thread but it is still purely academical as there will be no practical outcome of this.Last edited by Gnomvid; 2014-08-14 at 07:36 AM.
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2014-08-14, 07:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
My uncle got kidneystones from his vitamin C intake - I would probably still now know it could happen if not for that. He didn't take all that much either, but for years and daily and in higher than recommended dosage.
And there are people who need to limit their water intake a lot.
Yeah, it's all in the dosage. And different people have different treshholds.78% of DM's started their first campaign in a tavern. If you're one of the 22% that didn't, copy and paste this into your signature.
Where did you start yours?
In the village where the heroes came from, with a kobold attack.
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2014-08-14, 07:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
This is an amusing opposition, since my only issue is that, simply, you made a declaration ("Vitamin C is harmless") that is simply factually incorrect, and the main time the risk of Vitamin C poisoning has been a real issue was in a case that exactly fits in with this thread: There was a fad for "macrodoses" or "maxidoses" or something like that (I forget, and it's been a while since I read it) of Vitamin C, where people were encouraged to consume huge amounts as a miracle cure-all. A lot of people had some pretty serious medical problems, including some deaths, as a result.
No, I'm not saying that means everyone should stop using Vitamin C, and your insinuation to that effect is pure strawmanning and pretty ridiculous since we're not even in opposition here. It just means that, well, just about anything is bad for you if you have too much of it - up to and including water (aka dihydrogen monoxide, the most dastardly of all chemicals!).Last edited by Serpentine; 2014-08-14 at 07:51 AM.
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2014-08-14, 08:00 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical thinking and irrational ideas concerning health
And the fad was started - or at least made popular - by Linus Pauling, who was a two-time Nobel Prize winner. It was tested and found to have no merit, and the medical field rejected it. This shows two things.
a) scientific authorities can be wrong
and
b) when they are, the doctors, etc. aren't afraid to tell them so.Last edited by Asta Kask; 2014-08-14 at 08:00 AM.
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Oooh, and that's a bad miss.
“Don't exercise your freedom of speech until you have exercised your freedom of thought.”
― Tim Fargo