@detroitmechworks

people who needed and sought assistance. I am glad you got the help you needed and had a resource to go to. My comment was on the hypocrisy of some of the people there espousing love of neighbor while beating them. LLBear, OPOL, and others sincerely offered help to people in rough spots. Never once did they give help someone with one hand and smack them with the other. That was my only point.

#2 Once when my rent money was seized. And sent a thank you and a personal book from my collection to everybody who helped me, including some very nice 1st editions that were worth far more than the money I received.

Second Time when I was Kicked out of my parents house and documented my homelessness. (DIDN'T ask for money that time, just a place to stay until I got on my feet. I did so after 2 months, with much love to Llbear, who was a saint and much appreciated.)

Of course, they used those two incidents to prove I care about nothing but getting what I could out of people, and therefore OBVIOUSLY I'm a con man... ugh.

Of course, that's the thing about toxic relationships. If you feel worse more than half the time when even thinking about a place, person or thing, you probably should cut off contact.

@thanatokephaloides

Speaking to the community, I could swear dkos was a take on the Standford experiment.

#2

One of the things at dkos that shocked me clear to my toes was the custom of members posting diaries asking for money for themselves or someone else.

In and of itself, not a bad idea. Asking for help when honestly required is, well, honest and honorable.

Your next lines, however, tell the tale:

Not even getting into whether that was a good idea or not, the shocking part was how they would post their phony sentiments about "community" in the comments of the fund raising diary and then beat the hell out of each other in the next diary. If that's "community", please put me on a deserted island.

And this is, indeed, today's Democratic Party.

Just the way KKKLinton, Kos and Kompany want it to be!

@thanatokephaloides @thanatokephaloides
McCullough sounds as if I heard that name before and it's a famous man...

I may not be able to spell your name, if I heard it pronounced in English by an American, but I would very well be able to spell it, if your name would be pronounced in German. Then it would be easy peasy. And as I was in my former life a chemsist, your name sounds chemical to me. That helps too.

I don't tell you the story when I had my first Chemistry class at an American University ( I have my degree from a German University). The Prof talked about molekules and they sounded completely incomprehensible to me. It became clear to me what he meant when he wrote down the names of the chemical compounds.

Well, Greek is Greek to me, but I love Italian. Everything spelled as it is pronounced and it is pronounced very similar to German. Oh, and the French are a piece of work. Darn you need to know their grammar well to know how to spell. I just don't know why God put us through all those languages. A kind of revenge, may be?

Now, I have to read you more carefully, Mr. McCullough.

I like Azazello too, but only since he is here, on ToP he sounded differently.

#4

And for all those I didn't mention, I love them too. Really, Hi lotlizard, snoopydawg, janisb, riverlover, Can't Stop the Mecedonian Signal, Unabashed Liberal ... now I forgot all those names again....:-)

Forgive me for the names I forgot.

And doubtless, the ones you can't spell. Example: my userID, thanatokephaloides. No one can blame you for that one; after all, you're functioning on your second language here on c99, and here I throw a third one (Greek) at you!

And yes, mimi, we forgive you and love you, and are happy you're here!

Please note: My "real name", Sean McCullough, is "out", publicly listed on my profile. "Sean" is much easier to spell than "thanatokephaloides" is, and is perfectly acceptable to use as an address.

The last two sentences were a Public Service Announcement!

@EdMass

That was one of the things which struck me most immediately. The fact that certain sources were disallowed. I had thought all rational adults knew that you didn't attack the source. It also seemed self-evident that the Republicans would be good on digging up dirt on my own party and I might want to try to sift through their shit to find the real issues.

Then came my realization that "CT" was used to disallow any discussion on certain topics. For instance, I wanted to discuss vaccines. I didn't want to talk about how they cause autism. I wanted to discuss the issues with repeatability and the known ways the pharma companies circumvent good science. I wanted to talk about regulatory capture. None of those things are controversial. Taken together they mean that there are substantial and unknown risks to taking ANY products from big pharma. So then the risk/reward calculation starts with vaccines. Polio vaccine -- yeah no problem. This year's flu vaccine? I skip those. No part of that conversation could be had on GOS simply because it contained the word "vaccine".

It amazes me that those remaining don't see how limiting the environment is. Any time I find myself in a group that never offers me challenging thoughts then I know I'm wasting my time.

#5 at ToP there is a list of websites/sources that are verboten to reference or quote from. Here? Not so much. Quote at will as long as it is truthful no matter the source.

Why do you think that Alligator Ed still swims and goes for the Death Roll?

Heh!