User talk:Fox

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Fox, I used to live in Southsea and regularly stood on the terraces at Fratton Park, so although not a supporter by birth I am always glad when they do well (though not at the expense of my own team). Also, Carl Sagan's words are humbling, to say anything else about them would only detract from their power. Genghis ^Marauding 18:29, 5 April 2008 (EDT)

Heh, "I take my seat in Fratton Park, that's my buzz: the Fratton End, a feeling I would recommend". That's a fantastic cover of a great Coldplay choon, btw; don't skip following that link :) I am forever Pompey Blue :) Southsea - now there's a place. I think it has a great atmosphere, particularly off-season. There's something special about roaming Southsea on a grey blustery afternoon, the smell of the sea dust in your nose, then popping in somewhere warm for a few jars. I'm not Pompey by birth either, but I spent a lot of my childhood there, including my (Royal Marine) uncle taking me to Fratton Park, then returned when I was variously at HMS Dolphin, Haslar, and X-poled aboard HMS Richmond. When I left the forces, I settled in Wiltshire, then almost immediately moved to Hampshire. I live nearer to Winchester, but Portsmouth has a special place in my heart, it really is a very special city. It isn't unusual for me to just tip up at Fratton Park on a weekday morning, just to soak up being there lol. Although, in many ways, Portsmouth illustrates what is wrong with post-War Britain, I firmly believe it is a great example of how it is not the Briton/Portsmouth native that is truly at fault, but more the actions/lack thereof of successive weak and fuzzy-thinking British governments. Adult male relatives who visit me for more than a day are always treated to a all-day sesh on the shant in Pompey, btw, and they all go away with a new respect for what - despite the "we hate foreigners and foreign begins at Havant" act - really is a warm (metaphorically), friendly piece of an England that once was but is no more.

Pale Blue Dot... Yes, I never feel like adding much to what he says there. It fits with my belief in a non-interventionist G-d, rather than questions His existence (for me, that is) and is very good at "grounding" one's thoughts. Suffice to say, I find it a very emotional combination of words, images and music.

Mogwai are a wonderful band, woefully under-exposed and appreciated. They remind me of the sound that my own band (Iscariot) were looking for in the mid/late 80s, but never achieved due to a)no talent! and b)too much boozing/carousing :D The JAMC (and also, to be fair, Fields of the Nephilim) influence is staggering - who'd have thought Psychocandy would bring us My Father My King? I like that piece perhaps more than Stop Coming to My House and Mogwai Fear Satan (a very Catholic choon lol follow this link, turn your volume up to 11 and skip to the point at 6mins 20 secs for full effect), particularly the (obvious) Jewish influence (Avinu Malkenu). There is a great mash up of the original Nosferatu movie:

• Mogwai Versus Nosferatu (Part 01)
• Mogwai Versus Nosferatu (Part 02)
• Mogwai Versus Nosferatu (Part 03) (personally, my favourite of the 3 sections)

V. vulpes 09:54, 9 April 2008 (EDT)

Wow, someone mentioned pop culture and I got the ref! (JAMC). human 19:59, 10 April 2008 (EDT)

Hey Fox, I went to school with legions of Pompey boys - our dads were all in the Navy or Marines. Fair to say Portsmouth is pretty special to me too. My parents set up their first home there, where my brother was born. My sister was christened there on HMS Intrepid on which dad later sailed from Pompey to the Falklands. Very moving memories of waiting at the quayside as she sailed, battered but intact thank goodness, up the harbour. Picked my dad out amongst the crew lined to acknowledge us, and ran up the gangplank to greet him. Dad served until 1987 - any overlap? His subsequent postings were HMS Achilles (back to the Falklands!), then a stint at Northwood, and his final gig was sea trials on the newly built Ark Royal. In 2002 we scattered dad's ashes from aboard a naval launch in the Solent. I was last back there in 2006 to take the ferry to France and fittingly spotted Intrepid, alongside Fearless, rusting in the Harbour waiting to be broken up.

I'll be back in England celebrating my sister's (she of Intrepid fame) wedding on Cup Final day - but hopefully will find time to sneak a look at how your boys are doing. Play up Pompey! Matt 08:57, 11 April 2008 (EDT)

Hey Matt :) Yes, some overlap, although (it doesn't say here now, but once did) I was originally Army, and only "0n loan" to the Navy and Air Force. However, after my first tour as a pongo ("when the Army goes, the pong goes") on HMS Richmond (in the South Atlantic, coincidentally) I did regretfully admit that I wished I had signed up in the Navy rather than the Army. I eventually - and mainly because I was very strongly opposed to the bombing campaign conducted by NATO against Serbian civilians because of Kosovo - resigned in 2000. I spent a long time in the Falklands, a fantastic place. The Solent - yes, I'm sure that there is no finer place for a matelot to find as his last resting place. I come from a family with a strong history of military service - my grandfather was a Royal Fusilier (City of London Regiment), my uncles Royal Marines and Royal Navy, my father Royal Air Force, my mother QARANC, my eldest brother RAF, myself Army. I think there is/was a drive for first/second generation immigrants to "stand up and be counted" for their adoptive homes, which is now sadly lacking/non-existent. A huge chunk of the original family that arrived/were born in England also left off for Australia in the 60s where they served with distinction in the Aussie forces. My eldest daughter grew up wanting to be a Royal Marine (a Commando sniper, to be exact lol), but left England and joined the IDF instead. My eldest son isn't quite of age yet, but I have a feeling he will also go IDF. My youngest are too young to even contemplate such cruel notions as war, and - like any good Jewish parent I would prefer them to have a career in medicine or law lol - but who knows?

Congratulations are in order for the wedding et al :) and I hope that when you look up the scores we have royally kicked Cardiff's waggy ass. If we don't then c'est la vie, but I think it is time that the City of Portsmouth had something - other than their wartime stoicism under intense bombing (until recently, the bomb sites were still there, ignored by government spending and grants! :( ) and devotion to national duty - to smile about :D Fox 16:58, 11 April 2008 (EDT)

conservapedia

I missed out on most of what happened at conservapedia. Are you not coming back? You were such a valuable content editor :( SHahB 15:49, 11 April 2008 (EDT)

I'm not really following who is who, but I'm hazarding a guess that you are Bohdan? Sorry if I'm confused about all that. Anyway. CP. I haven't retired from there, but it has been made very clear to me that I am not welcome, and will be blocked whenever possible, and may as well not waste my time there. IF that situation was to change, then I wouuld go back to finishing my series of biblical articles, for example (see my CP articles on Jude/Hebrews/Philemon; I have a huge chunk of hard drive still devoted to works in progress, and my Revelations article would havce been a show-stopper). As I said, they've made it clear that WeirdEdMoon and TK are their rising stars and my edits are unwelcome. Fox 15:57, 11 April 2008 (EDT)

Don't forget Karajou, and his miraculous ability to be personally offended by different things.-αmεσ (tailor) 16:02, 11 April 2008 (EDT)

Come back. I will do my best to ensure that you are not blocked unfairly. Without content editors, cp is drifting away from it encyclopedia goal. SHahB 16:10, 11 April 2008 (EDT)

ShabbyBohdan, you know they've got bigger problems than a lack of content. The content they have sucks, too, and is mostly geared to offending people they don't like. Not to mention to the schoolyard bullies.-αmεσ (tailor) 16:11, 11 April 2008 (EDT)

Amos, I am not thrilled with the "Liberal ____" articles either. True or not, you won't find any of that in a real encyclopedia. However, if you and your buddies weren't so passive-aggressive, you could look beyond that and add actual content to the encyclopedia. If only you didn't keep getting yourself blocked, you could write about non-controversial topics. Like write articles that don't have anything to do with politics and abortion or evolution. But sadly none of you could do that. SHahB 16:42, 11 April 2008 (EDT)

Bohdan, If you check my contribs, I spent most of my time there puttering around on non-controversial topics like the building trades and some music articles. However, I was not just blocked, but banned for amusing myself with other people who thought CP was a bit "off" at another website. (My bannination was undone by some sockop gone postal, and reinstated as five years, so now I am just "blocked"). human 22:13, 11 April 2008 (EDT)

Come off it Bohdan - why should people from here help Andy by writing "non-controversial" articles for Andy's benefit? CP is a blatantly ideological project with a very thin educational veneer. Andy tolerates benign articles like Bethany's parade of second-rate fantasy literature only because it's the only way he can claim that CP is not what it is - a narrowminded, ideological, hateful blog. Thise "Liberal-----" articles are not the exception, they're the freakin' rule. PFoster 16:48, 11 April 2008 (EDT)

PS - We help Andy out enough here with our crack team of proofreaders pointing out all of his editorz tyops, spellig misteaks, factuooal errorz, vandalllissmms and unintended racism and sxism. You're welcome. PFoster 16:57, 11 April 2008 (EDT)

Full agreement there. The "noncontroversial topics" are nothing more than a transparent figleaf, when the front page is nothing more than an anti-liberal blog aggregator, and encyclopedic articles are considered punishment for people who disagree with the sysops. CP isn't "drifting away" from the encyclopedia goal, Andy has deliberately set sail in the opposite direction at full speed. --Kels 16:51, 11 April 2008 (EDT)

Conservapedia has thousands of articles on topics that don't mention politics, ID, abortion, or the word "Liberal". Many are stubs, but all of you cp bashers seem to forget about those pages. SHahB 16:57, 11 April 2008 (EDT)

Wait, I'm confused. Are you talking about the hundreds/thousands of copy-pasted public domain glossary stubs, the dozens of copy-pasted public domain 20k+ articles, or the dozens of copy-pasted articles that should be deleted for being copyright violations but still exist because they were created by sysops or their best friends? Or did you mean empty articles like cp:Umbriel, cp:Nereid or cp:S-type asteroids?

And like others said, nobody really cares about those articles. Nobody ever goes there. Otherwise, we wouldn't have things like cp:Miles per gallon (Explain the parts about table cells and subgroups!), cp:Toluene ("Toluene is a colorless liquid of the aromatic group of petroleum hydrocarbons, made by the catalytic reforming of petroleum naphthas containing methyl cyclohexane." - It's all so clear now!) or cp:Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry ("ATSDR serves the public by using the best science, taking responsive public health actions, and providing trusted health information to prevent harmful exposures and diseases related to toxic substances." - Guess why this sounds like an ad!) - all of which were created by sysops. --Sid 17:33, 11 April 2008 (EDT)

Ha! I tell you what, the day Andrew restores my sysops and blocking privileges, I'll return. Can't say fairer than that :D 16:18, 11 April 2008 (EDT)

Replying to the "Without content editors, cp is drifting away from it encyclopedia goal." bit: Sorry, you're far too late. It's not even the "Liberal [noun]" articles themselves. Those are just symptoms of the much bigger problem CP has. For almost one year now, CP has run as a Top-down, two-class society where the Ruling Class edits by a completely different standard than the Lower Class. Decisions are not made by the community, but by single sysops or a small group of sysops at best. Non-sysops are simply regarded as cheap labor, not as editors. Sysops on the other hand are free to break ALL Commandments and Guidelines. And even when they're caught and cornered, nothing bad ever happens to them. Not even a slap on the wrist. And you're wondering why you don't have content editors anymore? It's like asking yourself why nobody is joining some sorta Forced Labor Camp even though you switched the sign at the entrance to "Happy Fun Editing Hangout". --Sid 17:49, 11 April 2008 (EDT)

Its even less 'funny' now when Ed randomly assigns cp:writing assignments to people and people point out that editing is a volunteer thing and so no one can really say "do this." --Shagie 18:06, 11 April 2008 (EDT)

(undent) Bohdan, it becomes difficult to write "non-controversial" topics when even physics (Dicke, GPS) and math become controversial topics. This is to say nothing about astronomy, geology, meteorology, or biology. It seems that anything that can be written on becomes controversial. The only way to write something that isn't controversial appears to be "plagiarize a .gov site" or "write something that fits Andy's definition of reality." --Shagie 17:24, 11 April 2008 (EDT)

yes!

I'm a bit of a 'yes' fan the logos & covers are excellent too! SusanG 13:24, 12 April 2008 (EDT)

(sadly they're heavily copyright, but I've got 'em on my machine - bootiful! SusanG 13:28, 12 April 2008 (EDT)

Awesome good band! I still listen to at least one of their albums each day. Particular favourites include Close To The Edge, Yours Is No Disgrace, Awaken, The Gates of Delirium, The Revealing Science Of God - Dance of the Dawn and Ritual - Nous Sommes Du Soleil. It was when I was spotty adoloscent that I first got into them, way back in the 70s, and I can't recall whether I actually listened to them first or just bought an album on impulse because of the Roger Dean artwork :D Fox 13:53, 12 April 2008 (EDT)

Yours Is No Disgrace!! SusanG 13:59, 12 April 2008 (EDT)

Heh :) Ah, the good ole days... Fox 14:03, 12 April 2008 (EDT)

Only saw 'em once 'twas phenomenal! SusanG 14:06, 12 April 2008 (EDT)

On a massive Gabriel-era Genesis kick at the moment. The Fountain of Salmacis still blows me away after - what? 37 years? Awesomeness. Fox 06:18, 23 April 2008 (EDT)

A Jews for Jesus Passover

My qat. She's waving to you!

Hey Fox,

I had to share a story with you that I think you'd appreciate. So, my girlfriend is Jewish, but she's an atheist. Her family's traditionally Reform. But, anyways, she very much identifies with Jewish culture, and Israel, so we put together a short-form Passover Seder for us and our friends on Saturday night. We got a little bit into the Haggadah (which we'd downloaded off the webs), and one of my friends points out, "hey, the Haggadah says something about Matthew & Luke. And somebody called Yeshua." Me - "Oh no." Oh yes. While trying to do our best to put on a Reform/atheist Seder, we had inadvertently used a Messianic Haggadah.

I thought you might appreciate our brief and accidental foray into Messianic Judaism :-). And a belated happy Passover to you (I don't know the Hebrew greeting that's proper...) and your family!-caius (tailor) 20:28, 21 April 2008 (EDT)

Hehe that's a class faux pas :D And just goes to show that even the atheists and the Reform can't escape Moshiach forever /wink Fox 20:41, 21 April 2008 (EDT)

An interesting interpretation! *singing Enrique Iglesias* You can run, you can hide, but you can't escape the Messiah! Hmm. We'll see. Anyways, we also made a discovery. If you're making macaroons, but don't freeze the "dough" overnight like you're supposed to, perhaps because you forgot to :-), they turn out flat instead of round. And they're delicious and easier to eat!-caius (tailor) 20:56, 21 April 2008 (EDT)

Also, my cat is antisemitic! Girlfriend and I made a clay dreidel, and the cat hunts it down and knocks it off tables, beds, shelves - wherever I put it!-caius (tailor) 22:46, 21 April 2008 (EDT)

Is it a Persian cat? :D j/k Fox 06:20, 23 April 2008 (EDT)

I attached a picture of kitty to the page. She's not Persian, but she is ADORABLE-caius (tailor) 18:19, 23 April 2008 (EDT)

Haha antisemitic indeed - I strongly suspect she is not waving but is instead presenting me with her "third eye" as a gesture of contempt :D Fox 05:10, 24 April 2008 (EDT)

Oh, incorrect! This gesture came right off of her itching her ear. I can only imagine she was saying hi. Either that or she hates me more than she hates you....-caius (tailor) 16:39, 24 April 2008 (EDT)

Speaking of Passover, our article is a shameful stub and could use some 10,000 point improvements by someone more familiar with the tradition... human 20:28, 27 April 2008 (EDT)

Oh noes!

I am officially middle-aged :( I have a burning urge to grow my hair very long (before it starts to disappear), and while the children are at their maths tutor this morning I plugged in my bass and actually played along to "The Fountain of Salmacis"! For shame. I shall warn my wife to keep me away from motorcycle showrooms. Fox 06:38, 23 April 2008 (EDT)

You're screwed, man. Might as well buy a lifetime's supply of Werthers, book a Saga holiday, and check out the stairlifts and walk in baths in the back of the Saturday Telegraph magazine. Oh, and visiting motorcycle showrooms is compulsory.

Happy birthday! Ajkgordon 06:44, 23 April 2008 (EDT)

Congrats, Old Man! And Happy St. George's Day.  Lily ^{Ta, wack!} 08:04, 23 April 2008 (EDT)

Happy birthday, youngster!   ^Contribs_Talk 09:56, 23 April 2008 (EDT)

Aw shucks; thanks all. By the way, I stole my wife's credit card recently and bought CS3 Extended - I shall now attempt to shop a piccie to see how long hair would suit me now I am wrinkled and greying. I'm actually quite serious about the hair lol - I began to grow it as a teenager, then joined the Army, and have for a zillion years had a hair cut every Friday ever since. But I really want those flowing locks :D See the first few seconds of this viddy to see my (current) beard, as worn by Phil Colins, and I'm wondering if I should go with the hair length of Colins or Gabriel... My wife says she will not go out in public with me if I have long hair. I'm wondering whether that's a good thing or a bad thing :P Fox 16:19, 23 April 2008 (EDT)

Did Andy teach you nothing? A woman shouldn't be out in the first place ;p! Anyway, your appreciation of prog rock fills me with a strange combination of fear and awe. You are hereby some form of being simultaneously shunned and exalted by the musical world. I think that's a good thing. --מְתֻרְגְּמָן ^{שְׁלֹום}

Heh Prog is the Messianic Judaism of the rock music world, combining simultaneously true faith with apostacy and heresy :D Fox 16:38, 23 April 2008 (EDT)

I only managed 'I've Seen All Good People' before my ears began to bleed. --82.44.64.173

Heathen :P Fox 17:49, 23 April 2008 (EDT)

Don't grow the hair: Rick Wakeman; Peter Stringfellow; Nuff said!   ^Contribs_Talk 10:38, 24 April 2008 (EDT)

Hm, point taken. Stringfellow... *shudders* But can I counter with Sam Elliot or Viggo Mortensen? Fox 14:00, 24 April 2008 (EDT)

have you the Charisma to carry it off though?   ^Contribs_Talk 16:32, 24 April 2008 (EDT)

Ha! You know what? My rogueish charm may just allow me to carry that off :D Fox 17:32, 24 April 2008 (EDT)

BTW I knew (slightly (NOT in the biblical sense!)) Peter S back in the 60's - he & his brother ran their 1st club (the Mojo) in Sheffield - He was a wazzock even back then.   ^Contribs_Talk

And ... if I could keyboard like Wakeman, I wouldn't care what I looked like.   ^Contribs_Talk

Indubitably. Awaken in particular showcases his genius. Fox 17:32, 24 April 2008 (EDT)

Mr Poor

Just Googled: unification church "ed Poor" - try it! 332 finds.   ^Contribs_Talk 07:14, 1 May 2008 (EDT)

I'm only a few entries into the results and already, my reaction is "Wow, that's fucking scary." WeirdEdMoon has his nasty little tentacles into a lot of "educational" sites... Fox 07:23, 1 May 2008 (EDT)

Something that I thought of yesterday: the long-term moonie members, the devoted disciples, all work for the UC (and often live in its accomodation.) WeirdEdMoon has always been less than forthcoming about where he works etc - I feel more convinced today that he is in fact a full time "employee" of the UC. Fox 07:28, 1 May 2008 (EDT)

Similarly - it seeems that he's anywhere that will allow him room. He almost MUST be a full time apologist for them - hours in the day etc. - Wonder if Andy S. is aware of his spread/reach?   ^Contribs_Talk 07:31, 1 May 2008 (EDT)

(RatWiki comes in @ number 10 on my google!)   ^Contribs_Talk 07:32, 1 May 2008 (EDT)