Welcome to General Chat - GAW Community Area
This General Chat area started off as a place for people to talk about things that are off topic, however it has quickly evolved into a community and has become an integral part of the GAW experience for many of us.
Based on its evolving needs and plenty of user feedback, we are trying to bring some order and institute some rules. Please make sure you read these rules and participate in the spirit of this community.
Rules for General Chat
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Be respectful to each other. This is of utmost importance, and comments may be removed if deemed not respectful.
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Avoid long drawn out arguments. This should be a place to relax, not to waste your time needlessly.
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Personal anecdotes, puzzles, cute pics/clips - everything welcome
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Please do not spam at the top level. If you have a lot to post each day, try and post them all together in one top level comment
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Try keep things light. If you are bringing in deep stuff, try not to go overboard.
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Things that are clearly on-topic for this board should be posted as a separate post and not here (except if you are new and still getting the feel of this place)
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If you find people violating these rules, deport them rather than start a argument here.
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Feel free to give feedback as these rules are expected to keep evoloving
In short, imagine this thread to be a local community hall where we all gather and chat daily. Please be respectful to others in the same way
A part of the 3rd year junior high English textbook in Japan has a section about the supposed great garbage patch in the ocean. My daughter is now at that part of the book in her class. Chapter 6 is called "The Great Pacific Garbage Patch." It reads as follows:
"In 1997, an ocean researcher resached a new 'land' when he was sailing across the Pacific Ocean. However, it was actually a huge amount of garbage flating in the ocean. The 'land' was made of big and tiny plastic pieces. It is now called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch."
<Insert pic of the white "ORLY?" owl here.>
The textbook shows some pictures of filthy-ass coastlines. Probably in Philippines or something. A sea of trash resembling the Death Star's trash compactor room. Mountains can be seen in the distance, so obviously this is along the coast somewhere, with unmanned boats parked in the mess. Obviously this is not out at sea.
I was talking with one of my coworkers who is a bit of a libtard but has some common sense and is not a full-on shitlib about this. I told her that I really want to believe that this is true, but if it really is the size of Texas or whatever, surely it must be easy to take photos of this plastic trash mass instead of just showing photos of grodie Philippine coasts. By golly, shouldn't it be visible form Google Earth if it's that ginormous? So she and I did a bit of digging, and I found some article on Salon or the Atlantic or something in which they interviewed the originators of this fake and gay story. Oh guess what? They admitted it is a lie. But like liberals everywhere, "the ends justify the means." You see, they feel they were justified in lying because it promoted awareness.
Feldercarb! Nobody can deny that the oceans are polluted, and microplastics cause problems the the environment and our health. Here in Japan, beaches are full of trash, especially in the off-seasons. God made us stewards of His creation. Littering is wrong, of course. But outright propaganda is crap. My daughter told me yesterday that her teacher said that this supposed "garbage patch" is THREE TIMES the size of Japan. I told her to ask her teacher why they can't just photograph it for the book since it's so big and easy to find. I doubt she will as she'd rather just giggle about crap like this. She goes along to get along since she already stands out for being half-Caucasian. I do want her to be bolder and challenge authority. I've already shown her that "global warming" is junk science by doing our own experiment at home with a glass of ice water filled to the brim and letting the ice melt.
That sounds like a great warming experiment. Thank you for that idea.
It amazes me how many things we were told are true that simply are not.
Good digging fren!