Friday Ephemera

Wondering if there is an 18% man tax?
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2017/08/10/total-losers-unable-to-cope-with-trumps-win-have-professional-cuddling-business-n2366576

I like the office dioramas!

A related disaster in the making.

I’m going to need a bigger bag of popcorn.

Here’s a guy willing to defend Countess Bathory.
Well, he lost me with “The fact is, female serial killers are extremely rare, and those who kill for sexual reasons are almost nonexistent.” and “The reason FBI profilers are usually successful is precisely because these killers have a profile.”, all “facts” which have since been shown to be disastrously wrong.

Today’s other word is busted.
It’s a miracle! Hallelujah!

Farewell, old friend.
They’ve been hiding among us all this time.

Piperpaul,
No: that’s a photo of some barrels that may or may not contain maple syrup.
http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-great-maple-syrup-heist-trial-opens-in-largest-theft-ever-investigated-by-quebec-police/wcm/dc429343-d505-43ab-a628-f6d96b376d43
Choice quotes:
“The barrels were moved to a sugar shack belonging to Raymond Vallières, where they were emptied and replaced with water from a nearby creek.”
“Finally, the thieves drained the barrels directly at the federation warehouse.”

Blue lives matter.
https://youtu.be/UJDP043aQfs?t=1m41s

I thought giving up on reality was something the left had done ages ago.
Well, abandoning the conventions of formal debate is more egalitarian. Not everyone can put together a convincing argument, or indeed understand one; but everyone has feelz.

The coming part happened before the tiny robots, no?

Meanwhile, in the world of diversity, Georgetown Law School comes up with some fine Newspeak, as they get rid of the LSAT as an admission criterion.

“Georgetown Law is committed to attracting the best and the brightest students of all backgrounds,” said Treanor. “We believe this change will make the admissions process more accessible to students who have great potential to make a mark here at Georgetown Law and in successful legal careers, but who might find the LSAT to be a barrier for whatever reason.”

Right, we want the best and brightest who aren’t bright enough not to bolo the LSAT, as long as they are sufficiently pigmented.

The decision drew raised eyebrows from observers who noted the university seemed to be effectively saying minorities were not capable of doing well on the standardized law school test.

Now there is a Grade A blinding flash of the obvious.

Nemo,
Good point. Correction…the science says the line segments are parrallel. Better? Or best, since a true line is an abstract concept that conceptually exists outside the rules of a universe, which by most definitions would need to contain objects that have mass and thus … forget it. We’re screwed. The universe is philosophically flawed. Where’d that bong wander off to…

The NY Times, excavating a near-mantle section of the crust below the bottom of the barrel:

HONG KONG — The island of Guam made rare headlines this week when North Korea, responding to blustery language from President Trump, threatened to fire four ballistic missiles into waters near the American territory’s shores. Some Guam residents told reporters that they worried what might happen if North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, were actually to follow through.
Scientists in Guam, however, say they have at least one other major threat in mind: climate change.

Meanwhile, the AP questions if US ballistic missile defenses *should* shoot down anything aimed at Guam. Moral quandary, that.

Farnsworth,
Maybe the Guamanians can tip it over for protection, and flip it back again when the threat is passed.

Tipping, drowning, getting too hot, nuclear risks…
Why, it’s almost enough to make one not want to build a retirement mansion there. That and the remoteness.

Competitive Victimhood

WTP,
Certainly amusing, but better? Rather than risk appearing merely contrarian, I’ll give a little more of my reasoning behind my initial comment, and let you decide: science is too often mischaracterised and invoked by those who wish to capitalise on its cachet, even where that cachet is undeserved in the first place; it is a wonderful method to support or – more reliably – refute the things we believe about the world around us; it is both a tool of and utterly dependent upon reason, but no more, yet it is constantly misused by people seeking to signal their rational credentials – the evolutionary hypothesis seeming to particularly cause such invocation, with environmentalism catching up fast. Yet, far from adhering to science as many such people claim, they’re actually undermining it by making exaggerated claims of its power, and erroneous claims about science are particularly galling when supposedly counteracting the anti-science PoMo subjectivists – you’re actually succoring the suckers. Regarding parallel lines, reason and custom are sufficient: no experiment is needed and we’re willing to accept the measurement limitations without running off to infinity.
As to the bong, wasn’t that repurposed for the pickled eggs, storage thereof?

Nemo, agree.
Regarding parallel lines, reason and custom are sufficient: no experiment is needed
Agree, though the door to absurdity is always there. There’s a line somewhere. It’s sophomore dorm room stuff but back in such of my times there was an ongoing argument, which started with the commonly taught idea that the Arabs invented the zero (which of course they “stole” from the Hindus, who I’m sure “stole” it from … but I digress), as to what was zero? Since there was (as was taught) no such thing as a perfect vacuum, could zero have any meaning? To which I asked, using that reference point, then wtf is one? If there’s not an indivisible unit of something then there is no one. And even if there is, no one can produce such by itself. Which is why I stay away from certain drugs to this day. I was beginning to recover when I encountered The Banach–Tarski paradox, and thus my faith in math (does math include set theory?…another argument) was undermined again.
Hmm…pickling eggs in bong water…hmmm…not for me but maybe fun to watch…

Hmm…pickling eggs in bong water…hmmm…not for me but maybe fun to watch…
If I wave this torch near it, it’s like a lava lamp.

anthropogenic continental drift
“This is how the continents were positioned before the Industrial Revolution in the mid 18th century.”
Heh.

David, yesterday we had Sgt Allen of the Sussex Constabulary investigating kids calling each other names, and now this – police dogs, ur doin’ it wrong.

Have all the police high priced help gone round the bend ?

WTP,
Well, I’d never heard of the Banach-Tarski paradox, so duckduckgo’d it and my mind instinctively recoiled at what seemed mathematical legerdemain, so I didn’t know whether to thank you ironically or sincerely – though I simultaneously looked at the half-finished bottle of Cab Sauv on the fireplace and thought I’d need to open another. I opened the Fitou, but it only took a glass of the Cab to decide that my first instinct was correct – it seems little more than a hierarchical category issue. Using Russell’s paradox as an example, if I have six apples and put them in a bag I then have twelve apples – six apples plus a bag of six apples. I’m massively oversimplifying for effect, but it does seem to be giving the descriptor the same properties as the thing it describes, which may be useful and even valid in certain circumstances, but a paradox built on whimsy.
As to the roiling eggs, I believe if the money’s right then Rutger Hauer – or his replica – will come down to earth and pick them out for you. Batty as that might sound…

It seems we can add cartoons to the things the folk at Everyday Feminism don’t understand how to do.
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/896069639389630465

I have thus far only experienced the output of EF through the filter of our genial host. There’s no point his risking his sanity by reading that drivel so we don’t have to if we go and expose ourselves as well.