Friday Ephemeraren’t

This is no doubt a problem on both sides of the culture war but I guess only the progressives leap out at me because I don’t read the conservative press/websites.
At http://www.smh.com.au/comment/cabinet-files-reveal-a-dispiriting-truth-about-how-governments-work-20180201-h0rr4o.html, Waleed Aly explains why cabinet documents should be secret so the cabinet can explore all sorts of good and bad ideas while making policy without having to be embarrassed by the dead-ends and bad ideas, following up with:
“For that reason, I won’t dwell on revelations that the Howard government flirted with sacrificing as fundamental a right as the right to silence upon being arrested, or that the Abbott government considered ditching income support payments for anyone under 30, before thinking better of it.”
And then listening to ABC radio national yesterday there was an interview with Ross Anderson, The Atlantic’s science editor about a big radio telescope being built in China. Ross talked about how China can take on these big projects without all the red tape that can stymie them in the west and the presenter couldn’t help himself, making a dig at ‘tea party voters who probably don’t think SETI is a priority for spending’. He made various other anti-trump comments during the show too. A pretty poor interviewer, frequently pushing his own views into the conversation with much more interesting people who I actually do want to listen to.
But that’s the SMH and the ABC down under. They’re shocking, and getting worse all the time. It feels like every single story has to get the effect of the topic at hand on aboriginals, women, and LGBTxxx people.
Also, why are male and female homosexuals separated out in that ridiculous alphabet soup? Why are bi and trans people only given one letter each? Talk about privilege and oppression. Or is it a micro-aggression? What are they going to do when they run out of letters?

Ruth Goodman’s “How to Be a Victorian” has a lengthy discussion of corsets.

the poorly-made shirts of William Shatner
Okay, that was funny.

SETI “a priority”? Really?
Of course ABC hires interviewers for its science beat who aren’t aware of any other use for a radiotelescope.

here we see our betters, including several educators, demonstrating why they’re just more evolved than we are.
So which of them volunteered to repaint the wall afterwards?

https://www.youtube.com/embed/V_gOZDWQj3Q?rel=0

For those interested in academic freedom, https://www.gofundme.com/peter-ridd-legal-action-fund. Peter Ridd is a physicist at James Cook University. JCU are trying to censure him for sharing his heretical opinions on coral reef climate impacts. He has launched a legal fund to support his case.

Happy Groundhog Day!
Do you have Groundhog Day, or groundhogs, in Britain?

Do you have Groundhog Day, or groundhogs, in Britain?
Spiny? Norman? Not sure which side of the pond you’re on…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piranha_Brothers

Meanwhile, in the “Absurd Windmill Tilting and Virtue Signalling Department”, PETA goes further off the rails.

People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals announced Wednesday that they are waging a campaign against Nickelodeon’s reboot of the super-popular children’s show, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” because the network refuses to assure PETA that the cartoon mutant turtles will eat only vegan pizza.

Perhaps they should ask if the Princeton Health Center will be serving vegan pizza.

No one would be made to do anything they don’t want to do.

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
You never change your socks
And the little streams of alcohol
Come trickling down the rocks

This.
https://twitter.com/Stan_And_Ollie/status/959093510002626561

No one would be made to do anything they don’t want to do.

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
You never change your socks
And the little streams of alcohol
Come trickling down the rocks

The usually unrecorded less-than-happy ending to the hobo anthem:

The punk rolled up his big blue eyes
And said to the jocker, “Sandy,
I’ve hiked and hiked and wandered too,
But I ain’t seen any candy.
I’ve hiked and hiked till my feet are sore
And I’ll be damned if I hike any more
To be buggered sore like a hobo’s whore
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.”

Kinda ruins the childhood of kids of a certain generation who grew up listening to their mother’s Burl Ives folk song records…

I believe they’re called marmots in Europe
Well, we do have marmots out in the Rockies. Mebbe it’s a Buffalo/Bison thing. And as I’ve often said, Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
Now I see according to Wiki (whatevs) they must be good swimmers cause Europe and us both gots em. Also per wiki:

Beginning in 2010, Alaska celebrates February 2 as “Marmot Day”, a holiday intended to observe the prevalence of marmots in that state and take the place of Groundhog Day.

And finally,
Burl Ives (spit). FIFY.

Of course ABC hires interviewers for its science beat who aren’t aware of any other use for a radiotelescope.
This guy is filling in for Philip Adams, well known communist, on Late Night Live (or Lenin Live as he Philip often calls the program).
So no surpise of the host or chair warmer’s biases. But they still sometimes get interesting people on. Late night live and Counterpoint (the token conservative show) are about the only two shows worth listening too. The science show could be good but because it covers a lot each show it isn’t very in-depth. Any other radio national show will just make you want to throw your shoe at the radio.

“No one would be made to do anything they don’t want to do.”
Nobody wants to clear out the drains.
So they have to be made to.
And lo, “that’s not real socialism”.
Of course it bloody isn’t, because “real socialism” is an unfullfillable pipedream of unemployable layabouts. (Believe me, speaking as an unemployable layabout, nobody would be happier than myself if it were possible.)
“Sad, really. If you think about it.”
Childish, in fact. No wonder it’s so popular among teenagers.

Here we see our betters…
As someone noted on another site, “Didn’t notice any work boots being thrown…”

I keep following these links and losing track of time. 🙂
No refunds. Credit note only. Though I think that one gets to the nub of something important. As rjmadden noted, if you replace the word ‘capitalism’ with ‘adulthood’ all becomes clear.

As rjmadden noted, if you replace the word ‘capitalism’ with ‘adulthood’ all becomes clear.
At the risk of belaboring the obvious, the people spouting that socialist nonsense have absolutely no idea of the complexity of modern society, (or even anything more complex than individually hunting in the dirt for grubs), and all the various menial and often disgusting jobs, it takes to make it work.
In my misspent youth, for instance, one of the most coveted summer jobs was shoveling manure in a stockyard because the astounding lack of socialist volunteers meant to get people to do it, it paid so well that if you could stand it for a full summer break, you could rack up near enough (less the cost of a lot of soap and deodorant)to pay a year’s worth of tuition, or get a really cool car. Capitalism FTW.
Even the filthy hippies in their “Let’s Go Back To The 18th Century” communes (one of which threw out the noted socialist Bernie Sanders for being too lazy) learned that there were jobs people had to be rotationally assigned as they were sufficiently hard or distasteful no one wanted to do them.
How cosseted one would have to have been (or be) not to see this as obvious is astounding.

Right, I’m heading out of town to a birthday party in the middle of nowhere. Play nicely. And don’t chew on any electrical cables.

The jokes just write themselves.

If anyone needs some new bees—
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/02/mysterious-new-bee-species-found-at-russian-arctic-nuke-site/
I like watching bees from a respectful distance. The Center of Science and Industry in lovely Columbus, Ohio, USA, used to have a glass-walled beehive. I’d take in a folding chair and sit and watch it while Son of Pogonip covered the rest of the joint.

Play nicely. And don’t chew on any electrical cables.

😄🐱
Living With Cats

2006/12/04
They Live, and Are All Around . . . . .
This morning I realized that my mornings have become a recreation of an Alien movie; Dark rooms with scuttling shadows, while very clearly being tracked and followed about by several things that are alive and out there in the dark and are actively hunting me.
Of course I also happen to live with three adult cats and two kittens, and at the time that I’m the first one out of bed, the food bowls are empty.