Friday Ephemera
Minor malfunction detected. || An appetising dessert. || Just the usual family drama. || An alarming example of upside-down peas. (h/t, Damian) || How to sound like Erik Satie, or alternatively, like Bach. || The sounds of American doomsday cults. (h/t, Things) || It undulates. || Theodore Dalrymple on modern dishonesties. || The car of tomorrow. || Firecrackers of yore. (h/t, Coudal) || South African scenes. || Horse sense. (h/t, Darleen) || High anxiety. || I think something is rattling. || Attention, retailers: How to sell the Sony Betamax. || Stromboli goes boom. || There and back again. || God one, boat nil. (h/t, Rita) || Eleven elements. || And finally, via Elephants Gerald, a balance of terror.
Unwanted pillion passenger of note:
https://twitter.com/Bikers_Magazine/status/1147872978459418624
The home bar you’ve always wanted:
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-63574254.html
Minor malfunction detected.
Major malfunction detected
An appetising dessert.
Mine!
Hi David. When you read this, could you please gently tickle your spam filter for me, and get her to free my post?
The car of tomorrow.
The cars of tomorrow.
South African scenes.
Where’s his knife??
Eleven elements.
Boron
Coming soon to a theater near you:
SJW remake of Mouse: The Car, where the oppressed female mouse beats the driver up.
“How to sound like Erik Satie”
The interesting thing about that is that, beyond the GymnopĂ©dies and Gnossiennes, Satie didn’t sound much like Satie.
And with that said,
“or alternatively, like Bach”
God damn, I wish I could do that.
“The sounds of American doomsday cults.”
For the sound of a British doomsday cult, just tune in to BBC Countryfile every Sunday evening.
“Theodore Dalrymple on modern dishonesties.”
He’s right about the curious suddenness of modern pieties. The Great Plastic Panic, for example, seemed to burst on to the world’s media, fully formed, at the stroke of midnight on January 1st 2018. I share Dr.D.’s distrust of conspiracy theory, but it’s enough to make you wonder.
“The cars of tomorrow.”
Heh. Great minds think alike, Hal. 🙂
I love the handle Elephants Gerald.
It strikes me as rather Winnie-the-Pooh-esque, though I’m sure that it’s not: Trespassers Will, Heffalumps and Woozles, etc.
My rather cursory google search found a New Orleans Jazz Band and an obscure homonymous reference to Ella Fitzgerald from the group Cream when they were looking for album names for the eventual Disraeli Gears.
South African scenes.
I’d like to forcibly deport all the West’s open-borders advocates to the worst hell-holes of Africa…with no hope of ever escaping.
Stromboli goes boom.
At what moment did they realize that would be a good idea to exit the area quickly?
“an obscure homonymous reference to Ella Fitzgerald”
By thunder, I hadn’t thought of that. If it’s a reference to Herr Gerald’s musical taste, then he has dashed good musical taste.
How to sound like Erik Satie, or alternatively, like Bach.
in 200 years this will still be played, 150 longer than when those youngins will say “Taylor Swift? Who’s that?”
An alarming example of upside-down peas.
That’s triggering.
Morning, all.
Skillz.
could you please gently tickle your spam filter for me,
Done, freed. She’s moody and capricious, the spam filter.
That’s triggering.
I’m assuming we weren’t supposed to notice. I wonder if it could be used as a test for OCD.
He’s right about the curious suddenness of modern pieties.
The moral shoaling – at times, a sort of lockstep hysteria – is quite odd to watch.
Ages ago, I was trying to think of something positive to say about Laurie Penny and it occurred to me that for several years she seemed to have sudden and passionate opinions on whatever subject was fashionable that week, albeit opinions that were for the most part unhindered by knowledge, or equivocation, or by the obvious contradictions with last week’s sudden opinion. It was almost as if there were a predetermined worldview that she could plug into and immediately get upset about, often quite shamelessly.
Which I suppose is a kind of skill.
Tim Worstall was recently a guest on the BBC’s Moral Maze. As you might imagine, spluttering ensues.
Done, freed.
Thank you.
I was trying to think of something positive to say about Laurie Penny
You came so close. 🙂
You came so close. 🙂
I gave it my all.
As you might imagine, spluttering ensues.
I listened to Tim’s section and am now cleaning blood off the inside of my glasses. It tends to spontaneously shoot out of my tear ducts when exposed to weapons grade stupidity which is mostly what you get on Moral Maze. The cleaning bills and cost of blood pressure meds caused me to stop listening some time ago.
It’s amazing listening to someone (Tim) with facts and knowledge speaking with people who just feel deeply and are subsequently unable to accept that their closely held beliefs may just be completely specious. The annoyance in Giles Fraser’s voice will warm the cockles of my heart for the rest of the week.
Perhaps I should start listening again?
people who just feel deeply
It was by no means the worst example of the programme’s default assumptions, but the peeved interruptions and air of condescension were, I think, quite telling. In such exchanges, it’s often interesting to note which party is getting heated and snippy.
As you might imagine, spluttering ensues.
1) Cotton is problematic for vague hand waving reasons, wool is right out because shearing is cruel, artificial fibers are a non-starter because of oil, linen would be just as bad as cotton for the same vague reasons, likewise for the perpetually beloved by the left hemp, so that gets us down to animal skin loincloths which are also a no go because animals.
About the only thing left is fiber from kudzu which requires no skill to grow and the leaves are edible, so a win-win for the econuts.
2) Any clothing made from plants or animals is biodegradable, the artificial fibers just take longer.
Fun cotton fact learned, living as I do in cotton growing territory, is that modern methods can yield 850 pounds to over a ton/acre. After ginning, there is also cotton seed used for animal feed and oil, lint which gets used in things like Q-tips and bandages, the left over stalks stems and whatnot are used in erosion control (of course other plants also have byproducts as well). However, I am sure our interlocutor would deny modern methods to the farmer in Bangladesh because even though they are more “eco-friendly” because they produce more with less land, they require dreaded and problematic insecticides, fertilizers and other “non-organic” items.
It is almost as if these preening ninnies have no idea what they are talking about, let alone getting the spilkes over a first would problem like fashion while the farmer in Bangladesh is wearing an Anaheim Ducks t-shirt because nothing is ever reused or recycled.
people who just feel deeply
Note the insistence that Tim “admit” that poverty is immoral, with the unspoken assumption that if something is immoral then someone is to blame and a “solution” must be imposed.
people who just feel deeply
It reminded me of the Guardian’s Leo Hickman, who seems to believe that the way to help poor farmers in developing countries is to not buy their products and then feel smug about it.
Previously on the Moral Maze. And do click the link for Dr McKenzie’s video. It’s quite a thing.
Tell me about your childhood…
Based on the comments from our celebrated host’s link, at 14:12 GMT, to a past entry, I couldn’t resist.
Vyvyan hates “The Good Life”
Tell me about your childhood…
A win for the chaps, I think.
More about the Knutty Knitters:
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274279/inside-twisted-ravelry-controversy-danusha-goska
The default assumptions are infuriating. It’s clear that there are huge numbers of people (and it’s not a question of intellect) who kind of subcontract their thinking politically and end up accepting the fashionable package tout court. These people are then more likely to be completely outraged by any threat to their secondhand opinions. What is regarded by the BBC as consensus is typically just metropolitan grundyism.
What I find interesting is that in the sixties and seventies the kalloi kagathoi “knew” that aggregate demand management and state direction of industry was the only correct economic policy. If you disagreed you were some sort of weirdo. The heirs of these people, who act in the same way, now fawn over the EU, which whatever its other faults is increasingly opposed to these policies.
Note the insistence that Tim “admit” that poverty is immoral
After the umpteenth insistence “I’m just trying to get you to say…”, I wanted to scream at the speaker. Tim has great patience with these sanctimonious buffoons.
Just the usual family drama.
Am I missing something or was that just some “laughing at poor people” bullshit?
or was that just some “laughing at poor people” bullshit?
More a question of low sexual intrigue, I think.
“there are huge numbers of people (and it’s not a question of intellect) who kind of subcontract their thinking politically”
Yes. This. Or they just don’t think at all.
One of the few useful things I got out of psychology and counselling is that worrying isn’t the same as thinking. You can believe – genuinely believe – you’re thinking about something really hard, when you’re never actually engaging your brain’s critical faculties at all. You see a surprising amount of this in politics, mainly on the Left (although it’s not unknown on the “right”).
Tim Newman on ungrateful immigrants. And one in particular.
And now for something completely different, the utterly bugfuck insane cult leader — sorry, CEO — of WeWork, who saw The Circle and Sorry for Bothering You and thought, “Pikers.”
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/wework-adam-neumann.html
(Short take: Guy from broken home receives billions in funding for shared workspace company, imposes mandatory liquor-fueled parties, talks about what in essence is a new slave plantation, takes said funding and buys lots of property so when the whole thing collapses he’ll be doing fine. Absolutely insane.)
More about the Knutty Knitters:
Excellent! I’ve been moving around the ex-ravelry groups on Facebook and everything the writer says is borne out time and again.
BTW, I ran across a YouTube video that gives lie to Ravelry’s claim of “8 million users” … and pages and pages of non-functional accounts added the DAY BEFORE the ban was announced. Plus users added after registration was closed.
I wonder how much money in donations are coming to Forbes/Ravelry because of this “controversy”? (registration is still closed)
Brave.
“More about the Knutty Knitters”
What a brilliant article. Didn’t expect that at all.
As you might imagine, spluttering ensues.
Does anyone else who, like me, is of middling intelligence become deeply depressed when hearing intellectuals – who have the ear of governments, media moguls, and taste makers – and realizing that not only are you smarter, but far smarter than the blithering morons speaking? I understand MENSA members’ disdain for humanity based on their relative intelligence but it’s downright terrifying to a common idiot such as myself to realize that these people are running the show.
I am going to take a wild guess that every person she asked was a suddenly unemployed member of the politburo and not the average Ivan Baggadonutsovich who traded his Lada for a BMW and doesn’t have to wait in line for a pair of shoes in the wrong size any more.
Post-Soviet, eh ? Curious, though, that the unnamed prof is not headed to Cuba, China, or North Korea.
“…there are huge numbers of people (and it’s not a question of intellect) who kind of subcontract their thinking politically and end up accepting the fashionable package tout court.”
I have great respect for a young woman I met some years ago who said she wasn’t going to vote in the presidential election because she just didn’t know much. Sooner or later she will figure things out, but in the meantime she refrains from voting without sufficient knowledge. Her companion, on the other hand, (just as young) was all woke and completely certain about everything.
Does anyone else… become deeply depressed when hearing intellectuals…?
I’d say that was pretty much a theme here, no? Maybe not the depression bit, necessarily. Sometimes it’s comedy or farce.
True Dear Host, but must they all be as dumb as Penny?
Does anyone else…become deeply depressed when hearing intellectuals?
I trace my bitterness to the day I realized that the adults in the real world were every bit as stupid and horrible as my monstrous schoolmates. For most of my life, I believed that after graduation I would be able to leave all the pettiness and stupidity behind. Finding out that grownups were just as stupid as adolescents (without the excuse of youth) was a hard pill to swallow. I’ve really never gotten over it.
You can only imagine the feelings I get when I see the monsters proudly wearing their misanthropy. How dare they! Do they not realize that they have it all backwards?
Sam, I think what you’re discovering there is the Dunning-Kruger effect. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. It comes up here at times and is becoming more widely known. I first ran across it about 5-10 years ago. Whenever I mention it to people, well that and the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect, it’s like lightbulbs coming on. Unfortunately, such is not accompanied by the usual warm-and-fuzzy feeling. It’s kind of an initiation into a new level of a moderately exclusive club. Personally, it’s pretty much made me afraid to know any more than I have to about stuff. I was doing find until that damn DJT came along and exposed (well, really confirmed and confronted suspicions that I had deeply repressed) the turpid banalities of the deep state. That bastard.
WTP – I’m familiar with both effects*. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised and depressed, but maybe I’m a closeted optimist. It’s like discovering your father not only doesn’t know everything, but is a bit of a buffoon…over and over again.
Then again it might be the American habit of confusing British accents with intelligence.
*I think that sentence was pretty ironic given the subject.
If you can stand 11 minutes of a babyish voice & valley-girl verbal tics, there are some very entertaining self-owns here of Lauren Duca v Ben Shapiro.