Friday Ephemera

“Wait, that wasn’t the way you wanted me to go through the gate?“

“Man found dead in garden appears to have fallen out of an airplane”
Or as the Guardian could have reported it:
‘Chilled migrant drops in’.

The change in urban foxes over just three decades or so has been astonishing. I remember when you’d barely see them out of the corner of your eye as they bolted at the merest hint of human activity.
We’ve a couple that sit on the lawn in the evening waiting to be fed.

We’ve a couple that sit on the lawn in the evening waiting to be fed.
A couple of foxes, I mean. We’re not throwing scraps of chicken at people, you understand. That would be odd.

“Are women more emotional than men?”

For instance, in a meta-analysis of sex differences in the feeling of “moral” emotions (Else-Quest et al., 2012), women tended to experience more negative emotions, such as more guilt (d = −0.27), shame (d = −0.29), to a lesser degree embarrassment (d = −0.08).

I defy anyone, male or female, to feel more embarrassment than me. The avoidance of embarrassment is basically the central governing principle, above all else, of my entire life.
Of course that could be because I’m British…

“In contrast, men reacted with greater happiness to happy films (d = +0.31).”

Yay! Go blokes! Chin up, girls, it might never happen.

Interestingly, all of these cross-cultural studies find sex differences in neuroticism are larger in cultures with more sociopolitical gender equity…
The sex gap in depression is wider in high gender equity societies than in low gender equity societies…
The greater the social, health, and employment equality of women and men in a country…the larger the sex differences (women higher) in benevolence and universalism values…
What is clear is that if sex differences are assumed to result from gender role socialization, it is extremely odd for the largest sex differences to be found in Scandinavian cultures and the smallest in more patriarchal cultures. Yet, we also find this with studies of tested cognitive ability and even physical traits

Heh. How about that, then?

That would be odd.
Given that you’re English, wouldn’t that be “eccentric”?

Just for you, I’ll go back to Pogonip here.
Thank you!
And reading the subsequent comments, I don’t see them as a reason to have changed.

A couple of foxes, I mean.
You have on your lawn a couple of foxes ? So get off my back, and let’s get it out !

Re urban foxes and the relaxed attitudes clearly on display, I’m assuming this has to do with the absence of rabies…because hereabouts, if a fox or a raccoon wandered up to me in broad daylight and commenced gnawing on MY instep, well, I MIGHT have the presence of mind to check for a collar before calling in some serious firepower — but it would be a pretty cursory check, and performed only after I had levitated into the next county. Applies to skunks as well, of course, but then there are other, highly compelling, reasons where skunks are concerned. (BTW, if anyone anticipates a need I have a sure-fire de-skunking recipe I’m willing to share. Between friends.)

Ad placement of note.

Damn you pst314! Now we’re locked in a rogue vortex of italics.

This is why David won’t let us have nice things.
jabrwok, how do I close someone else’s open italics tag? I tried the /i in my message but it didn’t seem to close the italics out when I looked at it in preview.

Steve, just putting a /i won’t work unless it’s surrounded by <> (less than and greater than brackets).
Unfortunately, the preview function does’t seem to parse html, so I’m never sure that my “fix” works until I actually post it. Seems to have worked this time though, unless David did some surreptitious coding and didn’t announce the fact.

I don’t recall whether my attempt worked or not. Maybe pst314 fixed the problem?
Whatever, at least we’ll avoid the Scold-o-matic when it gets back from its tune-up:-).

“I did use the less than greater than brackets.”
It might have been a rogue <em> tag, rather than <i>.

We’ve a couple that sit on the lawn in the evening waiting to be fed.
My parents have wallabies.
This is a direct consequence of the disarmament of the general public after that Port Arthur episode in 1996

“My parents have wallabies.”
We have seagulls. Who squawk up a racket at 3am (and most of the rest of the time, actually – yep, there they go, right on cue – but they seem to make a particular effort in the middle of the night). I have to sleep with earplugs. No joke.
“This is a direct consequence of the disarmament of the general public after that Port Arthur episode in 1996”
Oh, if I had a weapon… what does seagull taste like, anyway?

Oh my.

what does seagull taste like, anyway?
Well the one they just caught would probably tast like vindaloo curry.
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/a-glamorous-golden-bird-was-rescued-but-it-was-actually-a-seagull-soaked-in-curry

The Tiggywinkles Hospital. Heh.