Question Answered

A perfectly normal cover story in the latest New York Magazine profiling a perfectly normal person.

Speaking of targets acquired.
Tim Newman really should start blogging again.

A perfectly normal cover story in the latest New York Magazine profiling a perfectly normal person.
New York magazine won’t let me read the item in question. Apparently, I’ve already gorged on too much of its content recently, despite the actual amount being nil. I can only guess as to whether this is a tragic loss.

I can only guess as to whether this is a tragic loss.

If you’re feeling particularly masochistic, https://12ft.io/ may be able to help.

The London Times is being Wise and Thoughtful again: We need a global panel on fake news: “With the rapid spread of the new Omicron variant comes the spread of another deadly social disease: misinformation. Conspiracy theories and inaccurate news abound, again threatening to exacerbate the death toll and undermine management of the pandemic…Misinformation itself is an existential threat because it impedes action on virtually every global problem. It has stymied efforts to address climate change…election violence…attacks on minorities around the world…Which has led us to this conclusion: we need an Intergovernmental Panel for the Information Environment (IPIE)”
Via Tim Worstall, who is far too polite: “Dear God no. A global censor to insist upon what is truth? That’s a right off there matey, with the usual F word in front of it. When you’ve finished doing that you can then fuck off some more too.”
Note that the Times is now telling us that dissent from the Official Truth is now an “existential threat”.

On a lighter note: driving in the USA vs. the UK.

…driving in the USA vs. the UK.
Yeah, not entirely accurate, you can start in America, in Kentucky, and in four hours be in Orberlin, OH, which is a completely different socialist country.
“Wypipo, don’t let the sun set on you at this concert!”

College third-year Haley Sablay talked about her experience at her first Solarity concert over the summer semester….Of course, concerts are meant to be enjoyed by everyone. But when there are so few resources for non-white students on campus, it can be upsetting when concerts headlined by artists of color are dominated by white students.

Oberlin College is 68% honkey, so any concert is going to be dominated by ytes, and if they weren’t going, the rest are going to have some spendy tickets.

The requirements to attend Solarity last summer included watching a 30-minute bystander training video and completing a form with basic questions about drug use and consent. The problem is that these measures don’t necessarily prevent inappropriate behavior from happening. To improve the situation, Solarity organizers are implementing “vibe watchers” with the help of both Students for Sensible Drug Policy and Preventing and Responding to Sexual Misconduct…

Well, yeah, man, they are STASI, but like, you know, they are really mellow STASI.
These people are broken beyond all belief.

completing a form with basic questions about drug use and consent
How about ideology and consent, comrade?
they are really mellow STASI.
Kalifornia Uber Alles.

Communist elected president in Chile. How long until the economy collapses? How long until political dissidents are imprisoned?

Via Old Holborn: Passenger breastfeeds her cat, which she insists is a baby, not a cat. Truly, we are living in Heinlein’s ‘crazy years’.

driving in the USA vs. the UK.
The bread roll part is not untrue, as the matriarch of the local chip shop can confirm.

“watching a 30-minute bystander training video and completing a form with basic questions about drug use and consent”
Well, that might have been a good idea at Riverfront in ’79…
*digs up “I’d walk over you to see The Who” t-shirt *

Chile electing a communist is so typical of people who think they can get free stuff somehow, for whom envy is a valid emotion.
Oh well, at least Pinochet staved off the collapse for a few decades.

“I breathed deep”
In the gathering gloom?
With some watchlights?
Hmmm.

“one has to admit they have some great architecture, such as the Paris Opera House.”
You are a mean, nasty, little man*. And owe me a new gallon (Costco, perhaps?) of eye-bleach.
*yeah, I know. My fault for clickage. BTW, why is it in Engrish?

Much as one should disdain the perfidious French…
Sigh.
Will David throw me out if I admit to, all in all, liking France?
Via the same Twitter channel: Georgia high school student, 16, charged as an adult for rape of 15-year-old.
Note how certain kinds of crimes get reported in England but covered up in America.

Well, yeah, man, they are STASI, but like, you know, they are really mellow STASI.

Sablay and I are both officers for the Asian Diaspora Coalition, and at the end of the meeting, one of our fellow officers talked about an experience at Coverband Showcase where white students slowly pushed her from the first row all the way to the fifth row.

Petite Asian girls lose out in the free-for-all when everyone is pushing up to the front. The Courtney Cox moments will continue to be monopolized by tall white girls.
On the other hand, Asian girls can publish wholesale racial slander without the slightest pushback. White students with nothing better to do at a concert than pushing the Asian students back … Has she gone through life believing that, or is she following the rewards of pretending to believe it? Did telling such lies in her application essay improve her chances of getting into Oberlin? Does the mutual reinforcement of her ethnic advocacy group make it harder to distinguish lies from reality? Are any of her goodwhite classmates likely to bring her back to reality, or to call her out on her ethnic animus?

a common problem seen in the ‘Sco is the physical pushing of POC and Black students to the back of the space, even during events that are intended to serve the interests of POC and Black students on campus.”

Those soft-spoken, physically delicate blacks are pushed to the back (or into the Asian section, as it’s called in Oberlin) at rap concerts.

If you’re not part of that group, acknowledge that you are a guest walking into that space.

If only the Asian Diaspora Coalition applied that such principle and tact to their presence in the United States of America.

If you’re a white student at a concert and you observe non-white students visibly uncomfortable or being pushed to the back, use your voice and say something.

I’m sorry milady, the peasants are being impertinent as usual.

You are a mean, nasty, little man*. And owe me a new gallon (Costco, perhaps?) of eye-bleach.
Makes one pine for l’âge heureux.

A Diaspora is when people are forced to flee their home. The Jews fleeing Nazi Germany is one. Asians coming to America is mostly not (unless fleeing communist china/cambodia). The big words just make them seem important.
Black people pushed to the back of a concert? Really? I can’t even picture it. As for asian girls in a rap concert, if 5ft2in and 105 lbs they should not get in that crowd near the front.

“suppose bald people as role models for hair salons”
*raises hand*
We’re folically challenged.

own the floor
How do you know it’s territory marking? They tell you it’s territory marking.
In English, in Paris. But that’s not a thing the French are concerned about as much as they used to be. What a quaint notion it was: that if the English language gets into Francophone spaces, it causes American habits of thought to colonize French minds.
Ordinary people get arrested for writing graffiti on cultural artifacts. But if you’re an American shoe vendor (or indeed if you’re the French ministry of culture), you can juxtapose and interrogate and recenter, ie shove black women into white people’s eyelines and if they don’t like it so much the better.

[ Rearranges Christmas cards, puts cheap ones at back. ]

It’s no laughing matter you hirsute bigot.
The preferred epithet is “follicle fascist”.

[ Rearranges Christmas cards, puts cheap ones at back. ]
It is the custom. 🙂

“one has to admit they have some great architecture, such as the Paris Opera House.”
Is it Kwanzaa already ?!

Share ye links and bicker.
I suppose we could bicker about the French…

Another Einstein in bond court: I have read that felons score about one-half to one standard deviation below average; so, an IQ between 80 and 90.

[ raises eyebrow of skepticism ]
Reading through that thread, I was amazed to discover that there was a BI time (Before Italics) on this blog. So, far less work for our host.
I’m curious, was there a seminal event (virgin birth? star in the east?) that defines the boundary between BI and I time? Clearly David is put upon the cross when we cretins forget to “/i”.

I’m curious, was there a seminal event (virgin birth? star in the east?) that defines the boundary between BI and I time?
The Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man

Tabletop gamers tend to have an irrational hatred of Christianity[1]…
I think the term for this in the psychiatric profession is “ready to be displeased”. 😉
The tabletop wargamers I knew in high school were not like this, but I can well believe it of the gamers I met after college, who tended to be rabidly atheistic or neo-pagan.
…so every year about this time I like to run a Bronze Age sword & sorcery one-shot where the players are all mercenary caravan guards hired to escort a secretive group of very badly disguised aristocrats across the desert to a destination they will not reveal, travelling only by night…
Well played, sir, well played.
David, a drink for the gentleman!

(That was via Weird Al Yankovic, who, as far as I know, has not chopped anybody up. Yet.)

Tabletop gamers tend to have an irrational hatred of Christianity
This may be true of the breed in general, but I can’t say it reflects my experience. That may simply be a consequence of the fact that the better half and I have been playing with the same small group of friends for the last 8 or so years, but my college group wasn’t hostile to Christianity either (the GM was openly Christian and I didn’t know the affiliations of the others but none were vocally anti-Theist — it just never came up either way). We’re the only two practicing Christians in our current group, but the others, while agnostic or non-believing, have only ever been curious about and respectful of religious matters.
Bronze Age … Boy, does it piss them off when they find out they’ve been escorting Gaspar, Melchior and Balthazar to Bethlehem.
That’s a brilliant one-shot idea! I may have to run it some year. Why Bronze Age, though; just to throw them off the scent?

I instinctively wanted to agree with that, but thinking on it further, the first two sets have a pretty good overlap in the groups I’ve known. A very large majority of the tabletop RPG players I’ve played with have also been tabletop wargamers, though none that I know of have been into historicals which seems, sadly, to be a very small subset of the larger tabletop wargaming community these days.

Not unexpected. King of the Hermit Kingdom has just announced mandating of Covid booster for all ‘essential workers’ – ie most of the working population. Department I work for threatened us with job loss if we were not double jabbed by the end of January. I’m agnostic about the vaccine and have a mortgage so…. However the mandating irks me no end and I cannot understand why keeping the border closed has been so popular – flick through the comments and you get what I mean.
https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/watch-live-premier-mark-mcgowan-to-give-a-covid-19-update-20211222-p59jme.html#comments

Small pleasures.
Via Damian.

We’re all in this together.”
I’m taking bets on whether California or New York will be the first state to approve forced detainment of COVID criminals (i.e. the dirty unvaxxed)–which is pretty damn ironic given both states all but refuse to detain actual criminals.
NY already has a bill ready for consideration when the next legislative session begins, but it’s too early to count out the CA legislature. They’re in peak form right now.

They’re in peak form right now.
In Chicago, all smash and grabs will require a vaccine passport.

I cannot understand why keeping the border closed has been so popular – flick through the comments and you get what I mean.

Closed borders are all supported by so many of my friends, family & casual acquaintances here in Perth, so this announcement will be greeted by a large majority of very happy Sandgropers.
We do have a flourishing tourism sector as most local people are tripping around the vast state, spending money on previously ignored & unknown WA destinations!
…
People against WA’s hard borders love to argue it is draconian compared to the rest of the world, but at what cost?
In WA, we have enjoyed life relatively unscathed. Low case numbers, only one death from community transmission, very few lockdowns. In fact, we have been living life as normal for the majority of the last 2 years. What other territory can say that in the world, let alone in Australia?
…
They understand that closing the borders is a small price to pay for having no Covid and no restrictions or lockdowns.
…
I’ve had a great life in Perth over the past 20 months or so. Mostly we’ve just gotten on with enjoying life and holidaying at some of the spectacular places in WA. Covid has been something to read about in the news Now we’re told that we have to open the borders, which means we have to let covid in and give up that great life. Masks indoors, not going to crowded places staying away from yoga classes, gyms, cafes and restaurants and being very careful when shopping. What is the point of opening up at this stage? Why not remain one of the very very few covid free and restriction free places in the world?

The state prioritizing the convenience of people who live in the state over the convenience of foreigners or the convenience of people who spend their lives in airports.
Local amenities not overcrowded, available for the enjoyment of local people, marketed and packaged according to the tastes and sensibilities of local people.
Fewer outsiders to deal with, less friction, less cognitive load, fewer things lost in translation, social norms not constantly having to be teased out and renegotiated. Higher trust and cohesion.
Contact with the outside world via telecommunications and trade. You can’t turn up at the airport on a whim, but business can still be done, culture can still be transmitted.
They’re getting a flashback to how pleasant a country like Australia can be when its borders are seriously enforced.
Of course there’s a crimestop bulkhead between closing borders because of Covid and closing borders in order for coherent nation states to endure and flourish. The power of analogy will fail. Lessons in one domain won’t be carried into the other domain. The long term conclusion probably won’t be let’s all run our own nations in our own interests and keep outsiders at a respectful distance, it’ll be let’s give the state even more powers to meddle and micromanage.

The Judenhass is getting a bit thick out there, innit?

It smacks of desperation, but that’s no comfort for those facing jail, camps, or forced poverty.
Best of luck to those subject to Obergruppenfuhrer Karens. We may all someday join you.

If we’re to take absurdity to it’s limits, shouldn’t they be punishing people who transmit COVID.
The proposed NY bill is written so loosely that anyone deemed a “risk” could be detained. That’s the beauty of it–it’s ready-made for selective enforcement.
I read today that the sponsor of the NY bill has withdrawn it, claiming that he never meant it to justify COVID camps (Narrator: He’s lying.)

Rummages under bar for jar of low-fat mayonnaise.
[ Eyes jar of low-fat mayonnaise ]
[ Eyes jar of hump fat ]
I cannot help but feel there is something of a net-zero effect going on here.

I’m in Chicago. I don’t wear a mask in my apt. complex, but most people do. I do wear my mask everywhere else. I’ve seen a few unmasked at the grocery, but I haven’t seen anyone hassle them. I ran into a library branch to pick up a hold and forgot my mask, and the librarian reminded me a bit severely. I did get my book, though.

Not a single request to put it on. I think people have reached their limit.
Going the opposite direction here. I wear a clear face shield because it doesn’t obstruct my breathing and people can see my face. Doesn’t stop anything, but then neither do the face rags. No one has objected to it for two years, but last weekend at the physio clinic they asked me to put on a face rag instead of the shield.

Rummages under bar for jar of low-fat mayonnaise.
Go full fat or go home.

If the transgender “man” had a baby, that means the baby was swimming in the totally wrong hormones the entire time…also, if you give birth you are a mother. What a moran.

Stephanie, my sympathy for your losses.

If the transgender “man” had a baby, that means the baby was swimming in the totally wrong hormones the entire time…also, if you give birth you are a mother.
The self-absorption seems par for the course.
Back when mental health was a science and not magical thinking, I’d bet that clinical narcissism was noted as a frequent if not a major component of gender dysphoria.
See also: the American trans-woman swimmer who is destroying meet records and winning races by laps.
“Look at me!”
It’s not an attractive trait.

Cluster-B diagnoses, notably narcissistic personality disorder, are remarkably common among people with, or claiming to have, gender dysphoria. About an order of magnitude higher than the wider population.
[ Does hasty internet search ]
This source says that the frequency in the population at large is about 4%, which would suggest about 40% for those with gender dysphoria. (That is a far higher frequency than the assertions of one of the MENSA mega-minds that has attempted to lecture me on matters of Tolerance and Diversity.)
The above source also says that rates of personality disorders are lower in “underdeveloped” countries which immediately suggests two questions: (1) Is that information reliable? (2) If so, are such disorders associated with too much leisure and not enough need to focus on basic matters of survival?

which would suggest about 40% for those with gender dysphoria.
As a very high percentage of such people – I’ve seen figures of between 40% and 60% – also report traumatic childhood abuse, often sexual abuse, a common consequence of which is a Cluster B disorder, this is not entirely surprising.
See also Daniel’s comments on the subject.